@40andprettybored how utterly heartbreaking our friend, I can feel your pain in your words.
When I lost my babies, but specifically my last loss, I wish I had known it was okay to never be the same again. A part of me died with them and that's okay, the other parts are still here. It hurts, I miss what was going to be, who they were and all my hopes. I think of them daily and wish that I could find any comfort in where they are now. Or they just knew how loved they were. And it's okay, it is, we don't have to recover fully from things that break us. We can be devastated and grieve and take time to process it. And one day at a time, we function better. We still hurt, still cry, still wonder, but we get up and shower, we have a drink and enjoy the taste, not just drinking because its a necessity. Then we do something truly crazy, like enjoy a song on the radio, or feel like were ready to watch another episode of a show.
And our grief doesn't shrink, but the enjoyment we find in other things stands up to our grief, tells it to just give us a bloody break, let us have some peace. And if you won't be the same, but life will be in time bearable. And in time better, and better. And the grief becomes like a dull ache, when it arrived initially we'd need constant pain relief to manage, but now it's been around so long you're just used to it. It is always a horrible feeling, but it doesn't hurt the way it did before, you acclimatise to the pain and it no longer stops you experiencing joy, sometimes you remember it's there in the throes of genuine joy and feel pangs of guilt, but I learnt to cope with that by thinking that my baby would have loved me and wanted me to be happy, for me, for their daddy and siblings.
The next while is a hard navigate. It truly is, its unimaginable pain because you also compare your loss to other stories and then feel that yours wasn't "as bad as" and then wind yourself up with terrible experiences other people have had. But a loss no matter how early is just crushing. They aren't just a line on a stick, they're a whole possibility of someone you already love and however you feel is justified.
I send massive love to your and your other half x💐x