Parenting a toddler after stillbirth
Hi all, I gave birth to my perfect boy, Arthur, last Monday. Obviously things are still incredibly raw being just over a week ago, but I have a 21 month old so life has had to go on and get back to "normal" fairly quickly. My partner and I feel so lucky and grateful that we have our daughter to help us stay grounded and to pour our love into during this time, however we are really starting to feel the other side of things now. In an effort to try to both keep ourselves busy and to kind of "make up" for the weird few weeks out daughter has had (I was in hospital for a while and then found out Arthur's heart had stopped beating while I was inpatient), we have been trying to get out and about with her as much as possible. One issue we're dealing with right now is that taking a toddler out means inevitably frequenting spaces that have a lot of babies. Every time I see a newborn, or a father with their son, or siblings playing together I just completely break down. I feel so robbed of the life we had imagined with our two babies, especially after a really difficult pregnancy which then ended so suddenly right at the end. I don't want to stop taking my daughter out, or avoid the spaces that are most appropriate for her just because of my emotional reactions to the above triggers, but I am also so tired of the reminders and the pain. I'm also finding it so hard to remember that I am recovering from giving birth as I don't have the baby as a reminder/excuse to just be laying on the sofa bonding and feeding etc, and worry that sometimes I'm pushing myself too much to try to give my daughter some normality.
Apologies for the stream of consciousness and I'm not even sure really why I'm posting - I think I just needed to vent a bit and see if there are any other parents that have been through a similar situation that can offer any words of wisdom?