October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month... and I am going to open up to you like I never have, in honor of it. 

Miscarriage. A word that has the weight of an anvil. A word almost taboo even in our modern world. 
Almost a quarter of pregnancies are effected by the loss of an infant or unborn child but most grieving mothers feel alone and mourn in silence.  

It is important to me, as a mother who struggles with infertility, as a mother who has suffered through her own miscarriages, as a woman who put on the happy face for even my family and pretended I was ok - because the world didn't understand- to help bring awareness to the unbearable pain of losing an unborn child. I understand that most of my blog posts are light hearted and definitely not so personal... but unless we open up, unless we talk, the stigma will never be gone. 

In August I photographed one of my most difficult sessions to date. A session for a client that I have grown to consider a friend. A client that I have photographed the happiest moments of her life- Christmas sessions, her wedding, sessions of her new family. We had discussed our excitement and plans for her maternity, newborn and sessions beyond when she so excitedly wrote that they were expecting just weeks before.

My eyes welled with tears and my heart broke for her when she wrote telling me of her loss and asking me to help her plan a session to remember her sweet angel.  A session for remembrance, for healing, for awareness. 

You see, these photos are real. You see their pain, you FEEL their pain. You feel my pain. You feel the pain of every woman or family that has had to say goodbye too soon. It isn't easy to see or feel. 

...but that is also why it is so important to share.

The hardest images to see, the hardest things to talk about are the ones most worth looking at and discussing. Women and men need to know they are not alone in this, they are not silly for grieving for their child  they never met. Their pain is valid...and they can talk about it. They can share the hopes they had, what they imagined, what they feel...and we will listen. We will offer a shoulder and an ear. They will not mourn in silence anymore.