One of the most difficult tasks for birth parents is to achieve some sort of healing and recovery. Whenever I talk about this subject, I feel compelled to mention that healing is not "getting over or forgetting." Recovering is also not returning to the exact same place you were before the trauma. Neither do healing and recovery necessarily include elements of sanctioning or accepting that what happened was right or just.

Now that I have that disclaimer out of the way, how do birth parents move through the pain caused by the loss of their child? Or do they? Some can and do manage to heal. Others never do, but I do not believe that it is for lack of trying. Most birth parents try their best to recover and heal.

In early reunion, I approached healing as a process to suffer through with the expectation that when I was done there would be no more pain. I have since come to realize that expectation was sheer folly. The pain lessens, it comes less frequently, but it remains. I have finally figured out that being a birth mother, with the sadness attached to that role, has become part of who I am. I could not chase all the pain away, nor could I continue to dismiss it as I had for years either. What I have learned to do is to go on despite the pain/sadness, because it has become part of who I am.

In the process, I have discovered that I am strong, resilent and can endure. Part of knowing that is a mindset in a way. Now that I have accepted that some pain will always be attached to the loss of my son, I have removed a part of the fear that used to be attached to it. Although I do not expect to ever suddenly wake up one morning and feel miraculously and totally healed, I have learned to appreciate life again. I no longer fear the hard moments when they come because I know that I can handle them. I am one of the lucky one, and I know that as well.