A bad habit.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've stumbled into this weird and probably unhealthy fascination with "babyloss" blogs - blogs by parents who have lost a child during the late part of pregnancy, or at birth or very soon thereafter. I read them and I tear up and I feel so awful for these moms, mostly, who have lost so much. Their grief is all-encompassing, and it feels like a stone is pressing down on my lungs reading their words. I would like to get back out of this phase of strange voyeurism that I am not sure why I am in. It's not as if I have so much time on my hands that I need to fill it with stories like these.

Maybe it has to do with the way since having children of my own, I feel everything "sad" about the experience of children so much more intensely - whether it's the sadness of the way a certain child lives or an experience he or she has, or now the pain parents can feel from the vulnerability of loving their children. I have to remind myself sometimes that lots of people live long, full lives, including most people in my family. Not everyone has this sort of catastrophic loss.

Having children is all about extreme emotion, it seems. I can watch my children play or in the process of discovering something and my heart feels like it will burst with pride, or love, or plain old bliss, then I'll be wracked with fear that it could all just disappear. Everything was much easier when my only concern was making sure there was enough room on my credit card for my next London shopping trip.