ALI...

...Or Adoption/Loss/Infertility, to those unfamiliar with blogosphere slang.

This is the niche on the web in which I have made myself comfortable over the past year. I find so much healing in reading posts from people who understand what I'm going through. Generally they are able to better state it than I am, so I tend to comment more than I post. But the therapy in any case has been immense.

At the same time, I feel like a misfit. I arrived here during my struggle for breath after Aiden died. I found Carly first. And she just seemed to understand. She honors angel babies everywhere, she knows what it means to remember them. I was better prepared to face the "outside" world because I read about what happened to babyloss mamas in the ALI world, what they thought and felt, how words and actions affected them.

But I wasn't a babyloss mama.

I'm Aiden's auntie.

Mama > auntie

So I tread lightly, knowing that I don't truly know what they feel. I know what I have felt, and it seems to echo so closely what they speak of. But I respect the difference.

And it makes me think, maybe there's a reason I came here. Because everywhere that there is a babyloss mama and papa, there are almost definitely babyloss grandparents, and probably babyloss aunties and uncles, and friends and other loved ones. All hurting for the loss of hope.

We suffer at the same time that we search for belonging. Respecting differences, sometimes maybe holding back a little too much. Feeling deeply every hurt that babyloss mamas speak of. Grieving quietly behind them. Wanting so much to comfort them, to let them know that at least in some way some of us understand too.

It was Aiden who brought me here.

He is our angel. And I can't help but wonder if there are reasons why he's done this.