133: Why Running From Your Grief After Stillbirth Is Keeping You Stuck, And What to Do Instead
I came home from a retreat last week with a lot of feelings and one conversation I couldn't shake.
It happened over dinner in Nashville, in a room full of birth workers... doulas, lactation consultants, women who have spent their careers showing up for moms in the hardest moments. When you're surrounded by people like that, small talk lasts about five minutes. Then you get to the real stuff.
I met a woman named Emily. She's a loss mom. And when two loss moms find each other, you know how it goes — you don't have to explain yourself. You just know.
She told me something I hadn't heard before, not quite like this. And it's been living in my head ever since. So I'm bringing it here, because I think it might do something for you too.
The Buffalo Analogy
When a storm hits, most animals run away from it. They turn and move in the same direction as the storm, which means they stay inside it for as long as it keeps going.
But a buffalo charges straight through.
Not because it doesn't hurt. Not because they're built differently from the inside out. But because they've figured out that the fastest way to get to the other side of a storm is to go directly through it.
Emily looked at me and said, "I chose to be a buffalo."
I'm from Buffalo, New York. There are buffalo images everywhere I look. And somehow, I had never thought about it this way.
She wasn't describing fearlessness. She wasn't saying she woke up one day and decided to be brave with willpower alone. She was saying she made a choice — not to run. To face what was real. To let herself feel what was true, instead of spending her energy finding another way around it.
That is not the same as being strong. We hear you're so strong all the time, don't we? We don't want that strength. Nobody does. But what Emily described — that's something closer to brave.
What Most of Us Do Instead
When grief hits hard, most of us — and I'm including myself here — do the same things.
We stay busy. We pour ourselves into work, into our other kids, into schedules and plans and anything that keeps our hands and minds occupied. We wait. We tell ourselves that time heals, that if enough good things happen the heaviness will start to fade. We try a therapist for a while, or a support group, or we read all the grief books hoping one of them will be the thing that finally makes sense.
And we survive.
Surviving after stillbirth is not small. Walking out of a hospital without your baby and continuing to live is everything, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
But I want to ask you something honestly.
What if the way you're trying to get through the pain is actually keeping it in you longer?
Where Undealt-With Grief Goes
Grief that doesn't get faced doesn't disappear. It goes underground.
And then it shows up somewhere else:
In the way you snap at your partner over something small, and you know instantly it's not about them
As a low, quiet sadness that hums in the background of every single day
As guilt you can't trace back to anything specific, but that follows you everywhere
As that tight feeling in your chest when you see a pregnant woman at the grocery store or get a baby shower invitation in the mail
As the guilt that comes when you go a whole day without thinking about your baby — and then feel terrible about it
The pain will find its way out. The only question is how and when, and whether you have support when it does.
The longer it stays underground, the more it costs you — in your relationships, your sense of self, your ability to imagine any future that feels real.
The Difference Between Surviving and Healing
There's something Emily said that I keep coming back to.
She didn't charge into the storm alone. She had people around her. She had a way of doing it — not just a decision to suffer more. And that distinction changes everything.
There's a real difference between:
I'm going to stop running and just feel awful until I feel better.
And:
I'm going to stop running, and I'm going to get real support to actually walk through this.
One is survival. The other is movement.
Managing your grief keeps you functioning. And again — that's not nothing. But managing doesn't make the grief lighter. It just teaches you to carry it more quietly.
Real healing looks different. It's when the guilt comes up and you know exactly what to do with it. When you can say your baby's name and feel what you actually want to feel — love, connection, sadness — without being overtaken. When the weight on your chest in the morning starts, slowly and over time, to lift.
What Facing It Is Not
I want to be clear about something, because I know this is the fear that keeps a lot of moms from taking any step at all.
Facing your grief does not mean leaving your baby behind.
I've heard that fear from so many women. The idea that if you let yourself feel it, really feel it, and then breathe again on the other side — somehow that means moving on. Forgetting. Closing the door on your baby's life.
It doesn't. In fact, going through your grief — really going through it — is one of the most honoring things you can do for your baby's memory. Because instead of managing pain quietly in the background, you're saying: what happened to us was real, and I'm going to live in the truth of that.
Your baby stays with you through all of it.
Sit With This Question
You don't have to make any decisions today. But I want to leave you with something to carry this week.
Where in your life are you going around your grief instead of through it?
What feelings have you been managing, rather than actually facing?
What truth about your loss have you been quietly stepping around, because looking at it directly feels like too much?
Just notice. That's the first step.
And if you're ready for something more, if you're tired of running and you want someone to walk through this with you I'd love to hear from you.
You're not broken. You're a mom who loved deeply.
And the storm doesn't have to last forever.
