Alistair would be TEN years old tomorrow if he were still with us. It sucks, I've said it before, it never gets easier. There is still tons of joy and great fun to be had with my other kids, and I consider myself a happy person..but he is always our kid too. And it's awful not knowing him. I read a great article just now by Laura Schubert and she says some very true things about infant loss.. "Infant loss is nature's cruelest practical joke. It's investing all of the required time and effort into pregnancy, only to be robbed of the result. It's cradling a body that grew within your own and trying to reconcile the cold, lifeless form in your arms with your memory of the baby who turned double flips in your womb. It's worrying that you'll forget what your child looked like and snapping an album's worth of photos that no one will ever ask to see. It's sobbing so hard you can't breathe and wondering if it's possible to cry yourself to death." And this.. "It's being shut out of play groups for perpetuity. It's skipping social events with expectant and newly minted mothers because, as a walking worst-case scenario, you don't want to put a damper on the party. It's listening to other women gripe about motherhood and realizing that you no longer relate to their petty parental complaints because, frankly, when you've buried a baby, a sleepless night with a vomiting toddler sounds something like a gift. Infant loss is pruning from your life the friends and relatives who ignore or minimize your loss. It's recognizing that, while they may not mean to be hurtful, the fact that they don't know any better doesn't make their utter lack of empathy one whit easier to bear. Infant loss is more than an empty cradle. It's a life sentence." http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/the-heartache-of-infant-loss-131289299.html