Navigating Life with My Rainbow Baby
By Neelam Heera-Shergill
When I wrote “8 Things I Learned Since My Miscarriage” for Cysters, I was still deep in grief, learning how to exist in a world that had carried on while mine had stood still. I spoke about the silence around miscarriage, the loneliness, the way my body felt like it had betrayed me. I spoke about the heartbreak of being told I was ‘too much’ in my grief, about friendships that didn’t survive, and about the ways miscarriage changed me forever.
And then, I had Daya—my rainbow baby.
A rainbow baby is the light after the storm, the child who comes after loss. But what no one really prepares you for is that the storm doesn’t just vanish. The fear, the grief, the ‘what ifs’—they don’t disappear the moment you see those two pink lines. Instead, they intertwine with the joy, making every moment feel both miraculous and terrifying.
The Fear That Lingers
Pregnancy after loss is nothing like the first time. There’s no naive excitement, no assumption that everything will be okay. Instead, there’s anxiety at every scan, panic at every twinge. There were moments I held my breath, waiting for something to go wrong, because how could I trust my body after what happened before?
Even after Daya arrived, the fear didn’t just go away. I would watch her chest rise and fall, terrified of what might happen if I closed my eyes for too long. The loss before her made me hyper-aware of how fragile life is. It made me question if I deserved this happiness, if at any moment, it would be taken from me again.
The Grief That Stays
No one tells you that joy and grief can sit side by side. That you can hold your baby in your arms and still mourn the one who never got to be. Daya is not a ‘replacement’—she is her own, beautiful, fierce little person. But there will always be a part of me that wonders who that first baby might have been. Would they have had my nose? My stubbornness? Would they have been as cheeky as Daya is now?
Grief doesn’t go away, but it does change. It softens, it shifts. Some days, it catches me off guard—a date, a song, a smell that reminds me of the time before. But now, instead of drowning in it, I let it sit with me, knowing that my love for both of them exists in the same space.
The Joy That Feels Different
Daya’s first smile. The way she curls into me when she sleeps. The tiny fingers wrapped around mine. These moments aren’t just joyful—they feel sacred. Because I know what it’s like to have longed for them, to have imagined them in a world where they didn’t yet exist.
Motherhood after loss is gratitude in its purest form. It’s knowing the depth of pain, which makes the happiness even more profound. It’s the understanding that nothing is promised, so every cuddle, every milestone, every laugh feels like a victory.
The Wishes, The Dreams
I wish I could tell past-me—the one sobbing in the shower, the one feeling broken and alone—that one day, she would hold her baby in her arms. I wish I could tell her that she wasn’t ‘too much,’ that her grief was real, valid, and deserving of space.
I dream of a world where we speak about loss openly, where women don’t have to suffer in silence, where miscarriage isn’t whispered about as if it’s shameful. I dream of Daya growing up knowing that her mama fought for these conversations, that she was born into a legacy of breaking taboos and demanding better.
Then and Now
Then, I was lost in grief. Now, I am learning to hold both love and loss in the same breath.
Then, I felt like my body had failed me. Now, I see it as something powerful, something that carried life, even when it also carried loss.
Then, I thought I would never feel whole again. Now, I know that ‘whole’ looks different—it includes the baby I lost, the one I hold, and the version of me that emerged through it all.
For anyone reading this who is still in the ‘then’—I see you. Your pain is real. Your love is real. And whether your rainbow baby is here, on the way, or still a dream, know this: you are still a mother. You are still enough. And you are not alone.
