October has come to be a very special month for me. It kicks off the last quarter of the year and reminds me that the year is slowly winding down. General Conference is held the first weekend of October. It’s the month I entered the MTC.

Now October has a new meaning. It is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

I have not spoken about this much, because I felt like I didn’t have much right to speak out. How can the grief of someone like me ever compare to my sister, the woman who lost three precious, perfect babies who were growing inside her womb?

Young children have always made me nervous. Perhaps it’s a product of me being the baby in my family. Whatever the case, I always felt awkward around little kids and had no desire to babysit. My sister, on the other hand, has a miraculous gift with children. She forged her career in childcare while I remained hidden behind my books and research papers.

However, I’ve always been excited to be an aunt. I always knew my sister would get married before me, so it wasn’t hard to imagine the day I’d be able to hold my baby niece or nephew in my arms.

January 2012, not too long after my sister got married, she called me with the news that she was pregnant. Excitement nearly poured out of my ears, I was so full to bursting. I began planning what baby clothes and soft toys I’d buy from my university’s book store, the birthdays I’d help celebrate over the years, and what kind of playdates we’d go on when I visited. I dreamed of holding him in my arms, taking him out to the playground, proudly watching him graduate from high school, and sending him encouraging letters on his mission. I imagined a toothy, bright-eyed toddler running up to me and yelling, “Auntie K! Auntie K!” Then I’d swoop him up in my arms, twirling him around, as we laughed and got dizzy. Little Baby J couldn’t get here soon enough. I was impatient for his arrival.

That arrival, though, never happened.

At the end of that one week – those seven blissful days – my sister called me again. When I answered my cell phone, all I heard was a sniffle, and I knew.

Baby J was gone.

In one instant, a life of dreams was shattered.

At the time, I didn’t know how to process my grief. No one I’d known had ever talked about having a miscarriage. I’d heard of people having miscarriages, but to me they were just stories of people I didn’t know.

Now it was personal, because my beloved sister – my best friend – was struggling with the pain and heartbreak of losing a child. At the time, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know how to help her carry that burden. For years I didn’t let myself feel the grief. I distanced myself from my sister’s miscarriages and talked about them from more of a medical standpoint.

Two more miscarriages followed, the last being right before I returned home from my mission. I’ll always find it interesting that, even though my sister didn’t tell me what was going on until the miscarriage happened, I strongly felt each P-day: “My sister is pregnant and having complications. Something is wrong.” For the briefest time, I felt almost connected to my sister and her child.

Her grief is difficult for me to watch. I can do nothing but cry with her and mourn the short lives that each of my nephews and nice had. For the short weeks they were here [all three were lost during the first trimester], they impacted our lives.

Pregnancy loss affects everyone in the family: mother, father, grandparents, siblings. I’ve learned that staying quiet doesn’t help. For me, it only intensified the pain – slowly, but it gradually increased until one Sunday earlier this year I called my sister in tears and said, “I miss them. I miss them.”

My pain will never compare to my sister’s. In fact, my pain pales in comparison. But the fact of the matter is, I feel as if I’ve lost precious souls, too – souls I can never take the playground and push on the swing, souls I can never make cookies with, souls I will never be “Auntie K” to in this life.

I’ve never had a human life inside of me. I haven’t felt that bond between mother and child. But I’ve felt the love between aunt and nephew/niece. Even though they weren’t physically here for me to hold, I loved them just the same. They were real.

I ache when friends and roommates gush about their nieces and nephews, show me pictures, and rave about their accomplishments. I just sit quietly with a polite smile on my face – a smile that hides the small aching in my heart. When I see people playing with their nieces and nephews, I can’t help but think, “That could be me. That could be them.”

The only thing I know how to do is remember. For a few precious weeks, those children were here. They were ours – our children, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews. They still are.

I’m still impatient for them. But this time, I’m impatient to hold them in my arms in heaven. They are our angel babies. And one day I will be able to hold them, and kiss them, and tell them, “I love you.”

It’s so fitting that the forget-me-not flower comes in shades of blue and pink – the colors associated with National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Most members of my church associate the forget-me-not with President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk “Forget Me Not.” But for me, this flower has a new meaning.

It reminds me of the small, precious souls that I will never, ever forget.