I almost don't know where to begin on this. I probably need to be on a therapist's couch. 
But instead, I'm just going to ask y'all.
To begin: I come from a family of criers. My father, although he is the manual laborer tough-guy teamster type, is the biggest softy. When my husband called to ask for "my hand", my father started sobbing so hard my mother thought something terrible had happened. Same thing when I called to tell him I was pregnant with my daughter. My mother is the general manager of 4 Hallmark stores, that pretty much says it all. To cope with so much emotion in the room, typically I have not been a "crier" and have had a fairly thick skin. My younger brother is even more poker-faced. I did not cry on my wedding day or at the birth of my daughter, I was just too darn excited, giddy, in fact.
However, ever since I have had a child, practically anything that tugs at the heartstrings, especially anything involving children or mothers, can totally set me off. Today I got news of the death of a distant acquaintance (she is the close friend of two friends of mine) after a freak allergic reaction and subsequent 7 month hospitalization with extreme complications. What got me is reading the blog and the details of the visits to the hospital by her husband and two year old daughter. I simply cannot imagine what it must have felt like to be too sick to hug your child, just have a tear roll down your cheek as they are leaving the room. Of course I was at work and I have always ascribed to the cardinal rule of never crying at work, so I had to leave the office and hide for a bit. No really, i actually do get work done despite all this reading and crying. 
Not long after my daughter was born I had the fear of "What if something happens to me before my daughter can remember me and how much I love her?" That was then followed by the even more paralyzing notion of something happing to her. We had to attend a mandatory error prevention class where I work, and the "highlight" of the event was a documentary done by a woman who had lost her 18-month old to preventable medical errors. I had welts on my arm from where I had dug my nails into my arms to keep from crying in front of the physicians I work with.
To top it all off, I lost my best friend since kindergarten when I was a teenager to a car accident on Thanksgiving Day. The first panic attack I ever had was in the car outside of the hospital to "say goodbye". I couldn't make it inside, but I don't regret that. I am glad all my memories of her are of her happy and well. I am sure that colors my feelings surrounding grief, loss, and children.
I had a woman approach me on the playground at Centennial Park Sunday asking me if she could videotape my daughter playing on the play structure for a documentary about parents who have lost children (she had apparently lost a child). I declined because I am overly paranoid about photographs of my child and realize that people use clever ruses for nefarious purposes, but the conversation totally haunted me for the rest of the evening.
So, ever since being a mother, does grief and loss bother you more than it did before you had a child of your own? Are you "more sensitive" since becoming a mother? Does it get better as you have more children or as they/you age? And if you've made it this far, sorry for the heavy and lengthy post.
No woman has ever told the whole truth of her life.
-Isadora Duncan