This post is going to be a bit different than the
others. It’s going to be happier,
probably easier to read, and less reflective than most of them. This difference in tone is because I’ve
been keeping a secret for a long time.
It’s a good secret. One
that I desperately wanted to share, but one that I just couldn’t share for
reasons that are probably both obvious and a little bit less obvious at the
same time. The secret, which is
not such a secret any more, is that I’m pregnant. It’s been hard for me to write posts for the past 11 weeks
because my mind has been pretty focused on the pregnancy and everything that
comes along with having a child after losing another. What you might not know is that I actually keep two
journals—this one (which I do consider a journal, even though it’s very public)
and a private one that is full of things that I don’t share with everyone for
various reasons. My private journal
has been getting a lot of action lately.
I have plans for the private journal. I hope that I can make it public someday because it’s what that journal holds that would really be
of value to other parents struggling with their own losses. I’m not ready to share it with everyone
just yet, but I feel that a time will come when that will feel right.
The pregnancy…I am about 13.5 weeks pregnant right now,
which makes me due in late June.
If this baby is anything like Ethan and Max, though, then I will surpass
my due date and end up being induced in early July. This is what I fully expect to happen. I haven’t fully imagined what it will
be like to have a baby just a few weeks past the one-year “anniversary” of
Max’s death. I haven’t fully
imagined what it will be like to bring a new baby home and use Max’s old room
as his/her nursery. I haven’t even
begun to think about what we will do with all of the things that are in Max’s
room now that we haven’t been able to bring ourselves to even touch. As has always been my nature, I’m just
taking it day-by-day. What is
different now is that I have to really try hard not to freak out
sometimes. As I’ve written before,
I’ve always known that death (my own or a loved one’s) could happen at any
moment. I’ve imagined a thousand
ways in which it could happen.
I’ve even imagined what it might be like afterward. Imagining is, as you can probably
guess, completely different than actually living it though. One of my oldest friends recently wrote
to me about how losing a child happens in books and movies, but not to people
that you really know. And it
certainly never happens to you.
It’s just a thought that we use to remind ourselves that we are lucky
and we are blessed and we are alive. Now that losing a child has ceased to
be something that separates me from others who aren’t as blessed me, I freak
out even more about things.
Forgive any graphic images, but I expected to see blood every time I
used the restroom for the first trimester. Hell, I still do, really. I expected an early sonogram that my doctor thoughtfully
ordered for me to show that I was not, in fact, pregnant, but that the positive
pregnancy tests were a result of some form of cancer growing within my
body. I expect the worst in
everything, but how could I not?
My worst fears came true the day that Max died. I have firsthand knowledge that I am
completely vulnerable. Nothing can
protect me. And the worst thing
that I can imagine can happen. And sometimes it will.
I feel like I’m getting a little off track here, so let me
go back to something happy. I’ll
tell the story of how I found out that I am pregnant. I think it’s a pretty good one. Scott and I decided very soon after Max died that we wanted
another child, maybe even two more.
We decided not to put a lot of pressure on ourselves though; we had a
trip to Mexico for Nicole’s wedding coming up, and we wanted to be able to
enjoy it. It turns out that the
key to getting pregnant is saying “let’s not put pressure on ourselves to rush
it” and booking a trip to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. Toward the end of October, my grandma
came to visit. The night before, I
had a dream that I was pregnant. I
told my grandma about it when she came over, and she told me that she felt very
strongly that I would be pregnant soon.
I’m not making us out to be undercover psychics or anything, but we
definitely seem to have pretty great intuition. Later that day, we went to Wal-Mart with my mom. As I wandered around the store, I found
myself near the pregnancy tests. I
decided to buy some since I would need them anyway. I didn’t have any signs of pregnancy and really wouldn’t
know for a few more days, but I couldn’t just put the tests in my closet; I had
to take one. Much to my surprise,
it was positive. I happen to be
pretty well versed in pregnancy tests because of some confusing results that I
got when I was pregnant with Ethan (there was supposed to be a plus sign for
positive and a horizontal line for negative; I got a vertical line), so I knew
what it meant. You rarely get a
false positive with any sort of pregnancy test; the degree of inaccuracy is
represented by false negative results.
Still, I had a hard time believing that I could be pregnant. I took many more tests over the next
few days, and gradually I began to believe that I was pregnant. I didn’t really believe it, though,
until I had a sonogram and saw the baby and its heartbeat. What was on the screen was most
certainly not a cancerous tumor!
It’s hard to say where I stand emotionally as a result of
the pregnancy. I am excited, but I
am hesitant to be too excited at the same time. I am nervous, but trying hard to not be too nervous since
it’s not good for the baby.
Sometimes I feel absolutely 100% pregnant, and sometimes I feel like I
can’t possibly be having another baby.
I feel happy that Ethan gets a chance to be a big brother again, but I
feel so sad that Max doesn’t. I do
think that the pregnancy helped me get through Christmas a little bit easier
because I have something to look forward to, but it is also a reminder of how
much hope and happiness I felt last year at this time. Being pregnant definitely reminds me
that I don’t know what the future holds, but that I have to be ready for
anything, good or bad. I can’t
expect that this baby will be healthy or that it will even survive labor and
delivery. One thing that I have
been adamant about since Max died is that even if I knew how it would end, I
would do it all over in a heartbeat.
Even if I knew that he would live for only a little over a month and that
our hearts would be broken and our lives shattered into a million pieces that
can’t be put back together, I would still have him and love him and take care
of him and somehow say goodbye to him.
So, I know that whatever happens with this pregnancy and this child,
I’ll feel the same way; I’ll do it
all over again a million times.
That’s just what a child’s love will do to you.
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