February 12, 2012

Once again, way too much time has passed since my last post.  I don’t have a good excuse, but I have plenty of excuses.  I’m in that stage of pregnancy when “tired” is how you describe your daily mood.  I’m busy at work, and I’m all too good at letting that dominate my thoughts and actions.  I’m not sure what to write, which isn’t a new thing, but how I have been responding to it sure is.  I get down on myself because I do exactly what I demand that my students NOT do:  give up when I don’t know how to do something.  My brain just feels like a big old circus of ideas lately, but I can’t seem to find the words to express those ideas.  Isn’t it strange how that happens?  I can explain them perfectly in my head; I know EXACTLY what they are, but I can’t give them meaning externally.  It’s frustrating.  Maybe that’s what they call “writer’s block?”  I NEED to write something, so I’ll just do what I urge my Writer’s Workshop students to do when they hit an impasse:  write whatever is in your head, even if it seems pointless.  Most of the time, a pattern emerges and something wonderful happens.  Other times, you spit out a bunch of pointless, meaningless garbage, but at least it’s out of your head then, right?

We found out that we are having a girl.  The sonographer wouldn’t confirm the gender, but he gradually increased from “60% sure” to “98% sure” that there is a little girl growing inside of me.  As the mother of two boys, I know that there are telltale signs, and I know how to spot them.  An unborn child doesn’t know enough tricks to be able to hide a penis and testicles.  I remember getting my first sonogram with Max around 13 or 14 weeks.  As soon as his image came up on the screen, we noticed that he was spread eagle and therefore revealing his sex to us.  Scott and I both looked at each other with big smiles.  We knew he was a boy before the sonographer said a word.  This time, as soon as the image of our unborn child came up on the screen, we also noticed the spread eagle position.  What we DIDN’T see is what let us know that we were dealing with something totally new here.  With girls, you are supposed to see three lines, but they are difficult to see until later sonograms.  With girls, sonographers are forbidden to confirm the sex until these later sonograms.  Although I probably should feel that the gender of our baby is still a little unknown, I don’t.  I have the images to prove it, one of which clearly shows three lines.  Nicole has confirmed this.  She may not be a doctor, but she is one of the smartest people I know, so I take what she says as the absolute truth.  My mom and Scott were in the room during the sonogram; they both know that it’s a girl too.  If my next sonogram shows the “twig and berries” that I’m so used to seeing on the screen, then I will be truly amazed and probably begin to question my sanity. 

We’re having a girl.  I thought we were done after Max, so I envisioned my life as the mother of two boys.  That’s how it was going to be.  Always.  Sometimes a lifetime is much shorter than you expect, though, and then your “always” ceases to exist.  Nothing is guaranteed to “always” be the way it was going to be, the way that you thought it would be or should be.  Our “always” includes a girl now.  It’s strange.  I very clearly remember the moment when I realized that I could end up having a girl instead of the boy that I did have and should have.  It wasn’t long after Max died.  I wasn’t pregnant, but I wanted to be.  I wanted to be pregnant with a boy.  If I’m honest with myself, I wanted to be pregnant with Max.  I desperately wanted another chance.  I wanted to do it all again, to change a few tiny things that would maybe give him a few more days, weeks, or, just maybe, much longer.  Grief isn’t a mental state that encourages logical thinking.  Anyway, I had this image in my mind that I would have another baby, and of course it would be a boy.  What else could it be?  I guess maybe I was desperate to hang onto the thought that my life still could be what I had begun to imagine it would be before Max died and everything changed.  The thought never crossed my mind that I could end up having a little girl.  Until one day, when the thought did cross my mind.  It wasn’t a good moment.  It was a sad one.  A weird one, even.  Why hadn’t I thought of that before?  Maybe my brain just wouldn’t allow me to since it was so contrary to what I wanted.  Maybe it did cross my mind and I just pushed it away until the moment when it came rushing back with such force that it couldn’t be ignored.  Who knows.  I remember feeling a little bit of horror.  I’m ashamed to admit that I was so turned off by the idea of having a girl, but I’m also proud at how far I’ve come since that moment.  I realized that I clearly wasn’t ready to have another baby.  I mean, who gets pregnant, determined that they are going to have one sex over the other?  Let me revise that question:  What kind of logical person gets pregnant determined that the only happy outcome is to have a baby of a specific sex?  Those are some pretty lofty shoes for an innocent baby to fill.  One of my areas of focus in therapy became preparing myself to have another baby.  My goal, our goal, was to reach the point where we felt ready to have a baby of any sex.  After months of working on it, here we are.

Things are obviously going to be different.  We realize that.  We won’t really understand it until our little girl is born, but we’re expecting a whole new experience.  I never thought I would say this and mean it, but having a girl is a relief in many ways.  If that sounds heartless, please let me explain.  Max’s room is full of things.  It’s full of HIM.  His bedding, his clothes, his car seat, his blankets, his diaper bag.  We struggled for much of my early pregnancy with what to do with these things.  Do we let a new baby wear clothes that Max wore?  If not, then can the new baby wear the clothes that Max never got to wear?  Do we change the bedding in the crib that Max was barely old enough to use?  Can the new baby use his blankets?  What about the diaper bag?  Is that Max’s or is that mine?  Can we bear to put a new baby into the car seat that still smells like Max?  Do we dare do any of these things?  These are decisions that we would have to make, and they would be much harder if we were having a boy who could actually use all of Max’s old things.  Since we’re having a girl, many of these decisions are made for us.  Max’s clothes are clearly boy clothes.  Max’s bedding is clearly boy bedding.  Max’s blankets are pretty boyish.  So, it is a relief to not have to make these decisions.  It is a relief to be able to agree to store all of these things instead of wonder how we will react if we see our new baby wearing a piece of clothing that we can only associate with Max.  It is a relief to have to buy new things, although I still hate going to the baby section of any store.  I don’t suppose that will change.  In so many ways, having a girl gives us a fresh start and a new experience that we could really use right now.  It gives us a chance to really live the life that we have been given instead of constantly feeling like we are living the life that we wanted with Max.  I’m not going to lie and say that having a girl makes everything better.  Being pregnant has been hard for me emotionally.  It has been a mixed bag for me.  Pregnancy has brought anticipation and apprehension, excitement and anxiety, and hopefulness and a heightened sense of my loss at the same time.  It has been a challenge, but then I look at how far we’ve come as a family, and I can’t help but feel like this could be our reward.  We’ve worked hard at allowing ourselves to feel sadness as well as happiness.  While this baby will probably magnify both of those things, she is such a welcome addition to our “always.”