Anticipation

I haven’t written in awhile because I’ve been busy. Busy and distracted. Not a single day passes that I don’t think about my baby and miss it, but I have to admit, time has made the sadness less intense and consuming. I haven’t cried in a long time and I am so grateful for that.

Part of the reason is that we are finally getting closer and closer to the time that we can start trying again. I only have a few more weeks to wait and I am thrilled and terrified at the idea of trying again. I am thrilled because I want nothing more than a baby in my arms, a sibling for the one we lost, and to see my husband talking to my belly, to his baby, once again. I am terrified because I don’t know how I will handle another loss. Before my loss I didn’t even anticipate what it would really be like to lose a baby. I knew, intellectually, that it was possible, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. I didn’t know the pain would be so overwhelming, that I would feel so much love for my baby so early on and feel the loss so intensely.

Now I know that it can, I know that it did happen to me and I know that it could happen again. I know how devastating it is and I know what to expect, what to fear now. I don’t know if I could handle losing another child. I will be thrilled if we get pregnant, but I will also be scared. I don’t want that ambivalence to taint my joy at another pregnancy, to reduce the amount of love I let myself give to a second child, but I am afraid that it will. I also fear that it won’t be so easy this time.

We were so lucky to so easily get pregnant, and I know it is possible that this second try could take months, years, but I can’t accept that. In my mind I am already assuming it will be just as easy this time, and I have already fantasized about due dates and milestones assuming I get pregnant right away. I don’t know what to do with this fear and these feelings, other than to give them to God and pray for peace and acceptance, pray to know that when it is right it will happen and comfort myself with the belief that if our next child can’t stay here with us, it will have a sibling waiting for it in Heaven.