Psychological Warfare

So . . . here we are at 21 weeks. Somedays I can't quite wrap my head around how I exactly ended up HERE in my life--six and a half months away from my baby girl dying, four and a half months pregnant . . . again. What? How?

I sometimes feel guilty, as though I have stumbled upon an abundance of procreative luck. Three babies! And, as it turns out, I'm so far an easy conceiver. And then I remember: one baby girl dead. Yes, we conceived her easily. Yes, my pregnancy was smooth sailing with her. But she died. And part of me died right along with her.

And now the third--again, he landed and implanted and started to grow so quickly, without my knowing. That, indeed, is something for which to be grateful. And, all wishes granted, all hopes realized, he'll be here in the blink of the universe's eye. I hope, I need. But it's the meantime that's truly the mean time.

I went in for a fetal echocardiogram today. Due to a variety of family history issues, I've had them with each pregnancy. The last one was a month before Calla died. It was shortly after Thanksgiving, and the pediatric cardiologist joked that he'd barely beaten me at the Turkey Trot only a few weeks before. Ha ha ha, yes.

Leading up to my appointment today, I could feel the tension build in my body, piling on itself over and over again. I got a fitful night's sleep, waking nearly each hour trying to feel this little guy move. And then the theme song to a certain mouse's clubhouse got stuck in my head--terrible. And throughout the morning I became more and more convinced that this little dude wasn't any longer alive. I would feel movement, and then imagine it was a muscle spasm, or gas, or simply a wish.

And it's about a billion degrees and the thunderstorm this morning steamed everything ever-so-unpleasantly. I was a wreck. By the time I got to my appointment I was a complete basket case. I was shaking and nervous and on the edge of vomit. The waiting room slowly filled with newborns and their mothers, and pregnant ladies like me. When it was finally my turn to go back for the echo, I has held together with emotional dental floss.

And everything's fine. Whoosh whoosh whoosh, thump thump thump, four-chambered wonderfulness right there on the screen. I had to explain to both the sono tech and the doctor my recent history, and they were beyond kind to me.

Grim is the only way to describe how I feel going into these things anymore. I grit my teeth, hold my breath, and hope against hope. So far, things have been good. But things were good every time before, until one night they were not. And THAT'S the image thats stuck in my head, refusing to budge no matter how many good things I see and hear. It's my own personal PTSD, and here I am, willingly doing it all again.

If you've not been through anything so traumatic happen to you as, say, having a human being who was part of your heart die inside you, or even squeezing said dead human out of your ladybits, you might want to say to me, "Oh Mary Beth, suck it up! You're being over dramatic! Everything's going to be FINE! It can't happen twice--it just CAN'T!"

Oh, really. Oh. Really.

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One last bit of melancholy. One of my favorite brain-free activities is watching those shows where people buy their first homes, or look at three different houses and choose the one best for them. And I'd estimate at least half of these people--couples, usually--buy their homes with the intention of having one of the bedrooms be the "baby's" room.

And this irritates me.

It shouldn't, I know. I suppose that's the natural order of things, yes? Love, marriage, baby carriage and all that. But what about when it's not? Oh, I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it until I die: to be blissfully naive again.

I guess because I came to this baby-longing later in life: I was never a picture-my-wedding-and-future-husband-and-children kind of girl. It wasn't until after my 30th birthday that I even thought I'd want children, ever. So I have a difficult time imagining how it is to be half of a young couple, planning which room will be Susie's and which will be Billy's.

Maybe that right there is the root of it all.

It's everywhere, huh?

In Which A Rollercoaster Is Just No Fun

The anomaly scan went great. We were the first appointment of the day and somehow I was early. The first patient in the office--this absolutely NEVER happens, let alone me being a whole 10 minutes early. But today we were there as the office was just getting rolling. Our tech was so friendly and lovely and had clearly reviewed my chart thoroughly. As she was getting started gave me a little rub on my back and said, "I can tell you're tense, let's get this started."

And everything, from brain to bladder, arms to legs, nostrils to toes, is there. And perfect. And working. Exhale. I actually started crying tears of relief, felt like a huge nerd, and could feel myself losing 100 pounds of tension.

That was the good news. And so far, really, there's no bad news. Everything looks, sounds, feels perfect. Well, everything except that damn cyst, who just keeps growing and growing on pace with this little boy. But we'll worry about that later--priorities.

Except there's one more teensy little thing I failed to mention in my post yesterday. Today is six months. Six months ago I delivered our baby girl, not breathing, heart not beating, silent. The absolutely most devastating day of my life. The worst day of my life. Six months ago today. And here we are today, half a year away, happy and relieved, celebrating the little boy living inside me.

What an effed up rollercoaster this is. Six months ago I, well, I don't know. All I could feel was sadness and pain and anger and confusion and fear. And they're all still there. But now mixed in is hope, and, well, a bit of joy. But man. Just half a year ago . . . in the midst of a freezing winter, and here we are in the midst of a blazing summer. Up and down. Hot and cold. Devastated and hopeful. How, again, is this my life?

I remember shortly after Calla died, reading millions of blog posts. One I came across was a woman who was writing about her baby who died six months earlier. And I thought, "Six months? However has she lasted so long?" I couldn't imagine going on for six more minutes. And yet here I am, and now she's approaching the one year mark. And still I think, "One year? How will I manage for a year?"

This little boy is here inside me, happily kicking away, mugging for the sonogram, trying to suck his thumb, stretching his already long limbs. Holy shit you have no idea how desperately I need him to make it.

Well actually, many of you, sadly, do know.

Of Pink and Blue and Everything After

Here's a long story with a short ending. It starts approximately 2 and a half years ago, and who knows when it will end.

Once upon a time I was pregnant for the first time. I was nervous, excited and a little naive. Everyone asked me the same old questions, in this order: "How are you feeling?" "Is this your first?" 'What are you having?" The answers to the first two were easy--the last one drew mixed results.

You see, we never wanted to find out who was in there, until he or she came out screaming. We thought to ourselves, "Well, we have this child's WHOLE LIFE to know the gender, let's be SURPRISED when the baby is born." This thinking worked out well for us, for a while. Being the compulsive shopper that I am, it was hard to restrain myself when looking at the little blue and frilly pink things in stores, but I survived.

42 weeks later E was born screaming. Everyone surmised I was having a boy just by looking at me, and, as thrilled as I was that he was here and alive and healthy and WONDERFUL, I was a little annoyed that everyone was so RIGHT in their "knowledge." I was, by NO MEANS, disappointed that he was a boy--we were stoked, actually--but I didn't want to hear all the "Told yas!"

Moving on. Fast forward 11 months when I got pregnant the second time. Everyone told us, "Oh, it's nice not to know for your first one, but you'll want to find out what you're having for your second."

Still nope.

We held strong, but this time I knew it would be a girl. And then the shit hit the fan, and I waited and waited in the hospital to give birth to my dead, gender-still-unknown baby. And, lo and behold, she was a girl. When the dust settled and they finally told us she was a girl, I remember wailing, "I knew it! I knew it was a girl!"

So, that leads us to the third time around, meaning now. We caved this time. Well, I guess "caved" is over dramatizing things. I would love to still be that optimistic mama, knowing that I'd have "his or her whole life to know the gender." Oh, if only that were true. We actually, in our deepest hearts, did NOT want to find out what we're having. But this time around, I can't handle any more surprises. I want to know all I can know, control all I can control. I don't want to find out there's a tiny part of my brain that wishes for one gender over the other, and then be surprised or disappointed on delivery day (assuming we get there).

Believe me when I tell you I want nothing more than a living child to bring home, boy or girl. Truly, in my heart--well, I almost wrote "I don't care what it is." But that's not entirely true. I care a whole lot--just not about the gender specifically. My heart and mind and body ACHE for a living baby. I don't really care about the color of the receiving blanket.

Going into the sonogram, we weren't sure we'd even be able to find out now--I was only 16 weeks and the tech was checking out my delightful, enormous cyst rather than checking on the baby, per se. I was nervous as hell--this was new terrain for us. But the tech was lovely and kind, and was excited to show us what she could . . .

. . . and he's a boy.

I am getting tears in my eyes just writing this, because knowing there's a real live little baby boy in there wipes clean the nebulous, hazy image of a "baby." Unwillingly, I start to picture him--will he look like E, so fair and blue eyed? Or will he be curly-dark-haired like his dead sister? Or will he look like me, or C, or any one of a million family members with a great-grandfather's nose or a cousin's smile?

All the feelings I try to guard myself against, all the hopes for some unpromised future start popping up like bubbles, and it gets scary. But there's a relief in the frightened feeling, too. I remember, vividly, one day while pregnant with Calla. The realization that she was a girl--the biological, maternal, psychic realization--made me stop in my tracks and my heart start to race. Somehow, I have always had a vision of two boys.

I sound like I'm wading into wacko territory. I'll dial it back a bit.

Here's where the story pauses, for now. This little one is a boy, E will have a little brother--universe willing that this one makes it out alive. Would I be completely truthful if I said I wasn't disappointed it's not a girl? Not exactly. My heart soars at the thought of this little boy, but shatters just as equally for the little girl who will never be here, with us. It's not some 50/50 chance girl I'm sad for, it's our baby who died in January. It's her. I miss HER.

Since Calla died, I have this new thinking of pregnant mothers. We are the shepherdesses, the women who provide safe harbor for the little souls. We are the vessels in which they grow. We teach them love and life and provide passage into this realm.

Maybe that's part of why Calla's death was so incredibly painful. I failed in my duties. And here I am with another chance, to hopefully provide safe passage. For him.