11 more sleeps

11 more sleeps.
Today I took my husband (who happens to be a doctor) out for lunch. He has delivered 3 babies this week. All good results.
He says to me "you know it must be hard eh?"
I say "what?"
He says "when you are a first time mom and you go into labour you have no idea how much it is going to hurt."
I say "ya so?"
He says "well you have 11 more days until you are induced and you know what the pain of labour feels like with an epidural and without one."
I say "ya so?"
Anyway the conversation continues about the merits of epidural vs no epidural. Whatever, I'll figure it out in 11 days.
The physical pain is something I can say that I am dreading a little. BUT the bigger fear is the potential emotional pain. Ya second time moms dread the labour pain but dead-baby-mommas dread something that will never go away. A type of pain that never completely heals.
My third baby will probably live. However having had my second die I have become aware of a type of pain that feels like emotional drowning. Like a meat tenderizer has your heart and smashes it.
Right now talking about labour, imagining having a new baby, people asking "you are so close are you getting excited?" Hurts like HELL.
I just did this.
Guess what? I was 39.5 weeks when my son died. I went through a whole effing pregnancy and labour for nothing. All I gained from that 9 months was a lifetime of regret, pain and fear for future pregnancies.
SO for those who care. NO i am not excited. I am scared. Those who have lost a baby will understand. If you haven't I hope you never do, because it is the worst kind of hell that I have ever experienced.

emotional hailstorm

Today I feel as unsettled as the weather of late. We seem to be have nice a run of hot days and then evening thunder storms.
I am excited because each day that goes by brings me closer to meeting this little baby. I have so many hopes for him and I am feeling very maternal. However I can feel building pressure and anxiety that is harder and harder to keep in check. We seem to be having a "run" of babies in our church community. There were two in the last couple of weeks and my husband has a lady in labour as I write this. He has two more before I am to be induced in 4 weeks. I was also told about someone very close to me who has just found out that she is expecting.
I am very scared right now that I am going have to go through the compounding grief and agony of losing this baby after having already lost a baby. I am sick with fear that I am going to watch other women I am close to continue to have healthy living babies for the rest of my life and I am going to feel only pain.
I have no faith that things are going to work out just because they should.

Today
This morning I had my fourth ultrasound for this baby. I have one more at 36 weeks and then if everything looks okay, I will be induced at 38 weeks.
The tech was very happy with this baby today. He scored very well on the bio-phyiscal ratings and according to her, he weighs about 4.5 pounds.
I feel a little bit like a child waiting for Christmas morning. But this child is not sure what will be found under the tree.
At my 20 week ultrasound I was told that my son has a echogenic focus (bright spot) on his heart. This is considered a soft sign for Downs Syndrome or Trysomy 21. But my doctor said not to worry because it was an isolated sign.
At my 28 week ultrasound I was told that my son was not showing "breathing movements." My doctor said not to worry because he is still pretty small to be showing these type of movements.
Today it seems like everything was as it should be but I will wait until my doctors appointment on August 13 for the full report.


Clothes...
I try hard not to think about the future. I have hopes for the future but instead of seeing it with the clarity that I possessed a year and a half ago it's pretty fuzzy. I was putting away some baby boy clothes that I bought from a friend and it struck me that at this time in my last pregnancy I was doing the same thing. The feelings around the task had changed. I was giddy last time and I bubbled over with excitement about how cute the clothes were. This time I felt numb. The clothes are cute but they are just clothes and will be completely meaningless unless there is a little boy to fill them up and wear them out. I was showing my husband some of the clothes because he was giving me a hard time about getting second hand stuff. He wants to buy this baby some new cute clothes of his own. The hand-me-downs from his older brother who died are from a different season and many will not be worn. Baby Steve was a spring/summer baby, this baby will be born in the early fall. I will save them anyway. Somebody will wear them eventually.   

Putting Baby Steve's Stuff Away...
I have two children's bedrooms upstairs. One is pink and one is green. Baby Steve was going to sleep in the green room. My husband and I have been referring to the "green room" as baby Steve's room until about a week ago when I said that we have to stop that. On the dresser was a scrapbook of baby Steve's short time with us. It is filled with pictures of Baby Steve, my husband and I at the hospital, funeral stuff, cards and all of baby Steve's ultrasound photos. There was a orange giraffe and a blue bunny that I knitted for him. There were three jellyfish that were part of a mobile for his crib and there was a candle given to us at his funeral. There was the white fluffy teddy bear that we were given at the hospital. On Wednesday I carefully picked up all of those things and set them in the bottom drawer of the six drawer dresser in the green room. As I closed the drawer I felt like someone had punched me in the chest as hard as they could. It was the raw aching pain that is ever present in the first few months after loss. I was floored by how powerful it was. I cried.
How many times throughout the rest of my life am I going to be saying good bye to Baby Steve? Goodbye is all I ever got to say to him.