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.
I'm so sorry. The fear isn't irrational and that is what sucks the most.
ReplyDeleteI also know that it feels like the pregnancy and labour were for nothing, I feel that all the time. But if you could go back and undo it would you? Never getting those moments of being pregnant with baby Steve and even if seeing his precious face? I doubt it.
I hope things turn out differently this time. And I hope that your new little bundle will help to bring some colour back into your life.
Lots of love.
Thanks Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI am so angry right now. My body hurts like crazy and I have so much fear around potentially overexerting myself and causing another abruption. I am running around after Anne. Her father is working like crazy and my support people are all busy with their own lives. I don't expect people to wait around opening doors for me. But I am just scared I am not going to be able to keep both my living children alive. I am scared to lift my little girl in and out of her car seat, crib, the bath. When she has a tantrum in public and I can't get her to listen I feel so helpless. I have been staying home instead of taking her to the beach or the park by myself out of fear of her getting away from me. She stays in the grocery cart when I need groceries; in the stroller if we go out anywhere else.
It sucks. I tell myself "just a little longer," "you are almost there."
I am also mad because I remember being at this point in my pregnancy last year and having no idea what was coming. I was exhausted at that time and so ready to be done. And then there was no reward for 9 months of work. I felt (still feel) so ripped off. Sometimes I wish little Steve never existed because as beautiful as he is and as much as I love him I only feel pain when I think about him.
Anyway hormones are probably making my coping ability less than it normally is. I know that I am shorter with people than usual and this is usually a sign of raging hormones for me :)
Oh well. Come what may - I guess I'll figure out a way through one way or another.
I think about you all the time,
Take care,
Andrea