I don’t feel like i have talked very much about this baby; my friends might not agree because they get to put up with the fretting that i do. (I apologise, you have no idea how much it helps to say things though.)
This baby started off with me thinking it was gone before i had even thought much about it existing; after 9 months of trying, i started bleeding before i was even 6 weeks and just struck the whole thing out of my mind. Added to the fact that Max had very mixed feelings about it and that as soon as the bleeding started i decided i didn’t want to be pregnant anyway, it all felt very odd for quite a while. The bleeding wasn’t explained, but was perhaps a very early lost twin but it wasn’t until i had the 12 week scan that i really started to believe i was pregnant at all. It was after that scan though that Max started to seem more relaxed about it, especially when we told the girls, who were very excited 🙂 Now, of course, it feels much more like this was always the plan – all that discussion is long past and forgotten. He’s been brilliant.
But i’ve found it very hard to relax about it all; i’ve just been waiting for something to go wrong, something to be wrong. I wanted to enjoy being pregnant one more time but in truth, that is too hard. I feel i have pushed it too far, one time too many and that i deserve something to go wrong and can only expect that to happen at some point. I know too many things that can and from that bleeding onwards (including silent baby who took 10 minutes to find a heartbeat for) i have just been on edge. I still am. I’m petrified something will go wrong and the girl’ hearts will be broken, or i’ll die or there will be something awful but not fatal wrong with it and i’ll have wished a disabled child into the world and on to the family. I don’t know, honestly, if i can go through more pain or heartbreak again. I don’t know if i’d have the will to walk the paths, now i know how they feel.
I AM looking forward to having a baby again and i love seeing the children being so excited, though it comes mixed with most of the above, such is my fear that it will go wrong. I’m pleased to have found out what we are having, pleased to have been right and pleased that everyone is happy. In fact, i’m thrilled about that. And since the second scan, i’ve been much more relaxed and enjoying getting to know this kicky little bump. I have my moments, but it is improving; each little milestone of getting further along, of it being potentially viable now and nothing having gone yet is a help. But it isn’t quite the relaxed pregnancy i am used to or remember. Maybe if i fret through a pregnancy, i’ll manage a nice easy birth. I’ve hardly got the emotional energy to try and think my way through making the right or safe choices for that.
I’ve struggled a bit with people saying “5th baby” because this doesn’t feel like my 5th baby, it feels like my 6th one. Especially just now, knowing that tomorrow, or some time this week or next, that other baby would have been 3. The space is still painfully vivid to me, the choices and hurt and depair are not very far buried. Healed over, not healed. This is more my 5th child and the gap, when people mention it, is one i find hard to make light of. I thought i had thought my way through all the things i might think or feel if i got pregnant again – but i missed a few – it never occurred to me i would worry about the children being hurt by this – they were so much littler every other time and i forgot to anticipate their involvement in the process.
All of that might sound like i am not glad to be pregnant or enjoying it. I am, but the moments where they aren’t tinged with anxiety are few and far between. I think, having most wanted to be pregnant and have a baby again, i am just going to be very glad when i make it safely to the other end and find myself, i hope, with a healthy child to bring up.
One thing is for sure, i have absolutely no intention of doing this again. I am definitely done.
i know how you feel about the early bleeding i had the same with my first same reason given the loss of an early twin i could not relax the whole time but it did work out ok albeit we had a very sick baby for all of his first year
hugs Merry.
*Hugs* I dont think you can ever truely anticipate every emotion that will be brought up by the loss you’ve expreienced and your new preganancy. New ones will surprise you all the time but all of them are normal and understandable.
Someone always told me that you know when you are ‘done’- and I guess it really is true.
I know all about being anxious and not enjoying pregnancy. And yes, it is a shame not to be able to relax the way others can. There’s nothing you can do about it except endure the anxious bits and enjoy the rest, like you are. I’m sure there is a rational part of your brain that knows nobody gets what they ‘deserve’, not that I think you deserve anything bad anyway. I know I didn’t deserve what happened to Benjamin. But I’m glad you aired it all anyway – it always helps, I find.
Merry, you just reminded me of the fears I had when I was expecting Fergus. It seems quite common to feel this way, which probably doesn’t help when you are feeling it but you are certainly not alone (although always unique in the beautiful way you express yourself and think things through). Lots of hugs,
Jenny
I hope it works out for you all.
I’ve only had 1 pregnancy that survived and I’m so grateful that she’s now 8 (I’ve been reading your blog for home ed inspiration for a number of years). To honour and have feelings for the other ones is to me a perfectly normal and natural response for a mother.
Thank you for the hugs. This one has been tricky but i don’t deserve sympathy for any previous problems – well except that i bizarrely i am para 9 on this set of notes as 3 ordinary very early miscarriages became more relevant once i bled with this one. I’d never have counted them otherwise. But the other, the one i don’t ever stop grieving about, that one i have to take a lot of responsibility for and it gets no easier.
Jo, the circumstances aren’t the same and it is easy for me to think i deserve problems without thinking that you do – you definitely don’t in Merryland logic – but i can’t apply the same to me. It is annoying that i wouldn’t apply my own logic to anyone else in my own circumstances.
I came close to losing the youngest two of my four, and I am so thankful that they are here. Having read your post I felt compelled to hug them both just because I can.
I am always surprised how many women (and men to be fair) have suffered the loss of a baby. At a toddler group a while ago I mentioned it and nearly every woman in the room had some experience of it.
I also felt the fear of “what ifs”with my last, thinking I had pushed my luck to have three such beautiful children already, but every thing was fine and he’s now walking around, a vibrant, slighltly challenging 18 month old.
((Hugs)) Enjoy the kicking – it’s what I miss most!
sending hugs.
I had this with Joe and its the phew after giving birth its actually all okay now.
Rachel
I remember feeling like that with my youngest child, that I was definitely pushing my luck after previous easy pregnancies and healthy children – and she was only number 3! Nobody could really understand why I didn’t enjoy that pregnancy much at all, after I had loved being pregnant the first two times.
Even now I look at her and think what a precious extra gift she was; I hope very much you have the same experience, and you are in my thoughts as you come to terms with all the previous baggage. *hugs*