Safety net

So in a world where nothing is perfect fair or otherwise controllable, again, neither is pregnancy. 

When we lost Gabbie I didn't realize she was slowing down. I didn't realize she had stopped. Me. No one else. And though I know it wouldn't have mattered had I been able to tell she was leaving us because it was most likely too late I still know it was me that never noticed she was slowing down and slowly falling asleep forever. And say what you will, I mean seriously, if I can't entirely convince myself it wasn't at least partly my fault after a year and a half do you think there is something you can say that will?  Have at it. The guilt doesn't hinder my existence. I still play with my girls and am happy in life. I am not consumed by it. I feel fulfilled by them in the compartments of my heart that are theirs to fill. I laugh and dream and love and hope. The guilt is still there and will always be I think. It is now a part of me just as my girls' smiles and laughter and my husband's love is. 

I went to the doctor and had the anatomy sonogram. The baby is healthy and beautiful with its 10 toes and 10 fingers. This is wonderful. Something I by no means am taking for granted. While the sonographer attempted to find and record the blood flow I held my breath that it was all alright. And it was. I wait often as though on a cliff precariously waiting for a heavy gust of tragic news to blow me over the edge. But all is well. Except that at 18 weeks I have not felt it move. I was told the placenta is anterior and as such it provides a cushion preventing me from feeling it. It is a perfectly safe medical reason for not feeling it move and we will continue this way until it (the sweet baby) is big enough to take up more space. 

My issue is this: How am I to know the baby is still moving if I can't feel it?  How am I supposed to know I'm not failing again if I have no idea if it's active?  My safety net in my head has been stolen by my own body again and I can only wait and trust that it will be okay. And I know, at least there's a reason why I can't feel the kicks besides...  Besides death. Yes I know. But that gives cold comfort when I was so counting on being able to be the diligent observer of the baby's movements in my own body. It was the preparation in my head. 

"We can try again," I thought," I want to try again. And this time I will be so careful to make sure the baby keeps moving. I will keep track and maybe this time I won't fail for it. I will be able to be so much more careful."  

But now?  How?  How am I supposed to let go and hope and trust that it will be ok? It makes me angry at myself (which I know makes no sense because none of this was my fault and I do mean NONE.. Yet still...), sad, disheartened, scared, helpless...  I lost my sweet Gabbie because I didn't know and didn't keep count and now? I can't count and know even less. The safety net in my head is gone. I am so thankful it is healthy, and am so terrified I'll miss it moving (that I won't even have that, those kicks and flutters) and it'll stop and I'll lose it without even those precious little movements and then what?  Then what?

Simultaneously pessimistically optimistic

It is New Year's Day. 

I am torn. It is part of me to hope. Ingrained. I choose to look for the best in things. Yet simultaneously I prepare myself for the darkness. Is it possible to be pessimistically optimistic?  

I anticipate seeing my baby in the screen and learning the sex of it in a little over a week while simultaneously considering that they might find something wrong too. I look forward to holding a newborn baby while simultaneously picturing the possibility of that newborn being still. I want to consider names that are strong and beautiful and perhaps related to heaven or inner strength so that they may always have strength while the image of what the name might look like carved in stone pops unbiddingly into my head. It is morbid and yet beautiful. I hope for a beautiful healthy baby and prepare for the real possibility of a beautiful silent and still one. 

Are you going to say it's not healthy to think this way?  But it would be entirely unhealthy for me to think that every pregnancy is unicorns, roses and rainbows; to be so disillusioned that this one will, most definitely, come home. Not every pregnancy ends in a mewling pink baby. If I prepare for it and then am left holding a silent one then what?  I get to say "I told you so"?  To who?  To myself? "I told you so you silly girl! It happened once it could happen again!"?

What if I walked around on cloud nine denying every possibility of darkness and presented the appearance that the world is always a wonderful sunshiny kind of place where nobody hurts or feels sad?  Would you think I've lost it?  Or maybe I should not blog, then no one would question either way the wiseness of such thinking either way. Maybe I should not share this part of me, this glimpse into the heart, perpetual anxiety, fear, flashbacks, and pain of many women who like me and my family have experienced a loss and like their silent baby remain silent. But I cannot. Writing is logical and cathartic when so much is not. 

So. I remain cautiously optimistic. It is my own self preservation, a defense mechanism. If I prepare for the possibility of being empty-armed leaving the hospital, a situation I never considered out of my own state of naïvety with Gabbie, maybe it won't hurt so badly if it happens again. 

So though I go on excited to see and hold this new baby cautiously optimistic of its arrival, I find it difficult to shop for it, name it, prepare for it, consider it. I do not daydream about its future, how it might arrive, or what it's visage may look like but I do consider how wonderful it would be to hold it. I love it already like I love any potentially realized dream, but more. However, to me it is still a 50/50, and I've only ever chosen the right option 50% of the time. But hey at least I've won it that many times right? My glass is still half full with the lips of Fate poised, to perhaps drink once more from my cup or perhaps to whisper softly if I'd like some more. I'd like some more I'd plead, if asked the question instead of Fate taking more. 

I guess I hesitatingly wait to see if 2014 is a giver or a taker and take all precautions to prevent it from taking too much. It's like dreaming of all the things you'd do if you won the big lotto, knowing it's a real possibility of not winning and that you'd only just been dreaming of a better existence all along. I love my life. A sweet pink baby would only enhance the blessings I've already been given by Her, that fickle Fate, and Him, a willful God. And it would be so wonderful to be given one more sweet tiny blessing. I hope with so much of me that 2014 giveth and does not taketh away.