There are a lot of things that I have been able to let go of, push them out, come to terms with the fact that it happened and I can heal and move on but there are also things that I just keep holding on to and I get angry with myself for allowing it to happen.
Two years ago, at a very inconvenient time in my life, I was pregnant. Oh what a blessing! Ummm. Sure. In my case it was more like "Oh Crap! Where are we going to fit one more person in the budget let alone the house or my Jeep!?" We live in a small 3 bedroom house and we barely have room for all of us. Bursting at the seams is an understatement.
Please don't think I'm ungrateful and wouldn't love a new baby to pieces because I finally wrapped my head around it and came to terms with the fact that I was going to be splitting my time between 4 beautiful children. I was in love with the idea actually. However, other members of the household weren't so happy and it was a bit of a buzz kill.
I pushed on though.
We tip toed around the pregnancy subject for a while until everyone became more comfortable with the idea and soon it didn't seem like such a bad thing. Sure, we were going to be so broke we'd have to grow our own food and sell everything we valued to keep afloat but how is a baby ever a bad thing?
Things with the pregnancy were normal, my levels were normal blah blah! I was tired all the time and couldn't keep up with the toddler but I managed. I took my vitamins, cut out 97 percent of the caffeine and ate way more fruits and veggies than humanly possible. I craved salads all the time. I would wake up in the middle of the night and want a salad!
Soon I was picking out names, for a boy. Little overalls and plaid shirts were all I saw. A sweet little boy in a ball cap, chasing my husband around, that's what I imagined. It was a sweet thought but a thought that would sadly never become reality.
There are so many women out there who suffer the loss of a child. No matter how far along we are into the pregnancy there is always the "would've been's or what if's", always that heartache. We ask ourselves what we did wrong. I've gone over it in my head so many times. Was I not a good enough mom? I would've made it work, I know it! What else could I have done?
Does it matter now? It's in the past. I guess not but there's still that idea that I did something wrong or that maybe I was wrong to think I had enough love to go around. Why do we do this to ourselves? I think it's a quality that all mothers have, the ability to take on things that are out of our control and then feel extreme guilt when we can't move mountains.
I went in for a regular appointment for a check up. I felt fine. The midwife helped me onto the "slab" to listen to the baby's heart beat and after about 10 minutes of searching, she brought out the ultrasound machine...........my baby didn't have a heartbeat.
I could see her tiny little nub hands and feet. She was bigger than I thought she would be. All I could do was stare at her black and white image on the screen. I couldn't cry. I felt like someone was sitting there telling me "Sorry, you're just not what we're looking for right now. You can't be this child's mother." It's so silly now that I think about it. I felt like I couldn't cry in front of anyone over a baby I didn't deserve or didn't have the money to support in the first place.
And yes, it turns out, the baby was a girl but you know what, she would've been the cutest little thing in overalls and a ball cap, just like her big sister.
The next day, I had surgery. I came home in a daze and silently mourned my baby, the baby that I felt I had no right to mourn. I refused to ask for help. I stayed in my room and hid from my family, refusing to pick myself back up because I didn't feel I deserved to. Time has gone by so fast that it hardly seems like two years. Yet, here I am, beating myself up on the Internet. A pile of Kleenex sitting on the table by my laptop. Ewww. I'll make sure to use a Clorox wipe later. This is not a cry for sympathy. This is a call for women to stop beating ourselves up over things that we just can't control. I'll have my cry and then I'll keep going because to do it any other way would be counter productive.
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