I had lunch today with a very good friend. She, her husband, and 2 of her 3 children came over for lunch. Her children are 4, 2 1/2 and 8 months. She was one of the first friends I saw after Riley died. She was so supportive, and cried with me, and let me talk about the whole situation. But every pregnancy she's had has gone perfectly. She's never had a problem/scare/question regarding her pregnancies or births.
So today we started talking about the possibility of us trying to conceive again. And I said how, come May, D and I will have a decision to make. Since I've now got an IUD it's not like we can just "see what happens". We are going to have to make a conscious decision as to whether or not we're going to try again.
And I said to her, "I know I really want another child, I just don't know if I have the courage and the strength to go through the fear and stress of pregnancy for 40 weeks".
Her response: but there's no reason to think that anything will happen. Your past pregnancies were flukes, one-offs, they're not related.
And she just couldn't understand.
That's what we said with Neil - well our first pregnancy was so awful, we can't go through anything worse. And he was born 9 weeks premature.
Then with Riley we said - well, we've been hit enough already, nothing else can go wrong, right? And Riley died at 29 weeks.
So do I really want to take my chances again? Shouldn't I just count my blessings and stop at one?
But I really want another child. So I honestly don't know what to do. D. is perfectly happy with our family of 3. But me, I really, really want another child. So I don't know. How will I know if I'm ready to try again? And what if something happens again? how will I handle it? how will I manage? It's just so terrifying.
Of course you're terrified. You've had multiple traumatic experiences around being and staying pregnant.
ReplyDeleteBut let me (gently) ask you this: is there a reason that you feel you need to make this decision now? It hasn't even been six months since you suffered this last terrible loss.
What if you gave yourself six more months. Don't visit the issue for another six months. For six months, be a family of three and live in those moments as much as you can. And then after six months, sit down and look at where you are. Are you still terrified? You'll always be scared - that's not going to ever go away. But if you're not as terrified then as you are now, you may look at taking those first steps. Or, you may decide you need another 6 months. And see where you are then.
Time doesn't heal all wounds, Cat. If I told you that, I'd be lying. But time does allow us to distance ourselves from the trauma of those wounds and perhaps see a bit more clearly.
Does that make sense?