I’ve been struggling with a lot of emotions and feelings I’m not even carroting.
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
With the anatomy scan really weighing on me, even with so many supports and knowing a little bit what to do now with practicing mindfulness, and even with having a normal anatomy scan with my last living baby, it still stirs up flashbacks of the same fears and doesn’t take away the risks. What if something is horribly wrong? I can’t fully shake it until I get past that part, so I am just trying to take in the days as best I can.
I do look forward to this scan for the reassurance it may bring, and I know once I know that baby is healthy and OK, I will begin to breathe again.
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
With thinking about carrots this week, I can see a little more clearly now my seven angels making up all the colors of a rainbow ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜(& indigo). I already have my “rainbow,” and somehow, that brings me comfort right now. So, I’m holding onto that with my breath this week. Right now, it does bring me some sense of calm during this scary, uncertain, and anxious season. There’s really no right or wrong way to cope with it.
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
My daughter asked me, “Will this baby need a feeding tube?” Or, “Will this baby be very small, and we need to dress it?”
I notice how innocent that question is, how she wonders because I help out a little girl with one, and how she can’t wait to dress our little baby. She’s just so excited, wanting this baby out already, asking, “How much longer, mommy?” These simple questions strike me in strange ways as I can’t explain how there’s no rush to have them out as we’ve had babies born around this time before.
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
I’m doing whatever I need to do to get through these next few weeks. For now, I’m doing the best I can!
Queue the candles, coffee, tea, books, walks, blankies, and really focus on noticing daily delights.
I try to soak in this time, turning up the vivid clarity of these moments, not trying to rush them but letting them just be that, moments we are in until the next one. And, right now, we’re in a good one where baby is growing, and so is our love for them, these precious moments, and each other.
Accessing Calmness
Sometimes there’s such a peace that you can’t put into words and I found that on this day that I went to the lake.
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
After this peaceful moment, I went about my day. But, this time, it sank in as I floated to the surface, only my breath keeping me up. As soon as I forgot to breathe, I came crashing down below the water, the sky so pure the twinkling of light overhead guiding me back up, completely lost in direction and then realizing I never moved from my same spot, just held right there, the weightlessness of me and my baby. As I held my belly everything came to the surface–all my fears, things I needed to do, anxieties, shattered experiences, losses. But, this peace is what I needed to experience to know I can come right back to this place whenever I want. I could have done this all day as I let my feet touch the sand. Standing up, the tears flooded.
I was one with the water, so calm, not even feeling waves or movement of any kind at all. As my tears fell, I could see more waves, the sand softer, my vision more clear. I wanted to sink back to remember. I looked up, and there were now clouds, and at the shore, there were people that weren’t there before. This peaceful moment had passed, and I got to glimpse it. It was now time to come back and brace reality again but knowing I could access this peace inside any time. It is there, and I have nothing to be afraid of. As I got to my van I found a cracked open chestnut and when filled with sand showed the perfect heart. I can do this!
Author’s Personal Collection/Carmen Grover
Inside, there is bliss, even on the days this place is inaccessible with rain or cold and changing seasons. I know how to experience and come back to calm.
3…2…1..: Relax, relax, relax.
Where do you go to access your calm? Come back to that place or it over and over again, and it will get easier to put ourselves in that place as we encounter never-ending anxiety. We can make it pause for a second.
Read Past Bump Day Blogs from Carmen:
- Carmen’s Bump Day Bog, Week 17: Feeling Peppery
- Carmen’s Bump Day Blog, Week 16: Fluttery Feet and Heart
- Carmen’s Bump Day Blog, Week 15: Caring for Myself and My Babies
- Carmen’s Bump Day Blog, Week 14: I Can Do This!
- The Proven Benefits of Meditation and Yoga in Pregnancy
- How to Talk to Your Living Children About Being Pregnant After a Previous Loss
- Dear Rainbow Baby, I Promise to Love You—Even If
- Managing Anxiety During the Anatomy Scan of Your Pregnancy After Loss
- 6 Coping Skills for Managing Stress During Your Pregnancy After a Loss
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