We mamas expect to face a lot of troubles during a pregnancy after loss.
We expect to have high anxiety and worry about the little things.
We expect to take every little bit of the pregnancy in and maybe even celebrate it.
We even expect to grieve a bit.
I knew all this going in. I asked for it in many ways, and prepared myself (I thought) to deal with all the intricacies that come with pregnancy after stillbirth.
I announced my pregnancy earlier than most would choose to and have kept my social media moderately updated to the progression of my rainbow babe. I experienced crazy amounts of anxiety and worried about things I didn’t even consider ever before. I celebrated every day with my little, took piles of bump pics, and counted down the weeks.
And, of course, I grieved too.
I grieved through all the little milestones, the well-meaning questions or comments made by strangers about this being my first, the ultrasounds, the physical changes. All of these things brought my boys to mind, and I had to learn over again how to keep moving forward without them here with me.
All of this didn’t prepare me for these last couple of weeks of déjà vu.
Most assume that passing the gestational period at which I lost the boys would mean that all could return to normal and I could then proceed to birth as any other woman would.
At the very least, many would think that I could then be assured of my “chances” improving and the days coming closer.
And part of me believed they’d be right.
After all, I’d waited and wished for over two years to finally have the chance at my rainbow, so what’s a couple weeks more?
Déjà vu.
How could I be feeling as though I’d lived this waiting and wondering period if my only previous experience leading up to delivery was tragedy?
Why was it that each day that passed felt like a week. And each “week,” seemed all too familiar, yet I was still pregnant with a *living* baby.
It clicked today.
Re-watching an old favorite television show to pass the time, sitting on the couch again feeling that I’d lived all this before, and suddenly I understood.
These last days I have felt a complete loss of control, my life on hold while I wait for an act of God to tell me it is time for my babe to come. I never “made it” to this waiting stage with the boys as I had an induction intended and life whirl-winding into the day we found out they’d left us. But the weeks following their delivery, in my deep grief I experienced this same feeling of complete lack of control of my life.
Those days I passed the time pumping, napping, watching Netflix, and crying.
And aside from the pumping, those same things seem to fill my days again.
In both situations, well-meaning people told me cliché things in the hopes to help me feel better about how I’m feeling, even though the things they say are never what you want to hear when going through the thick of it.
In both situations I sat, waiting, pleading, crying, praying, and wondering.
I’d never have guessed that waiting for my rainbows arrival would so effectively throw me back to the tender days following the death of my sons. And feeling this way now, I can only imagine the disbelief and hurt that Me from two years ago would feel.
Right now, I have everything she’d wished for then. If she knew I felt how I’ve been feeling, that Me would probably want to come shake some sense into me, and scream at me telling me just how lucky I am.
And I want more than anything to FEEL that.
I KNOW I am blessed. I do realize it. But this anxiety, this déjà vu, this powerless feeling is devastating.
There are gleaming moments in which I feel the abundant anticipation and sheer bliss at being so close to meeting my little on earth. Those fleeting moments come fewer and farther between as these days go by, but they keep me going.
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