What I am about to write about is a topic that I never planned to write about on here. This is not something that I wanted to focus my writing on, but I realized that I can’t not write about it. I created this blog to teach myself about accepting and embracing the imperfect, and as usually happens in life, I was thrown a curve ball (two actually), and I am trying to make sense of it all.
I created this blog in June 2017 - almost seven months ago. I have not kept up with my writing. It took me five months for me to publish my first post, and it has been over a month since my last post. I have been very distracted. Consumed actually, as I have spent almost 5 of the last 7 months pregnant. During these months, I lost two babies: the first at 8 weeks, and the second at 12 weeks. These months have been hard. When I found out I was pregnant, I felt excitement and joy - my heart happily anticipating our family growing from a family of three to a family of four - followed by grief and sorrow over losing the tiny promise of life growing inside of me. Twice.
Our second loss is still very new. The pain is still so fresh that it makes my heart stop and takes my breath away. We spent Christmas celebrating the life that we thought was still growing only to find out two days later that the baby stopped growing almost two weeks earlier. I was by myself when I learned the news, and I called my husband to tell him "they think I lost the baby." My almost-3-year-old-daughter, who was sitting close by, heard my words and started crying, “Is my sister okay? Is my sister okay?” My heart broke completely in that moment. She knew there was a baby growing in Mommy’s belly, and she called the baby “her sister” even though we didn’t know whether the baby was a girl or a boy. As it turned out, she was right...the baby was her baby sister.
We tried our best to explain to our sweet girl that her sister would live in heaven instead of with us, and it is has just been heart-wrenching. We told her that we can (and that we would) still love the baby very much. E repeated those words several times: We can still love the baby. She doesn’t completely understand, but she understands enough to show sadness when we talk about it. At first, she talked about her baby sister and blew kisses to heaven, but after a few days, she no longer seemed to want to talk about her baby sister. She doesn't want to blow as many kisses to heaven. I can understand this, but it also makes me worry about the hurt in her heart and how her mind is processing all of this. I know I am still processing. How could she possibly understand when I don't? But I guess some things are not meant for us to understand.
These last 12 days (actually, the last seven months) have been such an emotional roller coaster. The emotions just keep coming. They catch me off guard and change depending on the moment.
I feel grief. My heart aches for our losses, for the little lives growing inside me, for the future we had been planning. I feel grief for my daughter who was so excited to be a big sister and to have a little sister.
I feel guilt. I feel guilty that my babies were unable to grow inside of me. Even though my mind understands that this was most likely not my fault, I still feel guilt. I feel guilty that we shared the news of the baby with our daughter so soon and that she felt such excitement and happiness, and now we have taken all that away from her...like a promise we couldn't keep. It is not fair for her to experience this kind of loss, and I feel like it is all my fault. I feel guilty at the thought of not giving her a brother or a sister. After two consecutive miscarriages and with my 38th birthday coming soon, I feel like having a second baby may not be possible for us. I feel guilty that I waited so long, and I feel guilty that E may grow up as an only child with two older parents. My heart just breaks for her and for us too.
I feel grateful. I feel so incredibly grateful for my amazing daughter. She is the heart of my heart, the heart of my soul, the love of my life. She is my world. During this difficult time, I am reminded how lucky I am to have her. I always knew she was such a beautiful miracle, but oh my...with these two losses, I am reminded what a true miracle she really is.
I know that a decision about where to go from here should not be made in these early moments of grief, but it is hard not to question everything. I don’t know what the future will bring, but right now I’m just sad. I'm sad for what could have been. I'm sad for what may or may not be. But even in these deep moments of sadness, I know I am so lucky. There are so many wonderful and beautiful moments happening in front of me right now...and there are so many precious moments with my little girl. These moments come and go so very quickly, and soon these moments will turn into years. I don’t want to miss these moments.
It is important to me - now more than ever - to appreciate and treasure everything right now in this very moment. I want to let go of my fear of what may or may not happen. I want to give up my questioning of the past. I want to be grateful for all that I have because I have so much to be grateful for in my life. But it's still hard. I'm still sad. But I am also so, so grateful.
And we will still love our babies very much. Always.
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