Pregnancy After Loss

 You can tell me time heals all wounds all you want. You can try and tell me that the farther you get from one tragic life event to where you are now, the less it will hurt. Or you can try understanding that my reality determines where I stand with my trauma. 

This week was one for the books, a record-breaking emotional roller coaster, and man, am I beyond exhausted at this point, mentally, and emotionally, my brain is on fire, and I can’t seem to extinguish the flames so that I can rest. 

Pregnancy after miscarriage has been one of the hardest, scariest, most challenging things I have experienced. 

Getting pregnant again after so much loss wasn’t easy, secondary infertility lingered around, and the negative test results were just as devastating as before. 

The mental and emotional aspects of getting pregnant again were overwhelming; the doubts of if this was the right choice, the right time, or the right thing played like a broken record in my mind. 

I had so many people flooding me with their thoughts and opinions, church members saying it’s all a part of God's timing and plan. Friends telling me that it’s no one’s choice but mine and my husband's, to doctors and therapists making me feel ashamed for wanting to grow my family so soon after a tragic loss and my near suicide. I felt forced to choose between my mental health and my emotional health. My heart and soul longed for a baby, to grow as a mother, and to expand my family with my husband and children. Yet I couldn’t seem to get my primary care doctor or the APRN psychiatrist I was seeing to help me find a medication that I could take to manage my mental health AND be safe for my baby should I become pregnant. So I had to make my own choices. I had to take ALL of my health into my own hands and choose what I felt was right. 

Damn, was that difficult, and damn did every step of the way feel like any direction I chose was the wrong one. 

I wanted to scream at people and tell them to “SHUT UP!” They had so much to say, and I couldn’t even hear myself think.

After the loss of Jesse in May of 2022 the months' drug on, while it only took four months to become pregnant again, it felt like an eternity. The endless list of doctors appointments, the carefully planned events, to the food and drink choices I made and the timed days of medications I has to take so my body do its job, the ultrasounds and the blood draws. It was all very important and had to be precise. 

After we loss Jesse rjw next four months looked like this:

June-negative (this wasn’t a surprise. We weren’t ready, but it’s crazy that even though you know or expect a test to be negative how it hurts just seeing it in real life.) 

July-negative 

August-positive, just kidding, chemical pregnancy and miscarriage. 

September- Positive, please baby stick, please stay positive. 

I probably took 20+ pregnancy tests in those first few weeks.

I have struggled immensely, over the past 24 weeks, in every way possible. Emotionally, physically, and mentally. I still check the toilet paper for blood every time I use the restroom. 

This pregnancy has been extremely isolating and exhausting to navigate because I’ve had to deal with most of it alone. No one seems to understand how I could be so sad because I “should be grateful to be pregnant again with our sweet rainbow baby”

Yet, at the feeling of any cramping, spotting, or pain, my mind immediately jumps to the worst-case scenario. I find even on the days I’m too busy to feel the baby move because I’m up and moving around, even though I logically know that when I’m moving, it will rock him to sleep, still, I can’t settle my mind until he moves, or I find his heartbeat on my Doppler. Sometimes both. 

All of that said, something I’m trying to help others understand about pregnancy after loss is that Just because you are pregnant again doesn’t mean that you’ve forgotten or gotten over the loss of your other child. It just does not work that way. You’re mourning, and grief doesn’t just cease because you fall pregnant again and have joy and excitement for what is to come. They now co-inhabitant and occupy the same space. There is no other option than  feel both at the same time. Some days I’m more joyful. Some days I’m filled with sadness. Both days I’m valid.  

There are days when I find myself obsessing about my baby’s movements, and while maybe that’s not normal, I don’t know if it is or not, yet I do know that it is OK, at least in my opinion; remember, this is my experience with my trauma. Losing a pregnancy and then going through another pregnancy is nothing short of traumatic. Every milestone, every doctor's appointment, every ultrasound, and every little kick is a reminder for me of the things that I didn’t get to experience with Jesse or the other babies I lost due to chemical pregnancy. It is like I’m reliving my trauma every minute of every day. I and I can’t escape it. Grief doesn’t just go away. It’s ever-present, and it all seems surreal. 

I'm constantly thinking about how this baby will be a little brother to Jesse, that he’s NOT my first son, that he’s my second, yet when people say, “oh, is this your first boy?” or “oh the first boy in the family!” I have to decide, do I smile and say “yeah, we are so excited!” Or do I stop and correct them and let them know that my first son died in May of 2022 due to a miscarriage? No matter what I choose, thoughts of sorrow will flood my soul. Over and over. For the rest of my life, this will be my new reality. 

This is supposed to be one of the happiest moments in my life, and it is accompanied by some of the most tremendous grief now. And will be Forever. 

As we get closer and closer to bringing our baby boy into this world, there are reminders, at every turn, of what isn’t. 

I’m madly in love with this baby, and I have learned to watch what I say to people because I don’t want people to think I’m ungrateful for him, because I am however,  there is always this aching in my heart that doesn’t make sense because this isn’t how it was supposed to be. 

As we make plans and put together his nursery, I find that entangled with the excitement is sorrow. This is our baby's room, THIS baby's room. Yet I feel waves and grief because it was supposed to be Jesse I was holding in this room. It was supposed to be Jesse I was lying in that crib. 

I’m by no means saying that I’m not excited to hold this baby, to rock him, and to watch him grow, but I’m struggling with mourning and rejoicing at the same time. It’s not something I can easily explain. It’s not something I even easily understand myself. 

How do I learn to navigate this? How do I learn to look beyond the grief and only see the excitement? Is that even possible? Logical? Is it okay to sit with grief and wonder “what if” alongside of what is? 

For how long? 

There are so many unanswered questions, ones that will never hold answers for me. I have to learn to be okay with that. I have to understand and accept that this is just how it will be. I have to learn to see past the shadows to kick against the darkness until it bleeds daylight, to learn to love while I’m in so much pain. To learn how to be a mom to a baby in heaven and my babies on this earth. 

I have to learn to adjust, and I have to adapt not to survive but to thrive. 

And it’s hard.

And I’m scared. 

And I need you to help me navigate my new normal.