28 Weeks

I'm in a funk. I think it only started yesterday, although I suppose I can't be certain. Except, I'm pretty sure I was feeling fine on Monday. Anyway, it's not really important. Perhaps my sad mood is due to the rain. Rainy days past, rainy days right now, with more rainy days ahead. Or perhaps it is because subconsciously my emotions were telling me that I am nearing the point in pregnancy when we lost Calvin.

I was between twenty-eight and twenty-nine weeks pregnant he died. I am twenty-eight weeks and one day pregnant today. My previous pregnancy has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been thinking about what it means to lose a baby. But I can't quite seem to wrap my head around it.

Some days are like that I suppose. Grief is like that. Some days it feels fresh and raw. Some days can go by where I hardly think about all we went through last year. And then some days it feels just out of my reach, like a dream I am trying to grasp at or a vision that I can't quite focus on.

How did we get here?

Where exactly is "here"?

I love this baby growing inside me. But I am afraid of loving this baby, too. She already brings so much joy and excitement to our lives, yet I'm terrified of losing her. I'm terrified of the sadness her arrival will inevitably bring forth. Joy for her, of course. But sadness for my most recent birth experience that did not end with a living baby.

When I think about what our life could look like, I don't even know what to picture. April marked eight months since Calvin's death, but had he been healthy, he most likely would've been born about six months ago. I guess that's why looking at "could" or "should" doesn't really work. The reality is where we're at now, not what "could" or "should" have happened.

(And besides all that, I wouldn't be pregnant with this baby if Calvin had been delivered full term. That's a whole other complication I can't even scratch the surface of.)

I know that a lot of my thoughts and feelings are normal. I know that there will be a full rainbow of emotions that appear throughout this pregnancy after loss and my grief. I know that feelings will come and go and there will be triggers, some I can prepare for and others that take me by surprise. I know I am doing the best that I can, riding the waves as best I can, just hoping I can take them one at a time and that none of them drag me under for too long.

And I have to accept that it is possible to feel sadness over losing Calvin, and happiness about this baby girl curled up under my ribs all at the same time. Somehow, the heart is hard at work, embracing the complexity of joy and grief together.

xoxo, christine