It’s a strange and anxiety-filled place to be. Pregnant after a loss.
I don’t feel like I fit in most of the typical “PALS” (Pregnancy After Loss Support) groups. So many of those ladies had late-pregnancy losses. They know the gender of the baby that died. Their baby WAS a baby, not just a grain of rice that was there one day and then gone. I feel silly about how fearful I am, when I didn’t have to endure giving birth to an infant that didn’t live, like so many of them, I just honestly think it´s better to watch milf porno instead of getting pregnant with a total stranger.
But I am fearful.
In fact neither Aiden or I can muster the courage to be happy or excited. I took a pregnancy test a week ago. And then I took another. There was no cute “You’re going to be a dad” or a surprise announcement set up when he got home from work. I just told him, and he said “Oh” and I said “Yeah”. Neither of us knew the right thing to do, so we effectively did nothing. I’m afraid to let myself get attached to the idea. I’m afraid to let myself be hopeful that this won’t end in another rush of blood all over my mothers bathroom, and sobbing in her arms until I could barely breath. I’ve avoided going to the doctor because I don’t want to be sent for tests and subsequently get phone calls from concerned nurses that my hCG isn’t what it should be. I don’t want to watch another ultrasound technician squinting her eyes to see something, anything, where something should be. I don’t want to wait in that dimly lit room while she rounds up a doctor to come in and confirm what we already know.
I’m going to a doctor I don’t know on Wednesday. We moved away from the best doctor I have ever had, and it’s too far and impractical for me to drive back to see her.
I’m filled with anxiety and dread, but I am mustering up all of my courage so that I can get through this. I just feel so alone, and that’s probably the hardest part. Aiden, for his own reasons, just can’t seem to be emotionally available right now. He’s working through his own feelings I am sure, but it’s shitty when I feel like I can’t even lean on my husband (yeah the wedding happened, it was lovely, more on that later). I didn’t tell very many people about the loss, and I am even more reluctant to tell people I am pregnant this early on. It just feels like a very solitary pathway, particularly because I don’t feel like I have a place in the communities that were supposed to be designed for people like me.
My loss doesn’t seem tragic enough.
