Fear

You want the truth?

I'm very scared.

It's not something I like to admit, even to myself, except in the deepest, darkest hours of the night. These are thoughts I lock away, in a tiny black box, at the back of my mind. Otherwise, I would go crazy.

Once your innocence is lost, it is gone forever. This should be an easy pregnancy. Everything is perfect. All indications are that spawn is completely healthy, right on track. If this was my 2nd pregnancy, right after my perfectly easy, textbook experience with Shea, I would be relaxed, unworried.

Instead I worry all the time.

When something is seen, it cannot be unseen. I've been introduced to the world of support groups, in which perinatal loss includes not only people like me, who have lost newborns, but also those who have suffered stillbirth or other third trimester loss. I have heard heartbreaking stories, so many, many stories, of little ones lost at birth or at 30+ weeks of pregnancy.

And the thing is, most of the time, they thought everything was fine, until it wasn't. One day the baby's fine, the next the movement stops.

So, I worry. I never feel like it's safe. I feel like I can't become complacent, lest I jinx myself.

Anecdotes aren't data. I know the odds are on my side. I've done this before, I have a beautiful little boy to prove that there is such a thing as an easy, stress-free pregnancy. Happy endings do happen. Heck, happy endings happen most of the time.

I don't want to rush anything. I want spawn to cook as long as possible. May 2nd sounds like a great day to be born, and that's what I want the plan to be.

But 6 weeks is suddenly feeling interminable.

"In the home stretch!", people say. "Almost there! It's coming up fast!"

All true, but the closer we get to the finish line, the more anxious I feel. I just want to curl up on my bed and gestate. Just lie there and focus on my baby boy kicking and growing until I can actually hold him.

I'm so frustrated, I feel like this should be getting easier, but it's getting harder. I'm distracted and manic and lethargic and overly sensitive, all at the same time.

So I force myself not to worry. I ignore the anxiety. It is too paralyzing, and I have no time for it. I put one foot in front of the other, I get through every day, I do what I need to do.

Still... it's what I think about when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I miss normal anxiety, the reasonable worry of "how do I do this?" or "will I be able to handle two kids?" or "do I have everything I need?"

For the first time, tonight, I read through the notes that people wrote for us after Harper's memorial service. I needed that. It made me cry. Quite a lot, actually. It is making me cry now. But it also reminded me that along with the fear and the changed world view and the anxiety and the sadness came a lot of love, a lot of positive emotions. A lot of lives touched.

Like, Shea, who is terribly sick today, reminded me that the worry doesn't end when they enter the world. It never really stops. All you can do is muddle your way through, do the best you can, and hope your love is enough.

Just 6 more weeks.