After leaving the office that employs children, I drove home in a daze. Another child, really? Was I ready for this again? I'd outgrown dirty diapers and breastfeeding nearly two decades ago. Why in the world would this happen now? I wondered how this could happen, which is madder than a hatter, as I clearly know how babies are made. I am ashamed to say that I even had the thought (with some sense of relief) that I was a bit old to be having babies and I was more likely to miscarry than if I were younger. I don't have words to say how much this thought shames me now.
My other half was no less shocked than I, though I have to admit he handled it better than I did. It was actually his acceptance that made me change how I saw the situation. We started discussing baby names and visiting consignment shops. He even went online and bought the most adorable onesie ever:
After that, how could I NOT be excited? He was exactly the anchor that I needed to put this all in the right perspective. He did and said all of the right things, without even trying. Or knowing that he was doing it! That's priceless stuff right there.
Then something not so priceless happened. I started spotting. I tried not to worry; I knew it could happen and things could still be fine. It wasn't much at all, barely any. At first. Then it was a lot. I saw the doctor and found that I'd had a complete miscarriage. They call it complete when you don't require a procedure to remove any remaining tissue. I found that ironic, to call it complete when it meant that I wasn't. I found it hateful and horrible that the medical community would attach the word "complete" to such a thing. I was furious. This little life that I'd fought against even the idea of had become so important to me, so quickly. I'd almost forgotten what that part of motherhood felt like. I began to remember other parts of motherhood that I hadn't recalled in over a decade. I missed them. I felt cheated out of having them again. Then, the fury left and I began to feel like I'd done this to myself. Of course I had, right? I'd thought of a possible miscarriage with relief when I first learned of my pregnancy. I remembered how I felt that day and wanted to die of shame. I almost couldn't live with the guilt I felt. Again, it was my other half that saved me. He was amazing. He didn't pretend to understand my pain fully, but he shared with me the pain he felt. That was more than enough. We talked about nothing else for days. We grieved. We also discussed the new hope that this little life had brought to us. We'd both grown complacent in our lives, secure in the knowledge that we'd done all the things we were intended to. A baby on the horizon had made us see new possibilities, new futures that we'd never imagined. After this experience, we weren't sure we could go back to the way things were before. So we made the decision not to.
I'd always had a bit of judgement in my heart for women or couples that try to have another baby right after losing a child. I'd secretly felt that it was kind of ridiculous. I mean, you can't replace your child, right? I now understand just how awful I was for ever harboring such a thought. Of course no one really imagines that they can replace what has been lost. Sometimes you just have to find a way to move on, and that is the way some people find. For us, going back to what we were before was not an option. For us, the way forward was to try again for another little life. Not to replace what we'd lost, but to start a new chapter together, one full of hope and unexpected happiness.
These days life is not about searching out cute onesies, but determining which method of predicting ovulation is the best. None of our other children were planned, so this is a new arena for us. An arena that I expect we will do just fine in.
