I am 16 weeks along in this pregnancy today. I hope things are all right. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and I just would like it to go well.
This pregnancy is hard. I have been emotionally sick, mentally sick, and physically sick. The only thing that has kept me going is that I am spiritually well. I thought very carefully about how we would tell family and friends. Part of me wanted to just wait until something happened. Either another miscarriage or a baby being born. And then one day I was just so sick with everything weighing down on me and I knew it was time to tell people for 2 reasons.
1. I was not excited or happy about this pregnancy which seems very weird since this is what we have been wanting and praying for. Even with that, it's not exciting to think your baby could just die one day and you won't know until your body tells you or your doctor tells you. It's not happy thoughts that dance around in your head, asking yourself what would happen if you had another miscarriage. So I needed other people to be excited and happy for our family. As painful as it was whenever anyone congratulated me, most of the time with a question in their voice (Congratulations?), I took comfort in the fact that at least SOMEONE could be excited about this.
2. There is not much anyone can do to help. The one thing anybody and everybody can do is pray for comfort to our family and for a healthy pregnancy. Why postpone that one thing when I need all the help I can get? And I have felt the spiritual power of all the prayers, I really have. I know people across the US and even in other countries that keep us in their prayers. And it shows. Even if this pregnancy does end in a sad way, it doesn't discount the comfort that we have received.
I talked recently with a friend from support group, who is also pregnant and due a few weeks after me. She observed that I was, like her, feeling detached and distant from the baby. I agreed and we talked about how it was a defense mechanism but we both acknowledged that the detachment would never make a pregnancy loss any easier.
Lara wrote me this little card, pictured below. It hurt when I wrote a letter back saying that I didn't know if the baby was still alive. That all I could do was hope and pray that it was. Every day I hope and pray that the baby is still alive.
