Time and again
Last time I was this pregnant was the day my baby died. It was a busy, crazy day that turned into the evening our after started. Our son was born the next day. That was exactly eighteen months ago.
I want to say something profound. Dates, numbers, coincidences. I also want to say that it's just a day, it holds no power. (Right? Right?) The boy who is still alive in me is no more or less likely to die today than any other day. But today I am unmistakably more anxious than yesterday.
He looks like his brother. We know that from the ultrasounds. It started with the nose. I saw it on the anatomical scan, and almost gasped. A had this weird nose that nobody else in the family has. Of all things, I didn't expect the nose. Since then we have seen the cheeks, which are not surprising-- they are my dad's, mine, Monkey's, and A's. Other features are less clear, but the time before last the ultrasound tech pointed out his big hands (A had long fingers) and that he had some hair. A's hair was curly.
Is it just that were he to be born today, I would know what to expect? What he would look like, what his weight would feel like in my arms? He is smaller than A was, but not by much-- half a pound or so, likely. That was the thought I was working on this weekend, as the doctors worked to stop my preterm labor-- that I may, in a matter of hours, again hold my son in my arms, that were that to happen, I would need to let myself be in both places at once, simply because I don't think I could stop myself from going back.
The birthing rooms in my hospital are pretty similar, though the beds in some face one way, and in some-- the other. The rooms where I had given birth to my two children so far happen to frame one side of the same wall of rooms-- Monkey's right up by the ORs, and A's down the other end of the hall, where there would be minimal interaction with the world of live babies being born, where they could then walk us out through the back door, so we wouldn't have to run into any happy people. The room where I was this weekend, fittingly, I guess, was half way down the hall between the rooms where Monkey and A were born. This room was set up the same way as Monkey's, with the bed in the room facing the bed in A's birth room. If I peered really hard through the walls, and through time, I could see us in that other room. Monkey's birth was behind me, has been for over six years now. A's, in some way, was, and still is, in front of me.
So tell me, please, if you have had a subsequent birth already, how did it feel? How did it go? If you are still hoping for one, what goes through your mind as you think of it? Or do you give that part any thought at all? If you are not going to get one, what does that do to you?
julia | Thursday, July 31, 2008
Reader Comments (31)
We are still waiting on the right time to try for another child, and I am terrified. I worry that I will spend the entire pregnancy full of fear and anxiety and somehow harm the baby. I worry that the same thing will happen and I will be utterly broken by it. I am completely incapable of picturing myself with a healthy, happy, live baby to take home. I am hoping all of that will be washed away by the excitement of a new pregnancy.... but I worry.
Thank you for this post. It's beautiful, so well written and so full of all of the emotion and imagery we all know so well.
Well, as you know, my subsequent birth didn't happen at the same hospital. So I didn't have to think about the significances of room placement.
My first birth happened in an OR surrounded by chaos and fear with doctors and nurses I didn't know, but who tried their best to be kind, Baby Man's in a lovely birthing suite with a doctor I knew and the sweetest, most encouraging and sensitive nurses. A very kind med student even stayed with me during the first part, chatting lightly. It was calm, controlled, and every time he was checked the monitors showed him responding exactly as he should. There was not a moment where anything seemed dangerous for either of us.
And still I panicked. I had not wanted an epidural, but I took one after some hours because I just needed to calm down. With every contraction I remembered Natan's birth, and as they came faster I couldn't push the bad thoughts out. So I took the epidural to give me the chance to gather my thoughts and actually try to enjoy the experience. Which, after that, I'm happy to say I really did. It was an absolute dream come true.
I never thought it would be possible that I could look back at labor with nostalgia, and I do. I wish I could remember the details even more clearly than I do. I was so, so lucky that the second time around it went beautifully. It was tremendously healing.
I wish it could be the same for everyone.
I can't even imagine wanting to try again, so I'm no help. Far to many ghosts, starting with "Let's have another."
I am not going to tell you that a subsequent pregnancy is magical and amazing because, the truth is, it is the scariest thing you will ever go through.
There is an article about it here: http://www.asmallvictory.org/articles/pregnancy_after_loss.php (I'm sorry, I can't find the original article).
The thing about it is that your innocence is gone. You now know that reality is that you may not bring your baby home from the hospital. And that not every story has a happy ending.
But, if you want another baby, you should still do it. Having my two children after we lost our Janell was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I have two beautiful children out of it.
You couldn't pay me to get pregnant again however.
My husband and I are starting to think about trying again- still way off in the distance, probably six or more months down the road. It will be the same hospital, same team of doctors, same nurses. In a way that's comforting, yet horrible at the same time.
I have a very real 1 in 3 chance of ending up right back here, and that's where my focus is right now. Can I really do this again? Where would I be, where would my husband be, how would our marriage survive? Can I really stand in a cemetary with a little white casket again? I'm not sure; I have a lot of thinking to do. Is it worth the risk? I don't know yet.
For a split second sometimes, I find myself imagining leaving the hospital with a little person in my arms, and I think, yeah, that would be worth it all.
In the first weeks after Charlotte, I found myself almost panicked when I heard of friends and acquaintances having their babies. Same hospital, same staff. I couldn't imagine those fateful rooms and hallways holding anything but anxiety and sorrow. I couldn't believe that people had the best, most miraculous day of their entire lives in those same rooms, with those same people. In a way, I still can't imagine it.
Best day for them, worst day for me. I honestly don't know how I'll feel if I get to experience it again with a better outcome. Too many feelings to count.
I can't even imagine a birth with a real live baby. All I know is one of silence pierced by my own sobs. So I don't go there in my mind when I think about next time. Because when I do I can't breathe. All I know is that my mental state will be questionable, to put it politely. Which might then lead you to question why I would consider doing this again. And all I can say to that is primal urge. If I could be in a val.ium haze for 9 months with no ill effects on a baby, I would. But that's just wishful thinking. Kind of like thinking that it won't happen again.
My first child died less than a year ago. She was born just shy of 23 weeks and lived for fifteen minutes as her father and I sang to her, held her, had her baptized, and kissed her as she died. It was a terrible, terrible experience.
I am pregnant again, and it is terrifying. I am currently at 30 weeks, so if this child were born tomorrow chances of survival would be very high, but I still live in a state of worry. When I haven't felt him/her move for a while, when he/she moves too much, when something just doesn't feel right, I worry. I don't think I am allowing myself to believe that I will bring home a live baby this time around. Any time I don't feel the baby move, I start imagining what the funeral will need to be like and whether or not there is a plot near I's grave. And then I remind myself of the God I believe in, and I do kick counts, and then I can breathe again.
On one hand I am resentful that my innocence has been lost. But on the other hand I am thankful that I take nothing for granted with this pregnancy. Each milestone and each moment is a big deal and something to be celebrated. In fact, I am lying in bed right now watching my belly shift with the baby's movement, and I am in awe. I never was able to experience this with his/her big sister.
I take this pregnancy day by day, and sometimes minute by minute. I don't know if I will ever be able to do this again, but I am doing it now.
If things go as planned (though we all know they often don't), I will deliver my baby in December--a couple days to a couple of weeks before the anniversary of my first baby's death. Even if the baby is alive and healthy, I can't imagine having a newborn, being postpartum, and facing that anniversary, perhaps in part because I don't want to imagine facing that anniversary and the days leading up to it.
I will deliver at a different hospital this time: the hospital where my first baby died because it is the only hospital in our area with a NICU. It is the hospital where my first baby spent the first nine days of is life, was intubated and held briefly before being shipped to another hospital at four months, and eventually died. I have to drive around the hospital for all my OB appointments and go in for my ultrasounds, each visit flooding me with memories.
This pregnancy has been hard. Each appointment, each ultrasound fills me with anxiety. Will this be the time we find something is wrong? Our latest ultrasound looked good, which is a relief only in that there is nothing known to be wrong now. But it could be there . . . it was there last time, a hole in the heart hiding from us, but even when they found it nobody expected things to be as bad as they were.
My first baby lived for 6 1/2 months. I keep saying I won't relax until this baby is out and I can see that he or she is okay. But I wonder if I'll believe things are okay even then.
Alongside the fear of never having a living child is my fear of actually birthing a living child. It's the being conscious for the giving birth part that I fear, that the physical act will trigger some flashback from the boys' births that will throw me into some sort of traumatized state. And/or that it will negatively affect my relationship with any living child who we are lucky enough to bring into the world.
I think my fear is that I'm too damaged now to take any joy (or positive feelings) at all from the process of growing another child, and bringing it into the world, being able to bring it into the world alive and healthy.
So, yeah, that's how f*cked up I am.
Hoping you still have a ways to go, Julia, and that the healthy birth of this boy is full of joy for you and your family.
I was admitted to the hospital to deliver Myles through the same surgical prep room where I found out that Travis was dead. It was...in a word...overwhelming. I was tense and emotional. From there, though, there were no similarities...something I am eternally grateful to the universe for. I delivered Travis (and Alex before him) vaginally. Myles was a planned c-section. Then there was that moment when we heard him cry and the doctor said we was "fine...perfect." The floodgates opened for both Steve and I. It was as if, in that moment, the reality of this being different settled in to stay. Also, I was in a different postpartum room and Myles was in the NICU (where Travis had been left with me in my room so I could say goodbye). As scary as the NICU was, it gave me something to focus on other than past experiences. I am glad that it went the way it did. I'm glad I have those memories of Myles that aren't overshadowed by his dead brother(s).
I don't know. Everyone handles it differently. I just hope it is gentle on you, however it plays out.
Having only lost one child at 5 months, and not getting pregnant with another [yet], I can't imagine what you are going through. But, I am envious of the fact that you get a chance to wash away the past even just a bit. That you will get to experience a birth, with what I am hopeful, will bring life at its end. For that--I would rejoice--as my body has yet to experience giving me the gift of life, at least not in its entirety.
I haven't had a subsequent pregnancy (and likely won't), but I returned to the same hospital floor where we lost our son just 4 months later when my SIL had her baby. Our babies were due just a month apart so it was very difficult being back there seeing what should have been happening to me, which was having a healthy baby. Seeing happy relatives where so much sadness had been just a few months earlier hit me hard.
I never did have a subsequent pregnancy. 10 years down the road and 47 years old, I know it's not in the cards. There are some days I'm more accepting of that than others.
About four years ago, a client/friend from our IRL loss support group had a daughter, prematurely at 27 weeks (after losing a son at 24 weeks), at the same hospital where I delivered Katie. She was even staying in the same wing, which is adjacent to the NICU & serves mostly stillbirth inductions, care-by-parent rooms for preemies who aren't going to make it, etc. I was mostly OK with that. Her room was two doors down from the one I'd been in. The door to that room was closed. THAT was a HUGE relief. I couldn't imagine peering into that room & seeing the ghosts that might still be there.
Oh, and one of her daughter's middle names is "Kait" -- after guess who?? We were tickled when she asked us if that would be OK!!
We got invited to the baby's first birthday party, although we haven't seen much of them since then.
I don't have the mindspace to think about the answers now, but I wanted to let you know I hold you in my thoughts today. I wish I could take away the anxiety, all of it. The pregnancy after is so brutal... I am thinking of you.
My first son died over two years ago. My second son was born healthy one year ago. The entire time I was pregnant with my second son, I worried and cried almost every day. There isn't a strong enough word to describe the terror I felt every day. Even regular non-stress tests and ultrasounds did little to calm my fears. In fact, I was crying in the operating room during my second c-section, fearful even at that moment that something was going to go dreadfully wrong. It was like my mind couldn't comprehend that I could give birth to a full-term healthy baby.
"If you are not going to get one, what does that do to you?" ...it can crush you.
even if I had been able to get pregnant again though, I would have delivered via c-section so I had no idealized fantasy about a natural birth. just wanted the live baby. so my answers are not really helpful, sorry.
more importantly, I am thinking of you at this significant moment and hoping you get what you want and need. you certainly deserve it.
I am now 6 weeks into my first pregnancy post "the tragedy" and already my mind is consumed with thoughts of "this time last pregnancy". When I think of reaching "the week" when everything went wrong last time, I quickly spiral into a panic. I just wish I could zoom past the next 34 weeks to get to a happy ending.
I had a very real picture of me birthing another baby shortly after we lost Callum. In this daydream, I was a sobbing mess - overjoyed with a living, breathing, new baby and completely distraught over losing this baby's brother. I could feel the intense emotions of that very moment even though it had not yet happened. It was a bit surreal.
In the end, I don't know if this daydream will ever come to fruition. I hope it does. I desperately hope it does.
The overwhelming emotion I have when reading this post is how much I want a happy ending for you. I just want it so much. For you, for every mama hoping to have another...
My subsequent delivery was remarkably peaceful. The only drama came right at the end when we began to suspect the cord was around her neck and everything in me told me I needed to get her out and get her out NOW. In one big push I got her out and in spite of the cord that was indeed wrapped around her neck she was fine. However, I distinctly remembering thinking in those final moments, "it could all end right now." And then, there she was. And it was relief, and joy and a little sadness, all rolled into one. Truly though, mostly joy.
But that was me... and I know that everyone's experience is different. How could it not be?
ohmy... such heady, heady times. I've got no experience in this (yet? ever?) but would be duly sullen and exhilerated and terrified and hopeful. And looking for company like you.
xoxo
I have 3 beautiful children. Scarlett and River are here with me on earth and Christian is soaring in Heaven.
Scarlett was my first and spent her first week in NICU as she wasn't able to breathe on her own. She is now very healthy and is 2 and a half years old.
Christian was my second. He was stillborn. I knew 2 weeks before I gave birth to him that he would not be born alive. My grief was intense which I know most people reading would understand. I vowed never to have another child. As weeks went on I started to feel different, I was longing for my baby. My husband and I decided to just do it and deal with whatever may come when it comes.
One year and 4 days later my beautiful River Eve was born healthy and alive. The spitting image of her older brother.
I prayed and prayed through out my pregnancy and my prayers were positive even though I was worried sick. I thanked God for blessing me with a healthy baby even though I didn't really know if she was or not.
I know it may sound horrible and even crazy but if I had the chance to change things and have Christian here with me alive and well I wouldn't. I have learned so many amazing, beautiful, gut wrenching, lessons in life that could only be taught to me through the loss of a child. I am blessed to have my two girls here with me now. And even though Christian is gone I am honored I was chosen to be his mother. I will miss him for the rest of my life just as I will love my daughters for the rest of my life.
I will pray for you at this extremely nervous time in your life. May you be filled with strength for the road ahead of you.
All my hopes for you,
Carly from Australia x
"Faith gives us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future" - Martin Luther King Jr
My first son died four years ago and my second boy was born, with his twin sister 18 months later.
I was scared.
They were born early.
The boy looked like his brother in every way and I struggled with this, on many, many levels. Too many to type into a comment.
He was sick and I was sure he was going to die too. I couldn't go to the NICU. I withdrew. I tried to protect myself from loving him. From loving the both of them but they took my heart and pieced it back together as best they could.
My boy has forgiven me everything.
Denial is working very well for me. As you know, I've been avoiding getting too attached this time. If this one doesn't make it, I'll be sad, but I won't be devastated the way I was with the twins. I don't plan to look at the screen for any of the ultrasounds. I haven't told anyone in my family and don't plan to. I don't even like to think about it.
I'm so torn on the question of "trying again" which by the way seems a completely inappropriate thing to call it but there isn't a term for it, really. Aeryn was supposed to be a safe baby, a sister for my son; the miscarriage, my baby with no name, was supposed to be a fluke, something that just randomly happened and got stuffed in a box in the back of my head and ignored, something I could deal with when my son was older and didn't need me so much.
I don't know if I can handle another pregnancy. Physically, yes, probably, if the scarring's not insanely bad. Emotionally? I doubt it more and more. My son's pregnancy was a horrible roller coaster, I was paranoid about everything (I wouldn't eat anything with rye flour in it, for instance, because I just "knew" it would be ergot contaminated) and was constantly fretting over things. Another pregnancy would be even worse because now things fly through my head like "was the herbal pregnancy tea I drank like clockwork with my son actually a slight anticoagulant? If I'd dosed myself with it every day instead of when I thought of it would it have been enough to keep Aeryn from dying?" So the guilt and pressure would be fairly overwhelming, I'm sure.
But at the same time, you can't read too much into coincidences. The photographer who came to take pictures of Aeryn, photography is his second vocation. His first? Surgical assistant. He helped deliver my son in 2006. He was actually originally scheduled to assist with Aeryn's delivery too, until the expletive doctor decided to bring another doctor from his practice to assist instead. Sometimes things are just objects in space, crashing together for no reason.
The best I can do is say I'm hoping everything is okay for the moment, that you can breathe for a little while. I wish I could offer more, but I'm sending you what good thoughts I have left.
My subsequent birth experience was schizophrenic, in that everything leading up to the stat section the last day was the absolute worst-case scenario, but then it all flipped around and it was like I was getting dealt 21 after 21 at the black jack tables in Vegas. The extremes between the good and bad made it surreal. But strangely enough, in both the good and bad periods of that day, I wasn't thinking about my lost baby. I was just in the moment, brain unable to step back for any memories or big-picture revelations. I'm grateful for that.
The most pleasant surprise came after the birth, when I found the elation of getting to know the new baby was the same for both my living children. Given that I was so emotionally innocent (preloss) at Big A's birth and that the loss later robbed me of all normalcy and joy in Little A's pregnancy, I assumed the early postpartum period for Little A would not be quite as happy as it was for my first baby. But it was. Even with the emotional complications of having my loss anniversary be only seven days after Little A's birthday, the euphoria was there.
Wishing you much peace, love and luck in what heads your way next. Hang in there.
Eighteen months ago today, my daughter, Georgia, died and then was born. I learned she was gone in the midst of labour three days shy of my due date and a few hours later held her in my arms.
Today, I'm heading in for my second attempt at induction. They'd sent me home after three days of efforts failed to dilate my cervix even a single centimetre. The baby has been perfect on every daily test but I know Georgia likely would have been, too, before the catastrophic abruption.
It seems so strange that my first baby left my body so easily and this little one is determined to stay inside where it will never, ever be safe.
i have lost two 2nd trimester babies to pprom,and have had a subsequent baby after each loss. (loss, life, loss, life...so far, at almost 34 weeks.)
so far, all of my babies have been delivered at different hospitals -- in different states, no less. (no small feat, considering that this will be my fourth delivery in four years.) so i haven't had to relive the delivery room familiarity. but this time, i will: boo will be born in the same hospital as his sister, mae, who came to us last september and never took a breath.
i also have not had to relive any delivery "methods" -- if you can call it that. with effie i was induced and she was so small that when she came out i felt only a gush of something and mac lifted the sheet and his hand flew to his mouth and he said "oh my god, it's our baby." bitsy was a totally natural vaginal labor until she quit descending, at which point i was given a spinal and a c-section. mae was completely vaginal with only nubane, the world's trippiest and possibly cruellest drug. and boo? he is a scheduled c-section. my ob feels that at this point, that is the most risk-averse way to go.
what i have repeated (hmm...i've never actually thought this "out loud" before) is the experience of stillbirth. when i went into labor with mae, i knew, from my experience with effie, what i did and didn't want to do. i knew i wanted a camera. i had already knitted her a little blanket so that she wouldn't get "only" the hospital one. i had her totems with me. i knew i would want to hold her and to let her big sister meet her and to invite family to meet her if they wanted. so it was a very different experience. i was no less sad than i had been with effie, but that sadness wasn't driven by fear and the suddenness of the new experience. it was more pure, in a way, i suppose.
boo and i have a scheduled c-section just a bit after labor day. one way or another, sometime between now and then, i will deliver my fourth and final child. my fourth delivery in four years. when mac and i went into this pregnancy, we promised each other that it would be our last. to say i am bone tired does not even begin to hint at the deep levels of emotional and physical exhaustion of all of this. so no matter what happens, this is it for us. and i feel ready to face whatever comes, although of course that is one of the stupidest ways i could feel. it also seems to me to the only option i have.
hoping for the very very best for you.
We are waiting till after the first anniversary of Jordan's death, Christmas day, before we try again. I wanted to try again straight away but I worked out that that was the grief talking and that I needed to give myself time. I have no choice but to go to the same hospital and it is highly likely my baby (if we conceive again) will end up in the nicu and special care nursery again as they want me to have it earlier...just in case it happens again.
So yes, scary. But the need I have to try again is huge. If I stop now I will feel that fate has beaten me into submission. I will feel like I quit. As hard as I imagine it will be, I don't want to give up. I have another child, a son, so I know how much joy another child can give me. And with Jordan's death I also know the pain. But I still want to try again.
Going back to that awful hospital sucks, and being back in the Nicu will bring back many painful memories. Perhaps it will be cathartic too?
I have a long ways to go before I get to another delivery. But I do think about it sometimes. Sometimes I think I would like to be in the same labor room again. Because at first that scared me and then I thought, do I want to live in fear of that room forever? I think it would be healing, in a way, giving new meaning to that room. But, then do I want to be thinking about that, dealing with that, right then? I don't know. I'll leave it up to fate, I guess.
I turn 39 this month.
We lost Scott in Dec...not long...
but am I NOT running out of time?
I want I don't want I don't know.....
Hi- I'm a little late in responding and I hope all is going okay for you. I admire your courage for trying again. My daughter was stillborn 4 months ago and we were told by our MFM to wait at least 6 months, if not a year, so we are waiting and gearing up for IVF again. I'm an anxious person and terrified about trying again, but I don't feel like it is a choice - I feel like I have to try. I had a great pregnancy with my daughter (she just died out of the blue at 38 weeks and no cause has been found) and I love her so much and I would go through it again to have that time with her. Somehow I feel like trying again honors her and I hope I can give birth to a live brother or sister. But I'm terrified of each step - will we get pregnant, will it be a singleton or twins, etc, etc. I hope I'll be able to find a way to enjoy the pregnancy in any way I can (if I get pregnant again) since that may be all I have with my child. And that's just me thinking about it. You are doing it. I do admire you for your strength in trying and getting through each day. I hope the best for you and am looking forward to hearing how you are doing.