Well, How Did I Get Here?
I know for many (most?) of you, the decision to have another baby after the death of the same is as innate and natural and "Well, DUH" as drinking a glass of water or breathing. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that for many it's hardly a "decision" at all, but a compelling force or internal drive. Or something.
And not that it's easy for anyone to go back down that road, but for some, like me and a few others in my shoes who have more than just "Well, that was just a fluke of (really fucking abysmal) luck, really" it's not quite so easy to jump back into the saddle. It is, in fact, a decision. Maybe you have some grim odds to contend with on the next go-round, or a few more rounds of reproductive nonsense ahead of you, or perhaps you're just scared out of your mind. Or maybe some ugly combination of those circumstances. In any case, rather unlike, say, Elizabeth McCracken who averred from her hospital bed -- freshly blown apart by the death of her son -- that she would (!) indeed have another baby, I loudly proclaimed from the NICU: "Hell to the No."
So it's rather sheepishly that I stand here before you, three years later, 23+ weeks pregnant. What happened?!
Someone here asked me recently how I did it, how I made this decision, what my thought process was, or how I otherwise found my way from A to B, and I thought it would be useful to dissect my route in case anyone else out there had to face similar circumstances. And yet I sit here with my hands levitating above the keyboard and burping up the trail of breadcrumbs I've unfortunately consumed instead of leaving for the next traveller, because quite frankly, I honestly don't know how I got here. I'll set my water glass down, now.
I can in fact point to a few issues that -- when refocused through my new sporty Grief Goggles -- altered a bit and allowed me to sit somewhat comfortably where I am now as opposed to where I was almost three years ago now.
The primary contributor to this shift, you'll probably be sorry to hear, is simply the passage of Time. I remember when I first stumbled out my door to walk the dog in a haze of tears and blackness, one of my neighbors said something stupid like "It will feel better with time," and I wanted to punch her. (And oh my god, is she ever one of the sweetest women who said and did some simply lovely things for me a few days later.) But it turns out, it's one of those trite little sayings that I now agree with, I just think I should have the power to say and not a bystander.
Time does help. For starts, Time gave the doctors opportunity to fully and completely research what on earth happened, the results being: They have no fucking clue. But. They ran (and I found out last May continue to run) Maddy's samples through the Genome project multiple times, and presented her case at conferences, and with each day (month, year) that passes without a genetic hit, it looks more and more like the Ockham's Razor death rationale: undetected placental abruption and/or infection. Because the odds of a never-been-seen before autosomal recessive fuck up between two people from different ethnic backgrounds are apparently outstanding. And not to say our luck isn't piss poor, and those recurrent odds for the abruption/infection aren't daunting, but sure beats the hell out of 1:4.
But you know, the geneticist could still be right. And again, here's where Time has helped to an amazing degree: I have transformed from a pre-Maddy cautious optimist, to a post-Maddy pessimist, to a neo-post-Maddy realist. I no longer think in terms of odds, nor do I "hope" or "wish" or envision things. I now rely on the basic premise of probability, stripped of statistical odds: Either something will happen, or it won't. Either the baby will live, or it will die. I will get in a fatal accident on my way to buy groceries, or I won't. The chicken will catch fire under the broiler, or it won't. And I know for many such an oversimplification probably reeks of negativity and a 50/50 coin flip, but for me, in my circumstances, it has been remarkably freeing to simply let statistics go and deal with the end game. I used to mull over things like genetic testing risks for example, and now I simply throw my hands up: Either it will be fine, or it won't. (I did decide on genetic testing because I don't want any surprises this time around except for the big one at the end, but I certainly didn't sweat the odds of problems arising from said testing.) And you know, if it isn't, I've been there. I've hence liberated myself from months of stress over minutia, and will simply wait until the end to find out what's going on. Thankfully, I'm a patient person.
Which leads me to Time and the fear factor: I was so completely afraid after Maddy died that I couldn't have sex let alone think about eventually bearing another child. And there was a time after I climbed online and realized all the other ways in which babies die when I wondered how we exist as a species, and how I could ever be talked into that again. I completely understand people who almost grow more fearful rather than comforted after reading other blogs -- just think, you could escape problem A and fall head first into problem B. There are those here who have lost babies more than once. Support groups can be sobering reminders that lightning indeed strikes twice.
But enough Time has passed that frankly I feel as if I now know all the ways in which babies can die (or at least the big group headings -- sometimes the subgroup can be a surprise). As I wrote to someone recently, I recognize all the bogeymen now. It's not that I feel immune to them, or don't think they won't pop up, it's that I no longer fear them, and they won't surprise me. I see them, lurking there around the corner, and in that way they've totally lost their power. Should one jump out, I'll say, "Oh, it's you," and know exactly who to contact for support. I've mentally walked my way to the end of almost every bad dream, and I'm strangely very comforted by that.
I want to put in an aside here that is too important for parenthesis: Some people here are dealing with the odds and the fear that not only will future babies be at risk, but their own lives as well. There are women reading here who (sometimes barely) averted death due to preeclampsia (and other complications), and the odds of recurrence of that particular problem go up steeply. I consider myself thankful that when I ponder my outcomes, I am alive at the end of each -- in fact, it was a huge factor in my ability to move forward. My worst case scenario has already been lived through, and I feel confident that I can and will make it through intact again should I have to. Others do not have this luxury of (at the very least) being able to envision themselves at the end of a process that goes horribly awry for the second time. And that is a whole other debate and discussion and risk taking endeavor that Time probably does nothing to ease. If you've had to make a subsequent decision that involves your life, I -- and I'm sure others -- welcome hearing from you in the comments.
Back to my final breakthrough: Enough Time passed that considering another child became it's own debate, not one necessarily connected anymore to the discussions we had about having another prior to Maddy. This was both a blessing and a curse as it turned out. We had moved since the last decision was made, we have new social lives, Bella is older and our parenting has changed dramatically along with her needs. Thus, it was easier (and sometimes actually fun) for three of us to move as a unit, and yet it was also easier to imagine going through a (probably) stressful/problematic pregnancy. We had come to the place in our hellish aftermath where we felt like doing things again: traveling, eating out, relishing time for the three of us, for the two of us, for me. My grandmother died last summer, and I saw my mother and my aunt work and grieve together and realized I wanted to at least try to give that to Bella -- no one should have to to deal with a senile me by themselves. And in that way, in this jumbled mish-mash of plusses and negatives, I feel as though this child within me now -- should he live -- will be his own person, with his own identity. He was discussed and planned and brought at least this far for a separate set of reasons, through different rationales. He will always be connected to his older sister -- it's hard to say if I would have had a third, and yet it's hard to say I would have ever had another.
I am not kidding myself here -- this will work, or it won't. I cannot claim to be learning anything about myself five months in, nor am I undergoing emotional shifts in my missing because I am pregnant, but frankly that's not why I decided to try and get pregnant again. I did this simply because I wanted another child of our own genetic make-up, and we'll know if it was a good idea -- or not -- come mid-May.
Did you decide to have another child after your babyloss, or was it more of an instinctual feeling that really didn't warrant discussion or debate? If you did have a decision to make, what went into your decision? How much time passed? What were the mitigating factors? What if anything shifted inside of you (or happened externally) to make a subsequent pregnancy possible? Did any of you decide "Hell no," and remain in that place?
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Reader Comments (35)
But, like you, I also found myself more or less resigned to the fact that bad shit was bound to happen and maybe even more than once. I spent more time planning on how to cope with the bad shit than I did planning on living with another baby.
I suppose I resolved to never let anything(not that this is possible) ever blindside me the way Caleb's death did. A foolish back assward attempt at a different type of control. Can't control the events but can control our response, right?
And I am so with you. Time does help. It just does. But hearing that, in anyway, from anyone who hadn't actually lived with the death of their child, made me want to harm someone, lots.
the thing that made me so happy to hear about it wasn't the pregnancy per se (it's the healthy baby that will be the truly happy news there) but that the fact that you were pregnant meant that you had actively tried to become pregnant again, and that meant you finally had been able to come to a place mentally where you had that kind of courage, and were no longer in that place of despair that you seemed to occupy when i first started reading. you seemed in such a bad place for so long, and it was heartbreaking sometimes just watching from outside how time did NOT seem to be doing much for you. and it definitely did finally seem like you were in a much better place in the months before you became pregnant, but it was only when you announced the pregnancy that it hit me that yes, you really had been doing much better finally, and for that alone, i was so happy for you.
thank you for sharing your journey.
Hope you keep beating the odds, Tash. Hope you bring that boy home.
My peri told us to wait 6 months.
We struggle as well with some fertility issues (pcos) so I kept telling myself that we should start right at that 6 month mark because it took us well over a year the first time. We met with doctor first who told us there was a less than 3% chance "this" would happen again.
Well, there was a 3% chance the first time. Or maybe one.
I was very surprised when we got pregnant that first month (with help from the fertility clinic, of course) and then I was terrified. Statistics do nothing to comfort.
I don't know how I got there. And I don't know how to do this. But for me, since I don't have any living children, and the doctor seemed to encourage it, we didn't really have a reason to not. I sort of wished I did, so that I wouldn't have to do this again-live with the fear. I know if I have a living baby at the end, it will be worth it, but it is freaking scary.
And now we're 12 weeks out from her birth and 11 weeks out from her death and I got my first period last week. I'm thinking about giving it a go this round. I do know how early it is to even consider another baby, but I'm thinking about it anyway. I think what I fear the most--even more than the possibility of another crazyshitstorm thing happening to another baby--is the chance that I have difficulty getting pregnant. But I'm thinking about it anyway.
I am now 7 weeks pregnant again, and like Mindy I check for blood every day, saying a silent prayer each time I see none. I know I will continue to struggle with anxiety over the next 8 months, but it's a very different experience having already given birth to a healthy baby after our losses. At least I know my body is capable of doing this successfully. And having experienced both ends of the spectrum - one birth resulting in the profound brain damage and death of our child, the other in a healthy baby who was not once separated from me after his birth - I too live with the knowledge that this pregnancy will either work out or it won't. I have no illusions of control. Of course I hope for the best, but I know if the worst happens I will live through it.
I can't remember when we first spoke about trying again but I'm pretty sure it was either in the hospital after Matilda died and before we came home or the first night.
After seeing our ob after our 20 week scan that started all this I remember going back to the car in tears and telling Mick we were adopting anymore children. He told me off for giving up on this child (in the end she had something that most babies do survive but she was just very unlucky) and I said I wasn't but I just couldn't imagine going through that again.
I wish it was easier to adopt in Australia.
Maddie x
at the same time, the experience of having had him and gotten to mother him for the short space of time we had him had changed me, and changed Dave. he delighted us, in spite of it all. he had made us parents. and in owning that and trying to celebrate that in a quiet way that didn't make us look like lunatics, i realized i was shit-scared of never experiencing that love and joy and sense of purpose again. and that fear was utterly different from the grief and every bit as powerful and crushing.
no matter the circumstances or compulsions, i'd say it's always a decision, in some sense. in our case it was one made realizing we'd had shit luck and while still processing the full worldview impact of that, especially combined with the additional shit luck of the job loss my airlift had cost me and the fact that we'd moved back to Canada to have the baby only 3 months before. we were rocked, very badly. and we knew my body had a very good chance of failing another pregnancy, and thus surgery and extensive bedrest would be likely; we knew another preemie was our likely best case scenario.
but nothing else in life held much attachment for me at that point, so while i knew i had tons of grieving yet to do, i figured/hoped i might do it better when it also wasn't wrapped up in fear of maybe never getting pregnant again. it seemed like the only real option i had TO control the situation was to try. the only variable available was next time. and so we went for next time.
also, given the upheaval of our lives then, having been only in the country three months and without a stable community of any kind, i didn't really give two shits about anything except the possibility of not being so terribly broken by grief someday. so trying again seemed - really - like the only reasonable choice. i think both those factors - though not in any way the grief for Finn himself - might have been mitigated by having an older, living child, and thus we'd possibly have waited significantly longer. as it was, i just felt reckless.
we still waited long enough for me to find work again and find my feet and get my body feeling stronger...i guess we started trying nearly 5 months later. Oscar was born (early) 51 weeks to the day after his brother, after months of hospital bedrest. i was very lucky. extraordinarily lucky, i realize now. at the time, like you say, i just looked down all the hallways and thought "okay, that and that and that; they will be or they won't." and for me, they weren't.
i hope the very same for you.
It's been almost a year, and the age of my son, myself and hubs, and just longing for a larger family (not to be greedy), and for a sibling (or 2) for my son is causing me to reconsider. I know another baby could never replace my baby girls, but maybe it would take just a little bit of the sting, the longing, the emptiness away?? Could I make it through another pregnancy emotionally? I'm not sure yet. I feel I need to put some more of my ducks in a row, as they say, first, but I know I don't have much time. I dont have the luxury of getting pregnant just because I want to, and the whole fertility cycle game is exhausting and stressful in itself. So, to make a long, babbling story that probably belongs better on my own blog short, I'm warming up to the idea. With more info, more strength, and some ability to hope and have faith, I'd like to give it a try. But I'm not quite there yet. I still want to beat the crap out of something or someone...
The question I face now is: are we done? Having yet another child seems to me a betrayal of my son's memory in a way the birth of his younger sister never was. Right now, my son's life is balanced between our two living daughters, and within this balance, I feel his absence/presence in our lives naturally persists. To be remembered, to be honored. We wanted three children. We have three children. But should we have three *living* children, my fear is that he then becomes merely a footnote, an unfortunate event that happened between daughters #1 and #2. If not in our eyes, certainly in the eyes of those around us.
But perhaps this process is all independent of the number of living or subsequent children we have. I suppose my real worry is that given enough Time, Time will not only continue to smooth out the edges of our grief, but will erase my son entirely.
I would be interested in knowing how others farther along this path have handled this--the decision to have not one, but two children, subsequent a loss.
Within a couple of months, it was agreed we would stop not trying after the two full, normal cycles post-Gabriel. Timing was such that it was possible, scary, and negative. When I got my period and realized how fully unhappy I was not to be pregnant again (and it was for child, period. I know another child will not Gabriel returned to me. I want to be a mother to a living child too). That was that, we were trying again.
The testing the doctor was doing played into the timing as well. I was comfortable not preventing because we'd had the bloodwork done and expected to hear news of a clotting disorder - it made the most sense. I was blowing off the shg she wanted to do because I knew I didn't have fibroids or polyps or anything. Thank God for that negative - six days later I found about my damaged and incompetent cervix from that shg and probably saved a future pregnancy because we can do a preventative cerclage - the placement of the damage is such that we wouldn't necessarily have warning of weakening and dilation before it was too late to stop.
And in that cycle, I got pregnant again. It lasted for all of 2 days before my period started and two more tests confirmed it was a chemical pregnancy.
I was devastated, embarrassed and ashamed. Having hope. . . being let down again. . .
It was a compulsion to try to conceive again. I have faith in my new medical team. I try to be positive, to trust what my therapist says, which is simply because it happened before does not mean it will happen again.
On the other hand. . . 5 pregnancies of varying length, no children living. No guarantees. No reason to believe that my body won't fail again and again and again.
How many times can we do this? How much heartbreak can we take? How much breath-holding, anxiety, fear, desire to love and fear of being heartbroken yet again?
We're not at that point yet. I don't know if it will come at pregnancy loss 6, 7, 8 or more. I have a difficult time envisioning myself with a child. Adoption isn't a great option for us, so I fear that surrogacy may be our only choice if my body refuses to cooperate. I don't know if we will ever be able to afford it, so I guess that tips us in favor of continuing on this course.
For me, it was definately a compulsion, I just knew I had to be pregnant again, and thankfully my dh agreed...I think as he was packing away the baby things in the days after Florence died we just knew.
I did know this was going to be hard, and Oh boy it really is, really fucking hard. I'm either terrified or hopeful, or both. My head is in a constant spin, but this is how it is.
By the time my 6 week checkup arrived, I was dead set on having another. The longing of a new mother for a baby that isn't there is indescribable - it felt like bleeding to death from an unstaunchable wound, and it seemed to me that the only thing that could possibly plug it was another baby. Perhaps this plays out differently for mothers who already have children. At any rate, we were assured that the chances of the same defect were "low" - I later discovered that this meant 5-15%.
Then I discovered I had cancer and had radical surgery which will make any pregnancy from now on extremely high risk. It doesn't change a thing - I had already set myself on a path and it felt as though nothing could change my mind. I went straight for fertility treatment (which I hadn't needed before my surgery). For a year, I don't think a single cycle passed without me undergoing some kind of fertility procedure. I remember virtually nothing else about that year - nothing else was of the slightest importance.
I'm 13 weeks pregnant now, and the baby's due date is almost the same as my daughter's. We already know it's a boy, otherwise it would be easy to slip into the dreamy idea that I've just had a very long pregnancy and my little soul is returning to me after being missing for two years. A week doesn't pass without some kind of scan or check, either for me or the baby. Friends ask if I'm afraid, and the response is honestly that it is just not possible (for me) to maintain fear for so long.
We'll see how it turns out. It's a fatalistic mindset, but I am frankly just too tired to what-if any more.
a friend of mine, after her miscarriage and having heard that your chances of pregnancy are higher in the first three cycles following, was really angry that it then took her six months to conceive again. i'm scared that i will be the same.
i want the baby i lost back most of all, desperately, like everyone else. but failing that, i'll take his or her brother or sister.
Now that I've conceived, carried well into the second trimester and lost a perfectly healthy and beautiful boy twice my view has changed. Reality knocked on my door. And before I'd delivered my last son I was signing on the line for a tubal.
My world has crumbled not once, but twice. Yes, the lightning strike is as painful the second time around, but the buzz hangs on longer. There's no way in hell I'd roll those dice again.
As I sit here, in the process of miscarrying my second pregnancy, it seems like reproduction is this horrible gauntlet where everything go wrong, like we're perpetually trying the short straw while we watching everyone around us spawn with nary a complication or concern, it's frustrating as hell. It makes me angry, bitter, tired. I feel like my emotional gas tank has run empty, and while I think all these thoughts, I don't have the energy to actually FEEL them completely.
And this time it's something most likely completely different. It's the "shit happens" in life and if want to have kids, the only thing we can do is to wait for this to happen, and try again.
Eventually, we have to stop drawing the short straw. Possibly. It becomes increasingly statistically ridiculous for the bad stuff to keep happening.
And my uterus ruptured 2 months before delivery and Tiger died and I died with him, but came back to be with my husband and daughter. Too dangerous now. I wish my boys were here. They guide me through my grief work and I have just opened up my family and my heart to the idea of adoption. We are really good parents. And we only can consider adopting a child because we actively grieve and have kept open the space we created for Will and Tiger.
In the weeks after Sophia's memorial I wished I was pregnant already. I just needed some hope. She was my firstborn and the void in my home and my heart was palpable. New Gynae and Shrink both suggested I was physically healthy after 6 weeks and we should live and let live. What great advice - it was liberating - no pressure, no "trying", just living.
I'm grateful to say it didnt take long. 2.5 months after our baby girl died I conceived again. I found out on the 3 month anniversary of her birth.
I am now 12 weeks and so far I've learnt:
* pregnancy is a gift (terrifying and all that) but it is not a given, it is an awesome privilege
* no child can ever EVER replace another child
* I see my pregnancy and my mourning my daughter as two seperate parallel roads. I'm walking both of them. I certainly can't say that being pregnant makes the loss any easier or the grieving any less. It is seperate. I am grateful and happy to be pregnant but there are days where I am utterly broken and I suspect such days are here for life.
Still on the roller coaster of emotions, I chose to take myself off all medications --including, namely, birth control-- and let my mind & body heal.
Lo and behold, in a "lightning strike" (less than 5% chance of conception on our own, one night stand with hubby) my third son was conceived.
So my choice was terminate, or go for a ride... and it was. A ride; but one which produced a healthy, full-term baby-- which was incredibly healing. Not closing the door on my precious son, not "replacing" him, but somehow convincing me that yes, what's going to happen is going to happen. And sometimes it's hell, and sometimes it's heaven.
My sister in law has a beautiful baby boy who is going to die a terrible, slow death due to a rare genetic disorder. There are no two ways around it... My first reaction was to say, well, that's it-- I'm done; I don't think I can make it through another pregnancy worrying about all that.
But now I'm not so sure.
I don't know what tomorrow brings; my sons could grow to adulthood, or some terrible fate could meet us all tomorrow. Through time, I have come to the place that lets me accept that, embrace it; and live life instead of trying to control the outcomes. And if that's my Jonathan's legacy, so be it.
Flora was conceived about 9 months after we lost Gabriel. and it was as instinctual decision as we could make. It was harder for Dan than for me. But we knew was wanted to parent a live child. Gabriel simply reinforced that desire.
the docs talked of how long i'd have to wait and what the consequences of a c-section would be but it all felt so hypothetical and surreal to me.
we were told to wait 6 months before trying again. i think we started trying after 4. i don't think i felt ready, but i felt i had no choice. i am in my late 30s and time is not on my side. i had already been on the ttc road for so long before. i wanted a living child.
i found out i was pregnant exactly a year after Lev died. i still didn't believe it was true. i had every test in the book before i shared the news. this pregnancy is filled with fear and anxiety but also moments of deep gratitude and joy.
Getting pregnant with Angel Mae, and then losing her, more or less made the decision for us that we want to expand our family. We don't know what that will look like yet. We lost her 11 months ago. I was advised to wait 6 months, during which time some mediical/fertility problems came up. So that meant more waiting.
We are just now trying again. In some ways I've been glad for the wait. 6 months ago I'm not sure I would have had the emotional resources to cope the way I'd want to - with pregnancy, with infertility, with a newborn, with another loss. I'm far from well, but I feel stronger than I did even two months ago.
I don't know if my body can do it. I'm trying to tell myself that I, that we, will be okay either way. But I don't know. I want her back, and I can't have that. I think parenting a live baby would be healing, but I have to believe that healing is possible even if that's not in the cards.
We muddled along by ourselves for another year (armed with a copy of TCOYF, a basal thermometer & boxes of OPKs) before reluctantly starting the testing process & getting a referral to an RE. I was 40 when we finally came to the sad conclusion that another pregnancy was not in the cards for us. :(
Now he's 18 months, I finally got my period and we're planning to try this month. I'm scared shitless. Now it feels like a choice and if any of the awful possible outcomes that run through my mind (can't get pregnant, miscarriage, fatal chromosomal diagnosis, pre-term labour, stillbirth, SIDS yadda, yadda) happen I'll feel like it's my own fucking fault for not stopping while I was ahead.