Mourning the future

Mourning the future

It’s been over a year and I still don’t go more than a few hours without thinking about Ava. Some days I feel OK, “normal,” like myself again. Then there’s days that I still feel like I can’t function. Like the other day at work. I completely lost it. I got triggered by a patient and I couldn’t recover. As soon as I would feel like I was close to being able to get through the day a different patient would trigger me in a whole different way. It was like a boxing match and I was unprepared. The punches kept coming and never in the same place. I just couldn’t get back on my feet. Until finally, I began cleaning an empty exam room and stood over the table, the same table I laid on for my 6 week postpartum visit after Ava died, and I started to cry. Then I started to sob. I gained my composure long enough to get someone to cover for me and then went outside and completely lost it. This time it wasn’t so much about Ava herself but about what I lost along with her. This grief is not new, I have carried these thoughts with me for over a year, but that day they became more of a reality for me. That day I wasn’t mourning Ava as much as I was mourning the future, because regardless of what happens I am certain that I will never again have the luxury of experiencing a happy, stress-free pregnancy.

I will never again be able to make a casual decision about whether or not I want to have a baby. Because if I decide to have another baby it will be a major decision. It will be a choice to risk the life of another one of my children, risking that they might not survive my womb. It will be a choice to possibly risk my own life because even after hemorrhaging after the birth of both of my children no one can seem to give me a straight answer as to whether or not I have a bleeding disorder. And what if I’m not so lucky next time? What if I bleed to death? Do I risk leaving behind an amazing husband and a perfect child for the chance to create another? I will never see a positive line on a pregnancy test again and start envisioning a new baby in my house. Seeing a pink line will mean 9 months of worry for me. Nights laying awake wondering if my body will starve another baby to death, or wondering if I will need another c-section, or if I risk attempting a vaginal delivery this time. Laying awake wondering if this is something my husband really wants or if he just agreed to it because he wants to try to help me mend my broken heart. And what if it goes wrong again? Will he blame me? Will he secretly want to tell me, “I told you so,” for the rest of our lives? And what if the baby lives? What if everything goes right but then, as all families do, we experience the normal challenges that come with adding a new child to our family? Will Travis resent me? Will he hate me every time this child talks back to him or breaks a rule? Will he resent every sleepless night? Will I always wonder if he ever wanted this baby? And what about Logan? Will he accept another sibling? Or will he wonder why he was never enough for me? And I realize some of these are the same questions every mother has when she is pregnant. Some of these are even the same questions I had when I was pregnant with Ava, except she never got the chance to come home and melt away my fears, and so I am only left with the doubt.

And yet with all of my worry, and all of my questions there is still that part of me that desperately wants to try to have another baby. Because I did want another baby. We both did. And so we made one. And she lived inside me. And I felt her move and I heard her heartbeat and I held her in my arms and kissed her warm head. And then I put her in the ground and we were a family of three again. And so something is still missing. Because I wanted two children and now I’m left with one. I love my one living child so deeply and so intensely that all logic goes out the window, and like an addict, I yearn for the chance to experience this kind of love all over again. And I am crippled when I realize it was taken from me. I wasn’t prepared for all of Logan’s firsts to be my lasts. I wasn’t prepared for him to be my last baby. I always thought there would have been another chance to do it all again. Maybe I should have cherished every second just a little more, and let every hug linger just a little longer. We wanted our children to be close together and now, even if we did have another, it wouldn’t be the way we had planned. Every minute that goes by, Logan gets older and he becomes further and further in age from any sibling he may have had, and I have more anxiety about whether or not another child would be the right thing to do. And then I imagine Travis and I growing old and dying and leaving Logan on this Earth alone without a brother or a sister and I am crushed. And so I tell myself we should try again. And then I remember the reasons for my doubt.

I come full circle as my mind is flooded with fear and anxiety and love and desire and logic until all my thoughts melt together then erode into this single moment, and I am enraged. I will never be able to casually make this decision again. I will never have an easy pregnancy again. I will never blindly believe that everything will work out because now I know it doesn’t. And I cry. I mourn for my loss of not only the daughter I had, but for the other children I may have carried. And I mourn for myself. I was robbed of the most pleasurable and beautiful experience I have ever known. I will never again experience the joy of pregnancy. Even if I conceive again it will never bring me the pleasure it once did, and for that I am grieving. For that I am angry. For that I cry in the middle of an exam room, the same exam room where my IUD was placed for birth control six weeks after Ava died, in the office where I learned my baby was in trouble, the same office where I now counsel and guide and feign excitement for the other women that come to see me with their healthy, uncomplicated, joyful pregnancies.

One thought on “Mourning the future

  1. So much in here that tears at my heart. Travis loves you SO much–I don’t think you ever have to worry about him blaming you or resenting you. I am so sorry that a potential second pregnancy would cause you worry and fear, rather than being a time of joy. I have faith that you will find the best path for you, Travis and Logan. I hope that you can someday be at peace with whatever you decide. Much love to all three of you.

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