Today is the third day of knowing that I'm pregnant. It is the first day that I didn't take a pregnancy test...I'm saving that third one for sometime next week, when I'm feeling sad or scared or anxious.
I had expected to feel only one set of emotions at this point. I figured that I would either remember my previous loss and feel scared, anxious, and pessimistic...or I would emotionally write off that previous loss as a fluke and throw myself headlong into hope, excitement, and baby-craziness.
Turns out, I'm a mix of all of those things. It makes life confusing.
Sunday afternoon, the day I had gotten that first pink plus sign, I wandered alone around Target. I made a beeline for the baby section, and looked at things, touched things...and had to seriously resist buying a tiny little hat, just to have it. I was that committed to this pregnancy and this baby. I went over by the books and magazines, and thumbed through two different "week by week" pregnancy books. I resisted buying those as well (good for me!). I've talked about whether I might be able to borrow maternity clothes from a friend who just had her first baby two weeks ago. I've imagined when and how to tell our families, and when and how to tell Facebook, and when and how to tell people at church.
But I have also written off this pregnancy. I find myself in a place where I assume that it's not a matter of if but of when we will lose this pregnancy. I made my doctor's appointments yesterday - one of them nice and early, next week - and feel convinced that I'm going to have to cancel them like last time. I wonder if my boobs are sore enough, or as sore as they were yesterday, and feel a little despair every time I feel any twinge that might be an early sign of miscarriage. I don't fret or worry, really. I just feel resigned to lose this pregnancy, because it's all I know.
And I think that what gets me the most is that when I think about the possibility of loss, I grieve the prospect of the loss itself, yes...but I also grieve being launched back into the trying to conceive process. It took us nearly two years to conceive our first time, and a year and a half to conceive this time. I'm just not that patient.
Right now, I'm counting down the days until Sunday. Our first pregnancy lasted a week. Once I cross that one-week mark, I will feel better. And once I make it to next Friday's appointment, I'll feel even better. And, God willing, once I make it to my first OB appointment on October 28, and see that heartbeat and hear that things are all right, then maybe I'll start to believe that this might be real...
Right now, I feel like I'm pretending. Or like the two tests I took messed up. Or like I did something wrong and some how rigged the results. I think I'm mostly just waiting to actually believe it, because none of this seems real quite yet.
I had expected to feel only one set of emotions at this point. I figured that I would either remember my previous loss and feel scared, anxious, and pessimistic...or I would emotionally write off that previous loss as a fluke and throw myself headlong into hope, excitement, and baby-craziness.
Turns out, I'm a mix of all of those things. It makes life confusing.
Sunday afternoon, the day I had gotten that first pink plus sign, I wandered alone around Target. I made a beeline for the baby section, and looked at things, touched things...and had to seriously resist buying a tiny little hat, just to have it. I was that committed to this pregnancy and this baby. I went over by the books and magazines, and thumbed through two different "week by week" pregnancy books. I resisted buying those as well (good for me!). I've talked about whether I might be able to borrow maternity clothes from a friend who just had her first baby two weeks ago. I've imagined when and how to tell our families, and when and how to tell Facebook, and when and how to tell people at church.
But I have also written off this pregnancy. I find myself in a place where I assume that it's not a matter of if but of when we will lose this pregnancy. I made my doctor's appointments yesterday - one of them nice and early, next week - and feel convinced that I'm going to have to cancel them like last time. I wonder if my boobs are sore enough, or as sore as they were yesterday, and feel a little despair every time I feel any twinge that might be an early sign of miscarriage. I don't fret or worry, really. I just feel resigned to lose this pregnancy, because it's all I know.
And I think that what gets me the most is that when I think about the possibility of loss, I grieve the prospect of the loss itself, yes...but I also grieve being launched back into the trying to conceive process. It took us nearly two years to conceive our first time, and a year and a half to conceive this time. I'm just not that patient.
Right now, I'm counting down the days until Sunday. Our first pregnancy lasted a week. Once I cross that one-week mark, I will feel better. And once I make it to next Friday's appointment, I'll feel even better. And, God willing, once I make it to my first OB appointment on October 28, and see that heartbeat and hear that things are all right, then maybe I'll start to believe that this might be real...
Right now, I feel like I'm pretending. Or like the two tests I took messed up. Or like I did something wrong and some how rigged the results. I think I'm mostly just waiting to actually believe it, because none of this seems real quite yet.
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