Pregnancy After Loss

Last week, I shared on Instagram that Chris and I are expecting a baby in September. We are thrilled, overjoyed and feeling so very grateful.

I wrote this post at 17 weeks. Today, I’m almost 21 weeks and, although I still have moments of anxiety around this pregnancy, I do feel more reassured. I wanted to share this post to tell you: anxiety after loss is so normal. But, it does get a little better each week.

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After our second miscarriage, I became convinced I’d have a third. This wasn’t some sort of premonition or divine knowledge, but, instead, anxiety, masking itself as self-preservation. So when we did, and my sister, Ashley, said, “Well, now you’ve had your three. You’re done. No more,” it felt like intense relief. I whispered her words to myself over and over as we began to try again.

I knew I was pregnant even before I missed my period. It was my fourth time getting pregnant in 11 months; you get to know your body pretty well. We were in Florida and all of the signs were there, but I willed myself not to think it, not to even dream that dream. I’d prayed so hard to have a baby in 2020 and felt vulnerable to the idea that it could come true.

When we got home, I waited days to take the test. I wanted a bold, solid line. No questions, no faint blue. When I finally took one and saw those beautiful lines, I was filled with instant gratitude and joy, followed by instant fear.

I wanted my body to hold on to this baby like nothing I’d ever wanted before. I willed this one to last, not to slip through me like its siblings did in 2019.

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When Mac was born, my niece kept calling him a “born, born baby,” thinking she was calling him a newborn baby. We all got a kick out of it and started calling Mac our born, born baby.

When I went the doctor this time and they confirmed it was my “fifth pregnancy, one born, three ‘spontaneous abortions’” (aka the worst term ever for a miscarriage), I thought of Della, her words more accurate than we knew. One born baby. I sat there praying, hoping 2020 would make two.

I still feel confused as to whether I should call this our fifth baby or our second. It feels disloyal to the ones before it to say it’s our second. But it would be confusing to call it our fifth. I mostly avoid it altogether.

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Trying to get a bump pic, Mac just trying to go swim :)

Trying to get a bump pic, Mac just trying to go swim :)

Every night, when I get in bed I lie awake and wait for the baby to start moving. Chris is always asleep first and it’s my time, my moment, to be alone with our baby. I feels it’s tiny flutters, a gentle reminder that it’s in there, still growing. 

In a lot of ways, this is what this pregnancy looked like: me, seeking confirmation that the baby is healthy. Me, needing reassurances and reminders daily that this precious life will really be joining us. Am I sick I enough? Exhausted enough? Showing enough? 

Each appointment, especially in the first 16 weeks, had me terrified. Before each one, I’d practice hearing the doctors say “We’re so sorry…” I’d look at my schedule, wondering how I could fit in another - a fourth - D&C in the coming days. I felt so disloyal to the baby inside me as I thought these things, but I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. I almost always cried each morning before an appointment, telling Chris I was upset about something random, when, in actuality, I was terrified for the appointment.

I kept waiting for the anxiety to go away. When would I simply celebrate this little life in the way it deserved? Every breath of joy felt shortened by the anxiety chasing it down, swallowing the words.

Good friends who have walked through similar stories told me the truth: the anxiety doesn’t go away. You’re on your knees, every single day, praying for this baby. You don’t stop looking for signs of confirmation. You don’t stop worrying.

But I know now, at 17 weeks, what I didn’t know at 7 weeks: the anxiety does lessen. But only with time.

At 13 weeks, I thought there would be a magic switch and, ta da, the anxiety would be gone. But it wasn’t like that. It is a loosening, a little each day. A hose slowly turning off. What was once a full blast becomes a steady stream. My hope is that, eventually, it will become a drip, drip, drip, a quiet background noise you can almost ignore.

At times I feel guilty, for still worrying. Is my faith not strong enough? Other times I feel sad for this baby. Why must this little one’s life be preceded by loss and worry, when Mac’s was only joy?

I’m trying to honor my feelings, letting them soar through me, without judgment. I’m trying to recognize life’s truth, that loss does not lessen joy, that they can coexist.

At times, I’ve mourned the simplicity of Mac’s pregnancy and who I was before 2019. When I found out I was pregnant last March, I thought, “I am the luckiest girl in the whole world.” It felt like we’d pressed an easy button. A sibling for Mac, 19 months his junior, and we’d barely tried! It felt like we’d won the lottery.

As we walked through 2019, waiting longer for this second baby, the process becoming harder and harder, I realized I’d never have that pregnancy innocence again.

I know, when I hold this baby in September, I will feel like the luckiest girl in the world. To touch its tiny fingers, to smell its sweet skin. I don’t doubt that it will feel like winning the lottery. But I will never again walk through a pregnancy with so little doubt, so little worry as I did with Mac.

I’m learning, though, that life isn’t about ease and simplicity. It’s not about feeling lucky. It’s about growing, changing, becoming more empathetic and going deeper into who you are. It’s about honoring the journey and recognizing every step helps us become stronger and wiser, going deeper in our faith and more able to connect with one another.

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My due date for this sweet baby is September 29. We ask with so much hope, vulnerability and gratitude for prayers for this little life. For prayers to hold this sweet, rainbow baby in our arms in 19 weeks. For its lungs to be filled with breath, its healthy body to be filled with life. To hear its cries as it enters the world, unknowing how long we’ve been waiting for it, how much we’ve prayed for it. How deeply, deeply it is wanted.