The notion of ‘should’

I was sad yesterday because a friend posted on fbook that her fetal echo was normal- and all I could think to post in reply was "Thankful for you. No mother to be should have to worry about that." Meanwhile all I could think was, I came to fbook to waste a few minutes and instead got yet another reminder that we won’t have our baby girl, and others will (this person is due the week before we were due, one of the first of two girls at my old unit who were all married within the same year as me, and now onto first babies around the same time as me).

I really had to think about what that post made me feel. Was I jealous? Well maybe a little, but no, that wasn’t the dominant feeling. Did I wish that her baby had been the one to have the problem instead of mine? No, I didn’t feel that way either, I wouldn’t willingly wish all of this on anybody. Why then, did it feel a bit like I lost my breath for a moment, to read her happy news? I feel like life just isn’t fair. I told hubby what was on my mind, and that I was sad because I felt we should be the ones having the happy news to post. He said its not that we ‘should’ have but that we ‘will’ have happy news to post. I still feel like I should be someplace else, pregnant and happy again. I think the thing that I felt the most was sadness, that nobody in that group of women I worked with before we moved even knew about our pregnancy (we conceived in ETown then drove baby-to-be east to our new province when we moved) so they didn’t even know what I’d been through. Its weird, I feel like I don’t want to really talk about it because its uncomfortable, but I also don’t want to be thought of as one who has never been through it, either. Like, don’t look at me and think I’m a newly married woman hoping to have babies in the next year or so, because I’m not that girl anymore. I’m weathered in the emotions of expectation, hope and devastating loss. I’m different. Not necessarily broken, but different.

The OB gave the go ahead physically to start trying again. She is so sweet, her bedside manner relaxes me so much (which is saying alot, as working in the health profession I’ve probably seen the good, bad and ugly and tend to expect the best for myself when I’m a patient!) that I just feel so grateful to have her help in this. She doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary, she is just so authentic and wonderful in the few appointments I’ve had. She never referred to my baby girl as ‘conceptus’ or anything clinical. She gave me a look, kind of like a guaging look, when I asked how long we should wait before trying again. She said physically, we can go ahead after one cycle, for ease of dating/allowing a good amount of time for the uterus to heal post pregnancy changes. She even said on exam that I had "one happy uterus!". Silly little things she says that actually really stick in my mind as reassurances that things will go better next time. I digress. Anyways, she gave me this look and I said, I thought I was ready sometimes, but other times thought I don’t know if I could handle another loss back to back, and that most of the time I’m back to my normal moods, but sometimes I’m still sad without much notice or reason… and she said its all part of the process, and that even a future pregnancy might be part of the process to some extent too, but that I shouldn’t rush or worry as physically speaking, she feels history wont’ repeat itself for me.

So I’m not sure if this is grief, depression, ‘normal’… I think perhaps loss is just that, a loss that can’t really ever be fully remedied, so it comes up from time to time in our everyday thoughts, with a strength of emotion to it that can be really surprising. Two days ago I worried about bills and putting off trying again for the sake of bringing a baby into the ‘best’ circumstances; today my pay at work has finally been straightened out and returned to my previous pay rate, and last night I wanted to forgo condoms to just let nature take its course (luckily Jack was more rational than I, and suggested we wait per our original plan, which after the red wine has left my system this morning, I see as the more responsible decision to make…) I just can’t make up my mind. I guess I still have some remaining "I don’t want to be here" thoughts. As in, I don’t want to be going through these things at all, not like, I don’t want to be alive or anything.

Gah. So much thinking. Doesn’t help that I worked an extra shift with a patient who will soon learn that her diagnosis is fatal and likely only mild palliative care is going to make any difference in the coming months… I applied for a new job, outside of PICU. I don’t think long term I can see the saddest cases in the next little while. I need to do my own grief work before I’m strong enough to help other parents through theirs.

FGirl