Special Topics: Pregnancy After Loss

When my son was stillborn at 41 weeks, I came home to a complete nursery. All of his clothes were washed and sorted, his diapers laid out next to wipes and creams. And maybe it sounds counterintuitive, but I was thankful.

I think of all the signs the providers brushed off. I think of the other signs I just didn’t see. My heart hurts. I wish I could go back in time. I wish I had saved you.

Please stop telling me everything is going to be fine. Because you see, I’ve heard those words before, from multiple licensed medical practitioners.

Unfortunately, then my son died. And I remember being so very thankful for every tangible piece I had of his memory. Not only our photos, but also our baby shower, our plans for the future; the time and energy I put into his nursery. All of this was precious to me.

I ordered flower seeds for the backyard. I ordered bluebonnets, though I heard they may not grow here. You should be sitting in bluebonnets, learning to grasp things; starting to smile and hearing me read. I should be reading to you.

I think something that’s hard for me personally is that now that I’m pregnant for the second time, I don’t know how to also hold onto that feeling of wanting to rewrite the past.

I’ve been feeling funny all day. I can’t really put a name to it. Off-balance, yes, and a little bit sad. I’m still processing pieces of my last relationship.

I don’t write this to be condescending. I write this because I unfortunately know. I know what it’s like to think everything’s okay, and then have your entire world fall apart. I will always wish someone had said these things to me. I will always wish someone had thought I should know.

This is quite possibly the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Please note that the following screenshots are simulated tweets. This is the timeline of an event that never happened.

Now imagine one day you were crossing the street, and you were hit by a bus. No warning, no notice; you were completely unprepared. This is obviously something that’s possible, but not the kind of thing that happens everyday. Not to most people.

Pregnant with my daughter after the loss of my son, life is often complicated. Sometimes I can’t sleep. Sometimes I write about it.

I’ve been enamored with the 4th Trimester Bodies Project for years. It was such a message of beauty and reality and massive acceptance. I planned when I saw it to participate myself after my first child was born. And then he died.

I see her when I close my eyes. I see her as a child and all grown up, and I think about the ways that I didn’t see you. When I dreamt of you, you were always an adult looking out of a child’s body.

I smile with genuine feeling. I finally feel excitement. I love her and I miss you. I realize I have given up control.

Yoga pants in Target, and the two week wait. And I think about you. At this moment, you could already be a big brother.

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Peanut wasn’t my first pregnancy. She’s the first that a lot of people know about here. She’s the first one to receive a birth certificate, the first to draw breath and scream. I moved shortly before I started trying for her, and most people here didn’t know my history. I think many just assume.

For the past year, I’ve told myself everyday I would do anything to have you here with me. If I could travel back in time I would do anything to convince myself we should have been induced…For the past year, I’ve told myself this, but now I realize that’s changed.

And for the longest time, I couldn’t cry. And for the longest time I couldn’t cry about you. And then today, and it feels almost out of nowhere. Like it’s a full body memory, and I realized I still miss you. I’ve never stopped missing you.

I find myself living in the world again, at least in pieces. And I railed and I fought and I thought maybe it would be that way forever. And I’m realizing, even when I maybe don’t want to, that somehow I am living.

They I gave her to me and she was screaming and all I could think was yes, mama loves you so much. You are a new piece of my everything. And suddenly I’m just bigger and you are still gone and I’m straddling the world in two.

After losing Adrian to undiagnosed preeclampsia, I was terrified to experience pregnancy for a second time. Terrified, but also holding hope. And my Peanut is finally here. This is her story.

Pregnancy after loss is a complicated journey. These are 10 things I learned about hope, grief, fear, and love, and how my two children can coexist.