Pregnancy After Loss (PAL) - The Storm That is Brewing

34 weeks this week and feeling huge, uncomfortable, I constantly feel like I’m being choked as everything is being pushed up, I cannot find any where that is comfortable – chair, couch, bed, standing, floor, no where is comfortable. I really need to go and get in the pool but that all seems like too much effort at the moment as well. I ran day 1 of 2 of a mental health first aid course this week and was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day. I spent the next day just pottering around at home doing a couple of jobs, a bit of cooking, tried to nap, did a bit of reading etc. but I was bored. I was uncomfortable to be with my own thoughts, my own company. James was at work, Claude at school. Sure, I should be enjoying this quiet time but intrusive thoughts and worry are the overarching feelings these days. The romantic notion of enjoying this last bit of time is mostly lost this time around.

I had my final rostered service in the restaurant last night. It was physically challenging but a welcome distraction from my own thoughts and discomfort at the moment. I’m really pleased it’s my last one – when you work in the hospo front line the comments about your body and your pending baby come thick and fast. I’ve mentioned before in socials posts that it is from the older demographic, and I’m sorry but it really is true. I have a decent sample size – 3 x pregnancies now and I’d work 2-4 shifts on the restaurant floor during all three of those. Is it that the younger demographic know how cliché and annoying those questions can be? Are they more educated? Or are we just a little more introverted and caught up in our own worlds we don’t ask others? Why is it that it’s mostly 50 and over’s that feel the need to comment on how big/or not big you are? Ask when are you due? Is this your first? How old are they? Gee – you mustn’t have long to go now…well, you know what? Actually, I have potentially the longest 5 weeks to get through, and then some really. It’s kind of like I’ve been in cruise control for the last 12 weeks or so, in the air so to say, and now I’m coming down for landing, where the work really needs to be done, where more things can go wrong, the landing gear might not be working, the wheels don’t come down, the weather conditions are fucked, the plane explodes before you can even land…you get the gist.

Why these next 5 weeks are going to be some of the hardest that I will go through? The comparison dates are all coming up for Herb – 34+5 is when things went wrong. We have a check-up/scan on 35+1. My brain wants to tell me that there’ll be something wrong. I feel an impending doom which I’m trying to not put so much weight on. The next is 36+6, when his heart stopped beating and 37 when he was born. The grief bomb that is looming is that this one will be older than Herb ever will get to be once I pass 37 weeks. And of course I think – that is IF I get there. The trauma brains wants to tell you the nasty things that it will go wrong again. As if you deserve this one? You did something wrong last time, you’ve fucked it again this time, don’t kid yourself. The effort it takes to shut down those thoughts is exhausting.  

Then the birth, oh the birth. Birth is a plethora of emotions without grief and trauma thrown in the mix. I am feeling the full array of emotions around the birth, mostly overwhelmed already. To hear them for the first time will be hard, it’s all we ever wanted to hear with Herb, silence in a birth is one of the most deafening but loud experiences you could ever imagine. There is something strange around that time too; once things went wrong with Herb, which I was reminded of recently when I had a scare with my bloods - when the stress and shock of what was happening became known to us I look back and realise there was this almost roaring noise of the world in my ears the entire time. Like the wind was blowing really, really hard around my head at the same time I could hear my heartbeat, white noise and static all at once. I could still hear everything normally, perhaps some things were muffled out, zoning out was easier than it had ever been, but other things you can hear with clarity you’ve never been able to before, cruelly things like a baby crying. I had completely forgotten about it until we got news a couple of months ago there was a change in my bloods which could/but probably not, show a reactivation of toxoplasmosis in my bloods. All is fine and it appears it was a reaction I had from a recent cold I’d had but when I got the call from my Obstetrician the noise instantly came back in to  my head.

But, I digress, the weight of holding a newborn is something I have avoided since holding Herb. I’ve held maybe 3 babies since – the older they are, the more I can tolerate it. I choke up when I see a newborn, I avert my eyes even! I’m terrified. Why? Because I’m worried I’ll be reminded of him too strongly, it’ll make me miss him more than I already do. It’ll remind me of the desire of wanting to be with him forever, holding him and protecting him forever, despite knowing that’s realistically not possible, but thinking of ways that I could leave this earth and just forever be his mum (yes, I am crying while I write this bit).

Other loss mum’s say the same thing – it’s not that we wanted to die by suicide, but the physical and innate desire to be with our babies is so incredibly powerful, it's really hard to describe without having felt it. Every single fibre of your being desperately wants to stay with your baby. You want something to drop out of the sky and take you. You’ll reconcile that no one else needs you more than your dead baby, not your husband, not your other child, not your other family or friends. No one else needs you more than the soul that is passing to the other side. And all you want to do is go with them. The feeling wanes, you realise you can’t go with them. And instead you settle for accepting every day that passes and every breath you take is one breath and day closer to being with them again. Sounds dramatic, and morbid. But it’s how loss mum’s think. I’m not religious, never have been, but I’d like to believe in something – some sort of higher power, I like to believe in reincarnation and that we’re all souls that come and go and walk the earth again. I believed in this before Herb, but I certainly subscribe to it more as it gets me through dark times to think I will be reunited with him one day. I will get to care for him again one day.

I’ve bitten the bullet and ordered a beautiful Inspired By Winnie doll. A custom weighted knitted doll which is made to the exact length and weight you order. Herb was 50cm, 3.19kg. I’m nervous to hold this exact size and weight again. I drank him in and focused so hard to imprint in my brain to never, ever forget what it was like to hold his exact size and weight. I figure, it’s good exposure therapy for me to do this prior to the birth. Hopefully reduce a bit of the fear and discomfort before holding our third child.

Anyway, back to this birth, I want to give this one all my love and good energy as I can. To be present, not to compare or think of Herb too much, give this one the space to be their own person, not be in the shadow of Herb. But it’s a reality that will have to sit comfortably together. I guess at least I’m conscious of all these things. And to just allow ourselves to hold the two things at once – the light and the dark as best we can.

Thanks for taking the time as always to read, I’m finding it really therapeutic to write in this long form instead of just Instagram posts. It’s giving me a bit of purpose for this last bit to sit with, and acknowledge many emotions and thoughts.