Looking back, ahead, and around

I am 28 weeks, 6 days pregnant. My baby is kicking comfortingly and reliably, and except for some pretty consistent aches and pains, which I guess are normal, I am so far perfectly healthy. I'm so grateful for all of this. My mind's been full, so full I'm having a hard time getting done what needs to be done.

• Recently, we found out a friend had a miscarriage with her first pregnancy at 11 weeks, after having heard a heartbeat.  I cried so hard for the couple, I was heartbroken for them. Having gone through this, knowing how common it is, only makes me so devastated others have to go through it too. I think about all the ways they may be thinking about how right now, they would have been this pregnant; about their due date; about how much it will hurt to see pregnant women or babies; about how people will reassure them that they'll have a healthy child in the future but they will want to respond, "But I wanted *this* baby, now." Or about how when they do get pregnant again, like us, they will be nervous every time they wait to hear that heartbeat, and how they'll have to put up with other people telling them not to be so nervous anymore. 
• I continue to have very mixed feelings about my midwifery care. On the one hand, we went to their practice's natural childbirth class and felt really good about our choice of provider. Their standard practices are sadly not at all standard for care in the U.S., they are instead evidence-based, and as a result their statistics for births are awesome. I can be in the water, off monitors, encouraged to change positions and move throughout labor, and it's apparently normal for them to push in positions other than on the birthing bed. This is the kind of care I have always wanted to give birth since I first picked up "Our Bodies, Our Selves." Yet I continue to be triggered as fuck by my prenatal appointments. With my doula's encouragement, I made a chart note that was very short and insistent, and the midwife who received it was totally okay with sharing it with everyone, although they still don't bring up or ask about my PTSD or the previous pregnancy losses, like the chart note asks them to. One time, one of the shittiest midwives said, reassuringly, "we expect you to call with concerns more often given what you've been through," and that was really what I needed to hear. That was the last time I heard that, in my first--otherwise pretty bad--appointment. Since then, I've heard (from the same midwife) impatience that I'm not feeling okay about this pregnancy yet; and (from another midwife), ignorance that I'd even had a second miscarriage because she doesn't bother checking my chart before coming into meet me. I also asked to hear what's been helpful for other women in my situation--after two appointments, nada. I saw the same okay-midwife for two appointments, but for my next two I'm back to being a ping-pong ball, mostly because of scheduling and partly because I have to meet all of them eventually so I don't freak out meeting a new person when I'm at my most vulnerable and trying to progress in active labor. I have only met *half* the midwives in this practice so far. I dread meeting a new one every time. I don't trust that they'll read my chart, I fear they'll say stupid things (the first awful midwife, when she first met me, asked me in the first few minutes what my "PTSD from sexual violence" was from. When I told my therapist about that, she put her head in her hands because asking someone to justify their diagnosis is so ignorant). I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about what I should be doing better to protect myself and my baby, since I'm only middling-satisfied with how I feel in their care. Then in the morning, I can handle the middling feelings, but after pregnancy losses and the bad care I got for them, and after my experience of trauma, having to trust people who seem only partially trustworthy is hard. I wish I could just see one midwife for the rest of my visits and give myself a break from the anxiety of meeting them, and somehow have met whichever midwife will be on call for my birth. Also, I wish people got that this isn't a side issue, that this matters, me having to struggle to breathe normally before every appointment, me losing sleep dreading my interactions with them. At the birthing class, I even felt fine and positive about it, yet my body still constricted my breathing for the rest of the day. And of course, trouble breathing and my body involuntarily tensing up is going to affect my ability to labor unmedicated. I wish I could just conquer this but I can't. I've been on a years-long quest to do so, and I believe I'll get there, but not by April. It would be so helpful for me to have a provider in the room who I knew for sure got that my traumas are not solely something in the past, that got how miscarriages really affected my ability to "trust in my body," who knew that bringing up the special challenges of being a survivor and having gone through losses in a sensitive way won't make me uncomfortable but instead will let me know that it's okay for *me* to ask for what I need to attend to those issues. My doula is kind of there  in that way but also kind of not interested in it. I'll keep working on this. 
• I've been counting the kicks. It's going okay. I get nervous, panicked sometimes--is this the night we'll have to go to L&D? But then I drink a glass of ice water and everything is fine. I'm trying to use this time as time to just connect with the wisdom of my baby, to get to know my baby, to send it love in the present. 
• I sobbed the other night after the hospital tour, after many hours of getting to the place where I could get in touch with these feelings, that after we have the baby, I will have no family of origin to call to say the baby's born, and no one to ask to come visit. I've made this choice on purpose because interacting with them only upsets me, even after years of asking for what I've needed, but for the rest of my life, I know, I will long for a mom, for a family, who is comforting, supportive, and safe; who I can trust. I want to share my baby, but I want to protect it more, to only have it know adults and friends and family who would protect it from abuse and who would let it express any feelings it has (and who don't make its mother miserable and less able to love it).
• On a very busy work day I was flipping out about having so few maternity clothes that fit and look decent--it's hard to adjust to a new body, and I always hated shopping, and I feel like I'm "doing it wrong," buying a lot of things that don't work out, not buying things that I need to look and feel good. But I knew all the while that I am so, so grateful for this problem. I am so, so grateful to have gotten to this stage of pregnancy. I remember when I wondered if I ever would.  

The Quickening

Before we had "The Thickening!" And now we have THE QUICKENING! I regularly feel little twitches, despite my anterior-and-to-the-right-placenta, and I'm pretty sure they're not gas or digestion, they're my big baby moving around. I had thought it might be weird, but it's not. I love it. I am 20 weeks pregnant today. That means I officially can't have a miscarriage this pregnancy. If I have a loss, it would be a stillbirth. I'm glad to be over 35 so NSTs and an extra ultrasound is in my future. Reading all these natural parenting books I wish I heard more about infertility, about pregnancy loss, in them. That's part of "nature" too, and it sure as hell affects how women feel about birth. I hired a doula this past week. She's experienced, professional, sensitive, and she seems wise. She shared with me that she had lost an infant, though she didn't share details. I feel so sad for her. I can tell she gets that my worries aren't pathological. Hiring the doula made me feel so much more hopeful about my care and about the birth, after a disappointing last appointment with the midwives. It feels good to have support.

I'm so happy to be halfway through this pregnancy, to be showing, to be preparing. After so long and so much grief and despair about whether this would happen, I can't believe it's happening. Also this past week, I had unexpected contact with my family of origin. A tumult of emotions, and while my therapist was on vacation, but luckily a friend came into town and we talked about it a lot. I won't go into the details, but I will say that being called family is a privilege, not a right. Being called Grandma is a privilege that needs to be earned. I wish I could scream it from the rooftops. No one has a right to be in my life, to be in anyone 's life. Also, my choice to share about this pregnancy is also an honor. Anytime someone shares about their life, it's an honor. Sometimes my world looks smaller since I've challenged my old assumptions about what I "owe" to people. And that's sad. But it's also sometimes feeling a lot richer. And deeper. I don't want people who couldn't bother to extend sympathy with my grief over the miscarriages (or anything else) to share in my joy over this pregnancy, it just doesn't feel right.

I know I said I'd say "B'sha'ah tovah," but I say congratulations sometimes, and often I accept congratulations from others. I'm trying to live in hope, even though the fear comes sometimes. I love this baby so so much already. I love you, baby. I will tell you for the rest of my days about the earliest beginnings of yours.

It's a ...

surprise! We managed to wait to find out the sex, even having to look away at several points when she told us to, so we wouldn't see. The ultrasound tech knows though, and took a picture. Most importantly, my baby is healthy by every single measure she could see. Four chambers of the heart. Perfect looking brain, kidneys, vertebrae, bones. My cervix is long and shows no sign of preterm labor risk. How did I get so lucky to have such a healthy baby? Tears streamed down my cheeks the whole time. My baby lifted up its legs like in happy baby pose; crossed its legs; made fists and brought those fists up to its mouth as though to suck its thumb; had a heart rate of 144 bpm (just like last time we checked, when it was 145). My baby's little foot was 2.9 centimeters long. That seems huge! And she said it weighs about ten ounces. Baby is measuring one week bigger than schedule, also like last time (I like big babies, and anyway that's reassuring). Also I get an ultrasound at 32 weeks, and they said they'll do non-stress tests weekly starting at 35ish weeks, all because I'm over 35 years old. Yippee! But most of all, yippee for my baby. My baby, with me, right here, healthy and seemingly peaceful. I feel so lucky and so grateful.

Telling

I am 18 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. Yay! I worry that I haven't felt movement yet, though a couple of times I wondered if I had. I feel so tired today. It's a gray day, but I am tired of being tired and behind on work. I wish I could just sleep until I felt rested, but that seems so elusive these days. I have my anatomy scan at MFM on Friday, and I'm both looking forward to it, because the last one was so amazing, and I'm nervous. What if something's wrong? What if we find out the baby has died?  Soon I'll be at the stage where I'll worry about cord accidents. I know that most likely, we will bring home a healthy baby. And it's weird to admit just how much that hope in my life changes everything. Any time I think about the future, this pregnancy brightens it. Makes me smile. Unlike the dark year and a half of miscarriages.

I called the midwife office and switched my next appointment to one who I'm pretty sure I'll feel comfortable around. It helped last week to just allow myself to say about the last midwife, who I'll call Sue, "it's okay if I don't like Sue." I don't like Sue. But there are several others, maybe I'll like them better. I get angry every time I'm on my bike, thinking about how Sue warned me that if I got into a wreck and the bike hit my abdomen, I could lose my baby. I have never in ten years of bike commuting a few days a week, gotten into a "wreck," or fallen off my bike in any way. This was quite the mixed message, since moments before that she told me to go on anxiety meds; then she told me I wasn't worried enough? I just don't like Sue, and that's ok. I realize though that I trust Sue more than I trust my Mom, who I haven't even told about the pregnancy because we are estranged. That's just a sad fact, and I think that always makes disappointment harder.

---

Two days later. Today I have the scan, which could be an incredibly happy memory or a traumatic one, likely happy. I also realized that it's exactly one year today since I had a scan that confirmed what I'd known the night before, that I'd lost yet another pregnancy. What a sad memory. All the blood that night, me burning swaddle blankets in the rain, me trying to destroy myself because I just couldn't take this cruelty. Here's a story I don't often tell: my ex-therapist charged me, as was her policy, for the phone call, 10 or 15 minutes or so long, that I'd made that afternoon to her office just telling her that indeed, I'd had another miscarriage as I feared. Later that night I left an enraged message about this, amid the bleeding and cramping and going mad with grief, on her voicemail. I called again the next day, changing my mind about never wanting to see her again, but still pissed as hell, and mean. I'm not proud of how I acted; I apologized to her afterward. Yet later on she repeatedly cited that night and morning, when I was absolutely beside myself with grief and pain, and angry that she charges (as is her right, though I later realized not all therapists do) in all instances for phone calls, as proof that I don't take responsibility for my actions and that I am "abusive." She never mentioned the context later. I'm still so ashamed of that story, and the label she put on me because of it, even though it's so clear I should have fired her long before I did. I guess I'm thinking about it today because holy fuck was that a dark time. Before the traumatic D&c, before the months of failing to get pregnant again, before the desperate attempts to not lose my job while missing so much work around that time. Things got better after I saw Dr. Special, and fired that therapist, and of course, since I have had a healthy pregnancy.

I told people more widely at work yesterday that I'm pregnant, and they were so happy for me and kind it turned a hard day into a really good one. It felt really good to share that instead of hiding why I'm tired a lot, and to have them share in my happiness. I wanted to find out the sex today just to have another moment of "telling" before the baby's born. But it's also scary--what if today I have to find out that I have to un-tell again? And sad--every time I tell someone I know I'm not telling my mom, and I miss her. Even though it's not healthy for me to be around her, though I feel bad about myself when I do, I miss her. And even more, I miss what I never had, a mom who I couldn't imagine not telling, like some people had.

I hope it's not a bad sign that I haven't definitively felt my baby move yet. Tiny "maybe that's it?" Here and there is all. I am going to bust my ass to be the kind of loving and attentive and secure-in-herself mother that my baby couldn't imagine not telling, and I've started trying for that since day one of this pregnancy.

Trusting

I am 17 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. Which is awesome! Almost four full months! I have a little bump that admittedly most people wouldn't notice if they weren't looking but it's there. This reminds me: you know that cultural sensitivity exercise where they ask you to "draw an Indian?" And the point is that an American Indian doesn't need to always be dressed in feathers or whatever but can look like anybody else. That reminds me of pregnancy. "Draw a pregnant woman." And up until recently I'd have thought immediately of a woman with a gloriously developed belly. And that's certainly reflected on absolutely everything written about pregnancy. But it's also a woman with an entirely flat stomach, or someone who looks like me, or someone a little between all these points. Being on the verge of birth takes a long time. Pregnant women are just, women.

The best thing to report is that I heard the baby's heartbeat yesterday. Strong and rhythmic and amazing, 145 bpm. I am so so relieved to know the baby in there that I still can't feel is alive and as far as we can tell, well. I cried so hard for a while on the car as we left the midwives' office, I was just overcome. With relief and love and I hardly knew what else. I didn't like how yesterday's appointment went. I was listened to and responded to and that was good, but I have a hard time getting over a few things that really shook me up and ended up leaving me a bigger emotional wreck than I'd planned on, or needed to be. First, you have to understand that both MFP and I are really anxious in the days before the appointment. We fear that we'll find out the baby has died again, like we did on my very first visit to that office, my first prenatal visit ever. I go over the traumatic miscarriages in my head and remember all the anger and resentment I feel about the treatment I got. I made a list of questions to ask the midwife I'd be meeting on Monday, and I admit I'd heard she was especially gentle and I was looking forward to telling my story of the miscarriages to someone who seemed responsive. I don't really feel like the one midwife I've seen really gets how this is affecting how I feel about my treatment--that I'm still kind of pissed that the midwives were totally not there for me during the MCs, and how quickly, despite my advocating for myself, I got funneled through the medical system like an anonymous piece of meet without help or adequate preparation; how I was poo pooed. Yeah, partly I want a, "we can do better and will try to," but mostly I want an answer to, "how is my birth and pregnancy not going to go the same way?" Anyway, they get me into the exam room and say the same midwife as before will see me, fucking with my mental expectations of the visit. There are several midwives in the practice and any one of them could deliver my baby, so it's important I get to meet all of them in advance; plus like I said, I was looking forward to trying a new one; and thirdly, I have PTSD and am nervous as hell about each visit, so anything totally controllable that gets fucked up heightens my fears. And did I get a, sorry we messed that up? No of course. I got, make sure you tell the desk next time. Well I did, actually, and the desk fucked up. They did offer to let me switch, but I didn't know how long I'd have to wait to get in to see the other one, and I wanted to hear the fucking heartbeat. So then, and this is what really fucked me up, she asked if the midwife in training can look for the heartbeat. I like her, and the last time the midwife found it super quick so I was like sure. BAD MOVE. NEVER AGAIN. She struggled to locate it. I became distraught, though likely I just froze. I said, oh no, here it is. In my head, I was convinced, this is over. Yet again, it was stupid to hope. I'll have to untell everyone. I knew I shouldn't have counted on this. That's it, everything I feared is happening. Meanwhile the experienced midwife is smiling, oh it's okay, which is not helpful to have my feelings be so denied, and then she took over and found it right away. And then I couldn't even sob with relief as I wanted to because it's a Doppler and if I move, you can't hear it, and I REALLY wanted to hear it. I think the wait was only 20-30 seconds, who knows, but in my trauma brain it didn't matter, it is seared into my brain, it was so fucking intense. Bastards. This was after they asked me how I was doing and I said nervous because we're always nervous about hearing the heartbeat! Now I know never to let any trainee do a damn thing to me--do it on some mother who's only had healthy pregnancies and who doesn't have PTSD, ok?--but they should have fucking known anyway, just have the trainee look for the heartbeat AFTER the experienced one already found it! Okay?! And then she's like, you'll need a pap, and I'm like, way to not read my chart, asshole, I had it last time (ok you can see I'm having a hard time trusting my caregivers), and suggested that I take anxiety meds (out of your scope, lady, also, will they cure the memory of losing two pregnancies in a row, or the fact that 1 in 160 pregnancies end in loss?), telling me I should stop biking to work (um, no), and asking me when I was going to feel like things were okay with this pregnancy, all in a jokey, friendly, not too condescending or edict--issuing way, but COME ON. Pregnant women are concerned about their baby's health? That's a universal experience. Women who've had multiple losses fearing that the baby might not have a heartbeat, and needing some goddamn consideration of that when deciding how to train a midwife? OBVIOUS. Woman with PTSD who has rehearsed how the appointment will go needing to be sure of who, exactly, she'll be seeing that day? Maybe not as obvious, but you can fucking say sorry when you fuck up instead of telling me what I'll do differently!

Apparently I'm still very angry about how that went. On the day of, I was just a ball of tears and exhausted and I lost hours of work unexpectedly because of it. Believe it or not, I still feel like I'm in a good place overall with my care. It's just really hard for me to allow flaws. All of these are small in the context of the visit except for subjecting me to the needless search for the heartbeat, and secondly,  fucking up who I'd be seeing. MFP is going to call in advance each time in the future to make sure they have it right, so that my very traumatized self can have as few surprises as possible. Also, I am going to work on getting into the mindset that my job is to get the best care possible, and that involves being respectful, but it does not necessarily involve being nice or protecting the midwife's feelings--i.e., I will try to practice saying no (to allowing the trainee to do anything, or anything), and saying when something is not helpful, and asking for what I need instead. I am afraid of being invalidated during labor, I'm afraid of insensitive people who neither know nor care about my story being around me in labor, I'm afraid of unnecessary pain resulting from my own inability to advocate for myself, I'm afraid of needing to be an adversary rather than a partner with my caregivers. I feel afraid of imperfections in the people from whom I'm asking for help in this process. Of course they will be imperfect, but what level of imperfection am I willing to tolerate when my baby's life is at stake? When this kind of health matter is trauma central for me, for other reasons but also because of the recurrent miscarriages? It's hard to feel safe and okay and trusting, even when I feel--or especially when I feel--utterly floored by how happy and relieved I am that I'm this far and the baby's okay.

I got a list of doulas from the midwife, and I'm calling them for interviews. I think a doula can provide some of the individualized support I'm looking for, at least in the birth part. And maybe a postpartum doula for after.

Fear and not-fear

I am 16 weeks pregnant today. That makes me so happy. I am so far along! This feels so very pregnant! I struggle with feeling like an imposter in a lot of areas of my life, but especially pregnancy. I remember saying to the midwife right after we heard pregnancy #1 didn't have a heartbeat something like, I feel so stupid, like I don't belong here. Like I came in acting like a pregnant woman but really, I'm not like all the others. The midwife was like oh no of course not. I wish she'd stayed and talked to me for much much longer, and had been there for my follow up appointment. I wish I'd heard more, you really were pregnant. This happens. It's particularly cruel. You couldn't have known. With this current pregnancy #3, I am finally feeling like 16 weeks is "legitimately" pregnant, it doesn't sound like I'm going around foolishly believing that I'm pregnant and telling people too early (I would NEVER judge anyone else as harshly as I judge myself). I've even felt like an imposter in the pregnancy loss community. I've had two miscarriages, but not 3. And I feel ashamed that I sought a support group when my losses were so early, even though no one there has ever belittled my losses. And why would I be ashamed of being spared the intensified suffering of an even later loss? A few weeks ago the pregnancy loss group held a tulip planting ceremony. I feel ashamed (sense a pattern?) that I didn't go. I didn't go for lots of reasons--scheduling conflicts, the way I don't really think of my losses as having severed a connection with a particular child, but rather a moment of cruel suffering and dashed hopes that I endured; the fact that ceremonies like this drive home for me the ways recurrent miscarriage feels different for me than the experience of later term loss; the feeling of hopefulness about this pregnancy that I've had lately since I've never experienced this trimester before, and so my thoughts have been on other things than my miscarriage grief, and I didn't want to turn them back. I feel guilty for feeling hopeful. I feel guilty for not feeling afraid. Am I just avoiding my fear? Is it growing somewhere undetected, ready to turn somehow malignant? Or do I really just not feel much? If I don't, am I like the ignorant, insensitive people not living on Planet My Baby Died that we used to talk about in the pregnancy loss group, and direct our anger toward?

Or maybe I don't feel much fear because unlike women who've experienced later losses, I am hitting milestones like 16 weeks for the first time; growing a bump for the first time; making concrete parenting plans for the first time, and maybe good fortune doesn't mean I'm ignorant or insensitive. I was raised on a steady diet of guilt and shame. It makes sense that my default setting would be to feel that again the moment I feel hopeful and good. 

My therapist said that I have to really feel that I deserved the kind of love that I want to give my child, because every child deserves that, in order to be able to really fully give it to my child. I see this kind of double standard everywhere around me and it makes me mad: people who excuse and tolerate the pain of things their parents did to them, not really mourning it or giving themselves the compassion of healing from it, when they themselves would never in a million years treat another person that way. I'm talking about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse here, not small slights. Like there's one standard for what's an acceptable way to treat me, and then there's another for everybody else. Yet actually believing that about myself--that I deserved what every child deserves, what my child deserves--seems nearly impossible. And trying is very painful. But I see why I have to do it. I think about telling my child every year on its birthday--"and then they put you on my chest and I talked to you so you'd hear my voice to comfort you, because I knew you'd been through something hard," and hugging her or him and saying I love you so so much. And the instant I think of that incredibly longed-for dream, which itself makes me tear up with emotion, I feel an enormous pang of pain, knowing my mother never did anything of the kind. Knowing that she could barely remember the difference between the day of my birth and that of her other children; that the first memory she has of my life is one of resentment at my horrible father; that she said I was born at a "crabby time," that just a few years ago she dropped some birthday gesture off on my porch and didn't even bother to knock to say hello, even though all the lights were on and we were clearly home. I can barely comprehend the pain of truly facing that when all is said and done I just wasn't that special to my mom, that despite all the words she could say now in response to that statement, her actions have always spoken louder. I will never, ever, ever know how my child will feel when I tell it its birth story with love, when I cuddle my child and say I love you so much, I have loved you long before you were ever born, and I have quilts I sewed for you in 2013 to prove it. And trust me that hurts like a bitch. That fucking hurts. And that's why people like me tell ourselves that "it's different" for us versus our children in millions of subtle ways; that we keep going back and trying to please people who betrayed us and silenced us and put us down, when we would never in a million years want our children to spend that energy on someone who hurt them, we'd rather they grieve for the loss of what that person won't be to them and focus on giving ourselves the love we need, and assembling only people around us who will do the same.

So that's what I've been focusing on, now that the panic from my own miscarriage traumas has subsided. I want to love my baby and heal my damn self. I recently discovered postpartum doulas. I literally made a list of wishes for what I'd ideally like help with after the birth, and then I learned that there are actually women who do all of these things for a fee, and give you all that emotional validation to boot. I felt elated. One of the sites even said, "your mother, without all the strings attached." Doulas mother the mother. That made me cry. I told an acquaintance that I know I'll be sad postpartum because my mother won't be involved, and she was like, isn't she in town? And I lament how rare it is to find a person who doesn't automatically assume a mother is a good thing. Even years ago when I was still playing the denial game, I wouldn't have wanted her "help," I don't feel comfortable around her. And yeah, she could wash dishes and do laundry, but I'd have to beg for it, and I'd have to face how I know she favors my brothers' kids (because daughters are assumed to always take care of themselves), and how she would be near me without being attentive or affectionate or interested in getting to know me as a person, and it would have caused emotional turmoil. Post-denial, it's impossible. How could she carry me in her body and then not lift a finger to protect me from my horribly abusive father? The more pregnant I get the sadder I am about my relationship with her and horrified that she could have treated me in a way I would never treat my child. 

See how I keep just assuming that this will be one day a child? I feel guilty about that, too. I know that there really is a very high likelihood that it will be, safely. I also know it's not for certain, but I have the luxury of not having experienced the opposite, and the lack of that particular trauma makes it easier to say that. Just like my child will hopefully go through life with the luxury of believing that s/he doesn't have to feel ashamed without a reason; that caregivers are generally trustworthy; that mothers are usually good to have around.

I get annoyed at how condescending much of the pregnancy info is, so cutesy and lame, like I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot. This pregnancy brings up big, complex emotions. It does for many women, for many particular reasons. All that processing gets ignored in favor of "your baby is an avocado!"

One last thing. Cleaning out the closet that will hopefully be the baby's closet, I found a bag, thrown in haphazardly. Inside I found a stuffed Paddington Bear, I'd bought suddenly but after much anguish, on a trip to London, just after miscarriage #1, and right after I'd gotten my period after our first cycle of trying again. I thought about the pain of the miscarriages for the first time in a long time. That was such a brutally horrible time in my life. Really, getting my period that first time after trying with the OPK post-MC was almost worse than the miscarriage itself. I learned that I wasn't "owed" anything, that no rainbow was going to be shining its healing light anytime soon. I remember vividly sitting in the bath in London, and suddenly breaking out into sobs. Wails. "I want my baby! I want my baby!" I was supposed to be shopping for baby clothes on our trip. I was supposed to be nearly showing. Instead I ran out into the streets and wandered at night, wishing I could throw myself in front of a bus. I couldn't have a loving mother, and I couldn't be one, either. I was cut out from one of the most basic human relationships, in any form. I made it back that night to a worried MFP. I remember that. But I had completely blocked out that I had bought the Paddington until I found it again in a moment of forced hope for this new pregnancy. I don't feel too much fear these days anymore that the baby is/will be dead, but that doesn't mean it's easy to actively hope--to get myself to do things "as if" the baby is coming, like really clean out a closet, or, like I did today, force myself to buy a book I was holding that I really want to read to my child. I looked at his little red galoshes and toggle coat and I was astounded that even in that moment of despair, that time I remember as being one of utter hopelessness and misery when it comes to thoughts of being a mother, I took that leap of faith. That I winced and ran back after first dismissing the idea, and bought it anyway. Because I wanted this pregnancy, the one I'm having right now, the healthy one, the one that just hit sixteen weeks, the one that I told work about to schedule my leave, the one that led to the loaned pregnancy pillow I'm sleeping with and the clothes that no longer fit and the new bras and the now pretty much undeniable little bump, I wanted it so much that I was willing to commit an act of defiance of that despair. I cried, really hard, when I found that bear. For myself, having to go through that horrible time, but mostly, because I could hardly believe that bear was now, soon, if I keep doing some cleaning and reorganizing, going to decorate that deeply longed-for baby's room. This is really happening. At last. 

Rainbows

A friend had her healthy, screaming baby this week after losing her daughter last year. I've been thinking about the story that inspires the term "rainbow baby" and I thought I'd go directly to the source.

And God spake unto Noah, I will establish my covenant with you; ... neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. ... I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. (Genesis 9: 8-17, KJV)

There's been a cataclysm. God promises the people that a cataclysm like this will not happen again, and that this promise to the people will always be remembered, and every time they see a rainbow, they will know that they are remembered, and they'll remember the terrible time, and the promise that it won't happen again.

Obviously, with recurrent miscarriage, I know that losses can happen more than once, even when it seems unthinkable. That's how I felt this time last year. Pregnant for the second time, so glad we were finally pregnant again after what felt like an eternity (4 or 5 months), and I just thought there's no way this could happen again. But it did. In a totally different way; the pregnancy looked doomed from the start, despite stupid doctors and nurses refusing to acknowledge that constant spotting at 5 weeks could definitely signal a chemical pregnancy. So for me, the rainbow is less a promise, a trust that I have some kind of deal with a man who controls the universe, and more a sign of remembering and hope. And I think the story fosters that reading as well. I'll see the beautiful sign and I'll remember the terrible storm that preceded it, and I'll always remember that there is always hope after the storm. Hope for something truly beautiful, that actually could only have been created in the wake of the rain.

I'm 15 weeks pregnant today, and sporting a tiny bump that's looking less and less like a thickening. If I were Princess Kate the paparazzi would definitely be in a tizzy with speculation. My breasts are huge--I look like an actress in a Jane Austen adaptation in a corset and empire waisted dress at all times--they are popping out like on a shelf! I'm usually pretty small breasted so this is a weird new development for me (I wear a lot of scarves to cover the cleavage in my lower-cut dresses because I am just not ready for this new body). I hope I'll be able to feel my baby in the next month. I am so, so, so, so grateful and happy to have made it this far. I love my baby so much. I came across this article today that fetuses react to music as early as 16 weeks. How cool! Then I read more than just the headline and it turns out that that was only if there was a vaginal speaker. Eww. No thank you. Perhaps babies ears need to be protected from such stimulation when they're at such a tender developing stage. But still. I know later on they are able to respond to sounds outside my abdomen. I also read that after the baby's born and placed on my chest, I should talk to it right away, and MFP should talk to it too, because it will recognize my voice and his voice. And this could calm our baby down after it's had a shock coming out of my body. I had never thought of that before. So beautiful.

Last week I came across the blog of a mother who just last month lost her son to stillbirth in my city. After reading through a few posts, I also saw that she seems devout and she is very anti-choice, though of course she's filled with much more despair at her own loss right now than anger or resentment towards other women; in fact, she wrote about telling her fellow anti-choice activists to have compassion and listen, though I think she meant to the supposed grief of women who had abortion, not their gratitude for the procedure. I was thinking about how pregnancy loss, I'd guess, can reaffirm the deeply held beliefs someone already has, rather than turn everybody in the same direction on any issue. For everybody, the loss hits them in the context of their own lives, and that's just never going to have the same outcome, even if we have similar griefs.

When I saw my baby on the last ultrasound a few weeks ago, crying and shaking MFP's hand, I told the ultrasound technician that it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, seeing that baby-looking body moving and waving, even though I couldn't feel a thing and it wouldn't react at all to the poking of the tech into my abdomen. At that point I was about 12 weeks, and most abortions occur before that point (nine in ten abortions occur in the first trimester, in fact), but still, many women have abortions at or later than I was at that stage of pregnancy. They might only have just figured out they were pregnant--who's really that vigilant about her cycle when she's not on a fertility mission?--or they might only just have finally gathered up the funds and the transportation and all of the other obstacle-overcoming means (that anti-choicers have put up in their way) to have the procedure.

I did, for a moment after the scan was over, ask myself, do I really support abortion when the fetus looks like that, can move like that? To me, the experience was so incredible, so fascinating, it looked like nothing I'd ever seen. Then I remembered: but I want this pregnancy. I feel this way because I want this baby so, so much. Another woman might feel so many different things because of the context of her life. Fear, dread, panic, grief. And I remembered too, that despite what image the technology created, the baby still absolutely 100% needed me, and what if I didn't want to be needed? We were caught in a network of mutuality, and that's what the baby needs to grow: me, on board. It's wrong, to me, to grow a child by force and shame. We have to both be on board for this pregnancy, this life, both of these lives, to work.

I'm so glad I'm working to grow my rainbow. Here's to hope.