Losing Thea was by far the hardest thing my husband and I have ever dealt with. We decided to go ahead and try for another child anyway. It wasn’t to replace what we lost, but we didn’t feel we were ready to call our family complete yet. It didn’t happen right away though and I was naive and thought I would feel better once I saw those two pink lines. Boy was I in for a surprise.
When I found out I was pregnant, I was instantly more reserved than excited. I wanted to be excited, but I couldn’t stand to feel connected to another little baby that could be taken from me. Instead I tried to ignore the fact that I was even pregnant for a while, even though I noticed every little thing with my body that wasn’t normal. My anxiety gradually got to an all time high. I was literally scared of going to scheduled ultrasounds, because it was at a routine ultrasound we found out Thea’s heart had stopped beating. The appointments between 20-22 weeks were the worst. I wanted to go to make sure everything was ok, but was terrified of hearing they weren’t at the same time.
It wasn’t until around 30 weeks that I finally accepted the fact that I might actually have a healthy baby this time. That flipped the switch on a new level of anxiety. Would the baby be early and need NICU? How would true labor go and who would deliver the baby? What would my reaction be if the baby was another boy...or another girl? Around 34 weeks I really started to panic over all of the little things. I kept it together at work, avoided being public, and was a disaster at home.
All of the anxiety over the labor and birth was over nothing. It all went perfectly fine. We had a girl. This didn’t really hit me right away, as I was more relieved about the fact that I had this little baby looking up at me and crying. Truly the best sound ever after giving birth to a baby that never had the chance to cry. The thing that scared me most about having a girl was feeling like we were trying to replace Thea. Thankfully, even to this day, I have never actually felt like that was the case. The problem has actually been far from that,..instead so many little things I’ve had to do with Clara make me wish Thea were here even more. Things aren’t magically better now that we have a healthy baby girl. This quote from an article I read earlier this week explains it the best.
The torture is in everything. There are so many little things that most people wouldn’t think twice about that trigger a whirlwind of emotions. Putting Clara in the car seat to take her home from the hospital-Thea never was in a car seat. Sleepless nights because Clara was restless-I’d give anything to have a one year old next to us keeping me awake a little more. Choosing godparents for Clara-who would we have chosen for Thea? Hanging newborn pictures on the wall-we are missing a child. We will always be missing a child. That is the only part of it all that is plain and simple. The closest Clara will ever be to her sister is this way-which stops me for a second every time she grabs it.
It is hard, it really is. I am still more than thankful to have Clara, don’t get me wrong. I also realize that if we had ended up having a boy, the emotions wouldn’t be any better, they’d just be different because I wouldn’t ever have the experiences with a girl. Either way, it would have been a new life after a loss, meaning there wouldn’t be anything simple about it.
I will say I never experienced anything like this after our other losses, but they were all first trimester. They were still hard, I had some anxiety during the next pregnancies until hitting the second trimester point, but then I thought I was safe. Now I know first hand there is never a safe point and to never assume those things never happen to you. They can and with no explanation as to why. If there is anything I have learned from this whole experience, it would be to appreciate every little thing. For both the boys and for Clara, I know I can’t take anything for granted, because it can always be taken in a blink of an eye.
