The dark (and other random moments from a week in my life)

As I stumble, limp and crawl my way to the end of this pregnancy, it sometimes feels as if I'm wandering around in the dark.

I feel as if danger is lurking around every corner, but I'm not sure where it is. It is almost as if I am seeking it out, because I seem to expect it. Most days, I just can't imagine this ending well. But I try, really I do try.

Things went so very wrong so very quickly with Hope. There were no real warning signs. No pain, apart from the labour pains I was already having which felt "normal" to me and what I sort of expected labour to feel like. No blood loss, no high blood pressure, fevers - nothing. It was all going well until it wasn't.

So it makes it hard for me to relax because things are going perfectly again. So what am I missing? There must be something? Right?

I have been told by a dear friend to try and let go of some of my fears and to hope, trust and love. The hope part for me is easy. I am certainly hoping with every fibre of my being, that this all ends well. That Thumper lives and comes home with us. And the love part is even easier. I love this child without question or hesitation. And I have since before he even came to us. It is the trust that trips me up. I no longer fully trust in the process of pregnancy. I trusted in all of it with Hope, and got let down in the most catastrophic way. I can't trust in my body going in to labour and bringing forth a live child as that is a feat I have never accomplished. I just can't fully trust. I try, but it is so damn hard.

I feel bad for this, as I want to trust my son. I want to trust Thumper. I want to believe that he wants to be born alive just as much as I want him to be. I know his sister did too, but things got out of control in those final days when our midwives and I dropped the ball. I am still angry beyond measure at those midwives and can't see how I'll ever let it go but I also still carry around heavy guilt and shame. They could have been better at their jobs but I also could have been better at mine. No point telling me not to feel this way, as I always will. I should have gone back to hospital. I should have known something was wrong. Things really should have been so very different for us all. Yes I am a broken record. If I let it though, the guilt and shame could totally swallow me hole, but I don't. Those feelings sit almost comfortably now in the back of my conscience. They're just there. It is what it is.

So without being able to fully give over to trust, it means fear is still ever present and a very unwelcome party guest at this late stage of proceedings. When I let the fear right in, it can take over. It goes from a niggling worry in my gut, then it creeps in to my head and before I know it, it manifests itself in to my body shaking in an almost violent fashion as I can feel with all of my senses just how bad it was to lose her and just how bad it would be to lose all over again. The feeling is vile. Sleep is all of a sudden becoming hard again, as I have spent a few nights like this of late where the only thing that will really calm me down is some deep, heavy breathing and a quick use of the Doppler. Even then, it doesn't ever fully go away. The fear just hangs around like a bad smell.

It is not fun to spend the end of my pregnancy this way. I do want to enjoy these final weeks. We really are in the home stretch, but some days I feel like I just want to give up. I guess pregnancy can be compared to labour that way. It is long, gruelling and hard and sometimes when we get near the end, we want to throw in the towel. I remember saying that before those last pushes with Hope, that I didn't think I could do it and that I wanted to give up. But I couldn't give up because that wasn't an option. And giving up this time is not an option either. Thumper needs to be nurtured and carried and right now, I'm the only girl for the job. It does feel like a heavy burden on my shoulder some days. That despite all the wonderful help I am getting from Simon, my family, friends and an array of medical professionals, in the end this is still all up to me. I'm really flying solo here. That feeling of absolute responsibility is enough to make me want to disintegrate some days. I know that is only going to get cranked up a notch when he arrives, too. But at least I'll have others to really help in a practical sense when that happens. If that happens...

I have said to Simon a few times this week "can't we just go in so they can take him out now?" He gives me a wry grin. He knows I'm joking, sort of, and we both know that is not the answer. I just have to hang on. Some how.

I did have fears in the pregnancy with Hope. Fear labour was going to hurt. Fear of interventions. Fear of an epidural needle piercing my spine. Fear of my own flesh tearing as I tried to push my baby out. Fear of bringing an infant home and having absolutely no idea what to do with them. But that was seriously about it. I did not fear my child dying in my body before she was born - because in all truth I really had no idea that could happen. And all of the fears could be easily allayed with one simple sentence: "it will all be worth it in the end". This time, I can't be as sure of that. I know it probably will be, but I can't quite believe it. I can't quite trust that simple, idyllic notion. That all of this fear, anxiety, panic and uncomfortableness will be worth it in the end. Because there is still no one out there in the world who can guarantee me that. Believe me, if there was, I'd fly to the end of the earth to find them. To hear them say to me: "Sally, it is all going to be ok. I promise".

So it is like I am in a dark room. I wander, I stumble and I fall and I'm always looking for sharp edges or things that are going to trip me up. I have my hands out, trying to feel for danger but maybe, there is no danger out there? Maybe, things really will be ok? Maybe I wont be that one this time. Maybe this really will all work out just as it should. Just as it does for most people most of the time.

It is hard not to start counting in my head some days though as I hear of each new baby born to someone I know, both here in this community and in my real life.

133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140......

then boom. A baby dies. Will my baby be that 1 in 140 to succumb to stillbirth? Will I take that statistical bullet again? Just because I've taken it once, doesn't mean I can be so lucky to dodge it this time. It is all crazy-making to think that way, but it gets hard not to. Babies are going to keep dying. Sadly it seems, it can't be stopped.

It can be dark and gloomy over here some days even though the Melbourne spring weather is almost obnoxious in its full glory, but the last few weeks, for more reasons than I care to list, have not been easy. I am scared beyond measure. I am excited but trying to keep a lid on it. I am walking on a tightrope and trying so hard to hang on. But through the darkness, at the end of this incredibly long tunnel, a tunnel that has stretched for two years from the conception of our first child to the birth of our second, there is a small flicker of light. I can see it there, shining away in the distance. That light is of love and hope. I will try to trust as I make my way to the light and shed the layers of fear as I hobble along because that is all I can do right now, keep trying to forge a way forward to the light.

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Other interesting tid bits of information from me about my last few days:

* The excitement that simmers away inside me has morphed in to an all-out nesting phase. Possibly only two to four weeks out from saying hello to our boy, we are repainting the whole house. Probably a batshit crazy idea, but that's what we're doing right now. The nursery that was all finished and ready to go now looks like a war zone, as does the rest of our house. But that's ok. It will become like a race against time now to get it all done and somehow, I seem to feeding off that excitement and enjoying the distraction it is providing. And I haven't had to lift a finger with Dad and Simon doing all of the hard work. I just get to sit around and exclaim every once in a while: "missed a spot". That's been fun.

* I had to make a mercy dash to the hardware store yesterday to pick up a new paint roller for Simon. A man saw me there, huge and pregnant and trying to choose between four-fucking-hundred different rollers when he blurted out: "I think the baby's room will be pink!" "No it wont!" I wryly quip back. "Yes it will!" he goes on to say. "No, IT WONT," I now almost angrily mumble under my breath to him. It is just another one of those odd interactions I seem to have now on an almost daily basis with some clueless stranger. I know they all mean well and this guy was clearly not a bad person, but it just gets exhausting some days. What I wanted to tell him that no, the nursery wont be pink. It could have been pink, but she died. This baby is a boy, but hey idiot, the nursery wont be blue either. It is going to be boring-ass beige like the rest of our house, because we did used to have a boring-ass beige kind of life, until the shit completely hit the fan. But no, I held off on sharing that lovely story. I just kept my head down and tried to choose a damn roller.

* I am going to a wedding today and it will be the biggest social event I have attended in 14 months. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm sure it will also make me sad. Happy-sad though, just a bit sad. I so wish I could rewind the clock back to our wedding day and have that true happy again. And know that so much more happiness was ahead of us. I wish my friends so much love today and can't wait to take me and my enormous belly there in my new enormous dress. I just hope I don't get stuck next to the girls I sat next to at the hen's night last week. When they asked "is this your first?" and I gave them the "no, our first died" answer one of them paused then proceeded to ask if I'd had heartburn with this baby and I said why yes, yes I have and she said well then my baby would have hair, so she whips out her mobile phone and starts showing me photos of her newborn baby girl with a magnificent shock of black hair. Gee, um, thanks? Again, not her fault. She was only trying to be polite. I mean what the hell do you say to someone who tells you their first and only child is dead? True, I'd like to think I wouldn't have shown newborn baby photos, but hey, that's what she did to try and stifle the awkwardness. Can't say she succeeded, but she gave it a red hot go.

* And last night we had dinner with two lovely friends who recently lost their twins to miscarriage at 11 weeks. It was their first pregnancy. She was so brave to want to have me there, in all my round glory over for dinner, but they are wonderful people and it was just so lovely to be able to sit there and talk all night about all four of our children with no funny looks, no awkward silences or no glances in the other direction. When people just GET IT, it is best to stick to them like glue as those people really are few and far between it seems.