We made it through Christmas. I made it through Christmas. My son and I made a batch of cookies. We wrapped the presents. We unwrapped them. We spent time at church. We spent time with some family. I went through the motions. It’s so hard to explain. I could feel the joy. I could feel the happiness. I could take it into my heart, but there it was quickly swallowed up by that black hole that remains right there in the middle of me. It hurts. An unexplainable pain that doesn’t really cease no matter what happiness I feel.
And the anxiety. We will go and see our doctor again soon. I wish I could say that being pregnant was not even a thought in my mind, but it is. My husband and I have been planning to expand our family for 2 years now. Before the loss of my daughter, I had 2 miscarriages. They were devastating to me mostly because they were delaying our plan. We desperately wanted more children. So, I went through them, kept hope and learned that both of them were totally random and due to genetic abnormalities that had nothing to do with us. After tons of tests and bloodwork and worry, our doctor sat us down and told us we simply had some of the worst luck he had ever seen. So, when we were surprised with the news that I was pregnant again with our daughter, it was pretty fair to expect that our bad luck was over…until November 26th when we shockingly found out that our darling long waited for baby had no heartbeat. And the next day, after having her and finding out that it was a cord accident, the doctor pulled up a chair beside my bed and said once again that we were just stricken with the worst luck.
It still seems impossible. Who could ever have luck so bad? Yet I know, we knew, from the start that we would not stop. In life you have 2 choices. Give up or keep going. In our case, like many others who have experienced tragedy of all kinds, to keep going means heartache. To give up means heartache. I am well aware that there is no way over or under or around this reality. It is our reality and it means that everything will be harder for us. If only there were some guarantee that next time things will be perfect, but life holds no such thing. Maybe that’s why I am suddenly unwilling to let my son out of my sight, even to go to the movies with his father. I know there is no guarantee for me, for him, for any of us. And there was no guarantee for my daughter. On my better days I know this. On my worst days I feel like an utter failure.
