Always IF

Yesterday I had low pelvic pains and a back ache all day.  I don't feel Baby Boy move much yet because I'm only 19.5 weeks, so I had no way to reassure myself that these thing are normal.  Yesterday I was overwhelmed with IF. 

Because my baby didn't just "happen," because my baby has a brother in heaven, I don't know how women with oops pregnancies or no losses feel.  I don't know if they worry about every twinge, if they still check the TP every time, expecting something other than normal.  I remember being 6 weeks, 7 weeks, 9 weeks, and always feeling anxious that something was going to happen to my baby.  I thought that when I reached 13 weeks, all of these feelings would miraculously go away.  They didn't.  13 weeks came and went, along with my freakout after my anatomy scan at 17 weeks.  20 weeks is almost here, and while I'm not quite as obsessive as I used to be, I still worry about every little twinge.  I have gone to the doctor every week just to hear the heartbeat.  I rushed over to my SIL's house yesterday to borrow her doppler.  And the doppler is like a drug...it's no longer enough for me.  It's no longer enough to hear the heartbeat.  I want to know that Baby Boy will arrive in this world perfect, and this is a reassurance I won't have until February.

I'm on what's called a Birth Board on Babycenter. Once in a blue moon, women post something worth reading, or something that I find reassuring, so I keep the app for that reason.  More often than not, though, stories are posted that scare me.  I never knew that I would want to reach 24 weeks and viability so badly.  Pre-term labor, water breaking at 20 weeks--seriously, I never knew these things before, and now that I know them, I have to ask my doctor about them. Better to be informed? Yes.  Better to be scared for Baby Boy before he's even here? Not so much. 

This brings me back to IF.  Not necessarily infertility, but the IFs involved because of IF.  What if something happened? What IF I'm not strong enough to weather another storm? What IF the baby isn't growing like he should?  Without IF, would we have ifs?  Maybe, but would they always be there in our minds, nagging, pulling, tugging for our complete and total attention? Is it ever possible to escape the ifs from our past?  I shared this with DH yesterday too, my fears for Baby Boy, and there's nothing DH can say to make it better.  Only holding Baby Boy in my arms will ever make this journey complete, though I'm pretty sure the scars from the trek will never truly fade.  My only other fail-safe? Prayer. Tons of it.

So today, I will go see Dr. N. for my 20 week checkup, complete with a list of questions and fears for her to address.  There will still be ifs, but 20 weeks is still a milestone.