Reflecting

I started this blog eleven months ago, almost to the day.  At the time, I was recovering from my third uterine surgery.  I was also emotionally recovering from my miscarriage four months before.  I never expected the miscarriage to break me so emotionally.  I remember still crying in March, wondering if anyone else grieved so long over something so small. I felt stupid, childish, helpless, and inadequate, as if there was something wrong with me because I couldn't forget Malachi.  We had just found out that my SIL was expecting, and I was trying to find a balance between excitement, jealousy, and love.  All of these feelings are still real to me.  At times, I felt like I had no one to talk to.  Sparky understood how I felt about his sister's pregnancy, but no one understood the feeling of loss and inadequacy associated with the miscarriage and subsequent surgeries. 

I remember vividly crying in the recovery room when Dr. W. told me that our second hsyteroscopy wasn't successful and that I would need laparoscopic surgery. I remember how devastated I was when I learned that all of the hormones had delayed my cycle again.  I remember the fear of my positive pregnancy test on June 5, how I had to hide the box of cheap tests so that I wouldn't compare lines from one day to the next.

I am amazed at how memories can make feelings so real again. 

I am grateful for every single day of the past forty + weeks, but these weeks have not been without their share of emotions and feelings of desperation.  There have been peaks of anxiety so strong in this pregnancy that I wonder if there's something wrong with me, if other women feel such things.  While not the same as dealing with my loss, I've definitely sobbed while asking the question: why am I like this?  Why don't other women feel this anxious or this scared?  There have been days that have left me crippled with fear, sleepless nights where I pray just to let the baby move so I can fall back asleep knowing he's ok. 

All of this stems from the fear of losing something I so desperately want.  Even in this desperation, I still fear the future, the unknown.  What will parenting be like?  What will my life be like?  Am I really "superwoman," able to juggle grad school and work and baby and wife?  And yet, when I hold my son for the first time, these fears will fade away. 

Despite the sometimes-crippling fear, I will be sad to not be pregnant anymore.  The kicks, the rolls, the closeness of Daniel...feelings I will never forget...but I know memories are waiting to be made.  The first time Sparky holds his son, the first time my parents become grandparents--these are the feelings I want to remember when I have these memories years from now.  I think there's a part of me that will always grieve the loss of Malachi, always remember his conception date and due date, but I know the feeling of those memories will be outweighed by the feelings of new memories, of my son, of my family. 

My son. Those words are seriously crazy to type and even crazier to say.

I know that I'm not technically "infertile," that my place in the land of infertile bloggers is nonexistent, really, but without finding this space, I wouldn't have gotten here.  When I was drowning in grief from a loss I thought I "should" have been over, I found others out there experiencing the same thing.  I found women who validated my grief and my thoughts and fears.  Almost all of the women I've met here are now expecting, a fulfillment of a birthday wish I made six months ago.  The comments and the support are amazing, even when you don't feel like you quite fit in.  So thank you, blog friends.  Thank you so much for pulling me out of one of the darkest periods of my life.  For making me realize that I was not an anomaly.