I'm pretty active within the loss community. Before being visibly pregnant with this pregnancy, I would attend the monthly peer support meetings, we hold fundraisers, I'm active on online grief support message boards. I have made many dear friends who understand the pain of losing a child.
These women are amazing people, who are supportive and kind and will always be there for me, no matter what. Many of these women have gone on a similar journey to me, losing a child and trying to conceive another one. Some have even had more than one loss, just like me.
It's like walking down a path with a dear friend and tripping in the same spots, even falling and helping each other up in similar spots. But sometimes, one of those friends ends up taking a different road at some spot on your path. In this case, that person was me.
When I was trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, it would sting when people around me would announce pregnancies. It would sting when I would see those around me having babies. I was jealous and I was hurting. I am not a mean person, I didn't wish anything bad on those people, and I was always supportive and happy for everyone around me that was getting everything they wanted...everything I wanted...but it was like a tiny little knife in my heart.
When I finally started announcing my pregnancy to everyone, I felt the burden of someone who has been on the other side of these announcements. I felt guilty. Everyone found out eventually, but the guilty still weighed heavily on me. When I was experiencing anxiety about my pregnancy, I felt like I couldn't go to my friends and family who hadn't experienced a loss because they wouldn't truly understand the complexity of my feelings and the extent of my anxiety. And guilt prevented me from talking to anyone who had experienced a loss because I felt like piling my feelings about pregnancy on someone who only wishes to be pregnant seemed extremely selfish.
I would become angry with myself a lot, why could I not just be grateful and happy? And while I was grateful, I felt that I must not be grateful enough, if I was, I would be happy and excited, not scared and anxiety ridden.
I was alone and lacking the support I needed because I was afraid or didn't think that anyone would understand how I was feeling. I kept hoping that my feelings would subside, that my anxiety would taper down as my pregnancy progressed. I kept hoping that it would really sink in every time the doctor told me that it was virtually impossible for me to lose another child the way we had lost Alexandra. None of that happened though. The anxiety persisted, the feelings stayed strong, and the words of the doctors didn't resonate at all.
Even in the deepest, darkest moments of my loss, I had never felt so alone.
These women are amazing people, who are supportive and kind and will always be there for me, no matter what. Many of these women have gone on a similar journey to me, losing a child and trying to conceive another one. Some have even had more than one loss, just like me.
It's like walking down a path with a dear friend and tripping in the same spots, even falling and helping each other up in similar spots. But sometimes, one of those friends ends up taking a different road at some spot on your path. In this case, that person was me.
When I was trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, it would sting when people around me would announce pregnancies. It would sting when I would see those around me having babies. I was jealous and I was hurting. I am not a mean person, I didn't wish anything bad on those people, and I was always supportive and happy for everyone around me that was getting everything they wanted...everything I wanted...but it was like a tiny little knife in my heart.
When I finally started announcing my pregnancy to everyone, I felt the burden of someone who has been on the other side of these announcements. I felt guilty. Everyone found out eventually, but the guilty still weighed heavily on me. When I was experiencing anxiety about my pregnancy, I felt like I couldn't go to my friends and family who hadn't experienced a loss because they wouldn't truly understand the complexity of my feelings and the extent of my anxiety. And guilt prevented me from talking to anyone who had experienced a loss because I felt like piling my feelings about pregnancy on someone who only wishes to be pregnant seemed extremely selfish.
I would become angry with myself a lot, why could I not just be grateful and happy? And while I was grateful, I felt that I must not be grateful enough, if I was, I would be happy and excited, not scared and anxiety ridden.
I was alone and lacking the support I needed because I was afraid or didn't think that anyone would understand how I was feeling. I kept hoping that my feelings would subside, that my anxiety would taper down as my pregnancy progressed. I kept hoping that it would really sink in every time the doctor told me that it was virtually impossible for me to lose another child the way we had lost Alexandra. None of that happened though. The anxiety persisted, the feelings stayed strong, and the words of the doctors didn't resonate at all.
Even in the deepest, darkest moments of my loss, I had never felt so alone.
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