FYI: I Hate Math
My Mother's Day bouquet I created with the help of Love Always Floral + Hopeful Heart Project. (A yearly class they offer for bereaved mothers.) Along with a custom card from Taylilly Lettering + Hopeful Heart Project. And my 5 little eggs I posted Easter Sunday.
This past Mother's Day proved to be full of many emotions. This was technically my fifth Mother's Day (third with a living child). Currently, I'm in the middle of my 5th pregnancy. Fifth. I have been pregnant a cumulative 109 weeks. 1-0-9. Currently I have one living child. One. Those numbers may be hard to imagine for some; but easy to relate to for others.
Regardless of the numbers, I am thankful for all of my pregnancies. All of my children. I know there are women out there still waiting for that first pregnancy. Or that first living child. I've been that woman. There are also women out there who are missing their child(ren) who have died, so Mother's Day is bittersweet. I am also that woman. There are women missing their own mothers. Thankfully, I am not that woman, yet.
As I'm typing this, I can feel my baby moving around my belly, and am reminded of the precious, fragile life I carry inside of me. A feeling I wasn't sure that I would ever feel again. I am in the midst of some of the highest risk weeks for baby's heart.* I am definetly used to taking life one day at a time, and this is no different. I know there's a good chance everything can go right, but I also know, things can change in a instant.
My emotions and thoughts are constantly changing and at odds with each other. Being hopeful, but realistic. Worrying, but also knowing it's out of my control. Enjoying being pregnant but dreading the thought of having to bury another child. Wanting to tell everyone my baby news, and wanting to tell no one. If I had known how this spring would have played out, I could have easily kept this pregnancy basically to myself and family for almost the entire time. I joked at the beginning how I wanted to go into hiding, and then emerge with a new baby this fall. Turns out, it would have been fairly easy to do.
I could say Mother's Day was just like any other Sunday. But it was just a little heavier than most days. I felt myself on the verge of crying throughout the day. I was exhausted. Emotionally exhausted. I suppose pregnancy hormones played some sort of role, but it was just an array of factors weighing on me. The weight of these words. Of putting on a smile for my kid. Of staying positive. Of hoping today isn't the day something goes wrong.
For now, I am thankful for every day that goes right. Every day I hear my baby's regular heart beat, twice a day. I'm controlling what I can: taking my medicine, checking baby and going to appointments. And trying really hard not to spend too much energy on things I cannot control. I'm coming up on 19 weeks with a c-section planned at 36-37. Baby's high-risk time for heart-block ends around 26 weeks, but I also have about a 6% chance of my uterus re-rupturing.
So, that's roughly a 94% chance that everything will be just fine from now through delivery. Those are pretty good odds. But when you are told rupturing is only a .7% chance (1.5% with Pitocin added)...you think those odds are pretty good too. And then it happens to you. And your baby dies. Minutes before she is born. Even though we did everything right. We took extra precautions. They tried to save her. Part of me died with her.
So that 6% chance that I will bury another child is definitely a number I've thought about.
How would we position another stone? Can we even fit two between us? We wouldn't be able to have a proper funeral, so would we wait? Would we cremate this time? I better have names ready now, in case something happens.
While non-loss expecting mothers are thinking "What color scheme should the nursery be? What should we do for a gender reveal? What brand of carseat should we get?" I'm over here thinking of burials, headstones and if we would cremate this time. Those are normal thoughts when you've been through a loss before. Of course I also think of bringing baby home, but I haven't let myself go down that road too much as of yet, as it's still a long ways away.
I know with COVID and all of the restrictions, many expecting mothers are understandably experiencing anxiety and disappointment: going to appointments alone, not having everyone you would like at the delivery (or post-delivery). Meanwhile my anxiety and worry has been 100% about giving birth to a living, breathing baby. That's it. To me, nothing else matters.
Because I know that it can happen to me. My baby can die. Babies die. Seventy-one a day are stillborn in the US alone. I am not exempt from it happening. Most expecting moms don't want to bring themselves to think that their baby could actually die. And I'm not saying they should, but I can never go back to the innocence of thinking "everything will be fine."
There's a good chance everything will be fine, I know and hope for that. But I also know, there's a chance that it won't. That's not being negative, that's reality. And it's my reality. I have experienced more loss than successful outcomes. I am currently 1 for 4, with a chance to be 2 for 5. I can't change the numbers, but I can hope for the best and know that regardless of the outcome; my faith, family and friends, will see me through.
So that's my little bit of math/statistics, and a little glimpse into the mind and heart of a loss-mom, who is expecting another child, in a high-risk pregnancy, during a pandemic, while teaching from home, with a three year old boy playing monster trucks & tractors at her feet.
*This link has information on one of my medical conditions and the study I was in when I was pregnant with Thomas. I currently have weekly ultrasounds + I check baby's heart rate at home twice a day, through week 26 of pregnancy. Thomas and I were #5 on the chart below. It was a scary week or so with him having an irregular heart beat, but all turned out ok.
