It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Today is 653 days since George’s delivery – about 2.5 months away from the 2-year mark, and 572 days since Sara died – almost 19 months. It’s been harder to write the further I get from 2019, because it feels like everything I start to say, I’ve already said. But here I am tonight, and I’m going to write anyways. I have a new therapist, and it recently occurred to me during one of our sessions that despite how open I’ve been about my grief and how much I try to sneak mentions of Sara into conversations when appropriate, I don’t often dig too deep into how amazing things were… because when I do, it makes it that much harder when I come out of the memory and find myself in my current reality. I don’t want to paint Sara or I or our relationship as worthy of being on a pedestal, but I’m proud of how we were together – how we supported each other, how we loved each other… we were just so compatible. I still miss her so much, every day.
This picture showed up in my facebook memories today – I have no idea where we were or what we were doing (it was May 27, 2017) but I’m glad I have it.
One thing that I’ve been struggling with lately is a renewed missing of who I was when I was with Sara. It’s not that how I comport myself in the world has changed dramatically since she died, but the lens through which I view the world has changed. I miss being optimistic and being able to assume things would work out. Don’t get me wrong – before the shittiness of 2019, I would worry about things. But in my before, it was more of a “let’s make sure we do everything we can to make sure things work out” worrying, which is very different from the emotional aftermath of having had the worst-case scenario happen twice – tragedies I had no control over, and which completely demolished my life as I knew it.
Part of me wishes that I could still be that optimistic self – I’m moving forward with IVF treatments, and there is such a difference trying to get pregnant before and after the loss of George. These feelings aren’t new – it was similar last year going through my multiple failed IUIs, but the IVF feels like a bigger deal. I don’t honestly know what I’m going to do if this doesn’t work out, but I’m also very painfully aware that things don’t work out all the time for so many people, in awful ways. I’m one of those examples.
I met recently with a maternal fetal medicine specialist, and she reiterated that there really is no way to know the full “why” behind what happened – that it was just a combination of a lot of factors that resulted in George’s premature delivery & subsequent stillbirth. There’s nothing specific for me to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Although statistics are on my side – it’s not likely that it would happen again, that’s really not comforting after having lost even despite odds being in my favor. Technically what happened to George is considered a miscarriage, because it was <20 weeks (he was at about 19.5 weeks) – the odds of a miscarriage at that point is < 1%, but it happened to us. I call it a stillbirth, because that term feels more representative of what happened – I went through premature labor and delivery, and he died during the process.
I got some good advice the other day; perhaps it is actually unkind for me to expect optimism from myself, given what I have experienced. I can’t unknow what it feels like to have the worst happen. I can continue taking steps to help bring forth the future that I want to see. While taking those steps, optimism and hope may be painful and out of reach, but I can at least try to ensure I’m not stuck dwelling on all the things that could go wrong. I can aim for a state of neutrality – doing what I can, and making the best choices I can each time the situation changes. I’m sure it’s easier said than done, but that’s my current focus… remaining neutral.