I’m 23 weeks pregnant, and feeling the little one move around quite regularly. We’re almost a month further than we made it with George. The concerns we had a month and a half ago around my cervix have gone away, as everything seems stable and measurements look good. I’m hovering right around the viability point with this baby – I don’t want them to be born early, but it’s definitely a relief knowing that they actually have a chance at survival (even if small at the moment) if something were to happen that caused premature labor. I’m about 95% recovered from my case of COVID, which is also a relief. The baby measured on track in their recent anatomy scan and is now estimated to weigh over a pound.
It’s a 3-day weekend for me and I’ve been using the time to finish de-cluttering the to-be nursery room. I finished that up, vacuumed, and put the crib frame together. I finished the crochet part of the baby blanket I’ve been working on. All in all, things are going well. Life feels okay; progress is being made and baby is continuing to grow.
Sometimes, it is when things are going well that my ongoing grief likes to stick it’s head up and make sure I know it is still there. Today I was hit with a wave of anxiety and grief in a way I haven’t felt in some time. I couldn’t immediately put my finger on why I was feeling what I was feeling, but after reflecting some this afternoon I think it partially relates to anxiety over the still-present uncertainty of pregnancy in general (what if something happens and I have to dismantle the crib?), but I think a lot of it relates to what Megan Devine so succinctly summarizes with the quote below:
“When someone you love dies, you don’t just lose them in the present or in the past. You lose the future you should have had, and might have had, with them. They are missing from all the life that was to be.”
― Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand
Sara and I originally bought the crib for George. Although I didn’t think about it much while putting it together today, it was supposed to be put together by the two of us working together, in preparation for George’s arrival. It was going to go in our bedroom downstairs, which was plenty big for both our king sized bed and a crib. The blanket that I finished crocheting was started by Sara, for George. Now – now things are different. Different room configuration, different baby, one parent instead of two. I LOVE this baby that’s growing within me, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also grieve the future that I lost when George and Sara died.
I’m the parent of two children now, and every milestone that the new baby hits that George didn’t get the chance to is going to be another trigger for my grief. I’m now living solidly in the “George didn’t make it this far” part of the timeline. Everything is different after the loss of a child – I can’t just ignore my grief for the sake of my love and excitement over the new baby growing within me. If anything, ignoring my grief would make things worse – it would bottle it up and cause me to feel like I was dishonoring George and Sara.
I’m excited to meet the new little one, hopefully in May not too far off from their due-date. I’m already in the middle of doing the messy, emotional work necessary to move into this new phase of parenthood, one where I will hopefully soon be parenting one living, outside-of-my body child, and one dead child. I have to live and love and grow in a way that acknowledges the past and allows me to connect to my grief while also allowing me to be present and connect to what is continuing to happen in my life. It’s not often easy to find that balanced point where I can feel all of that at once… there’s a reason I’m still in weekly therapy!
