Living in limbo

A single dad came over with his just-turned-three year old this weekend. She was a beautiful thing, full of energy and enthusiasm for learning. Loved our furbabies, she was very brave and outgoing. Her dad doted on her and was clearly smitten. He could barely hold a conversation with us, he was so distracted. That's like most parents I guess. Being childless, it felt a little disrespectful at first, but I reminded myself that that's how it goes. The dad is not really pretending to care more about me and DH than his daughter in the first place so I shouldn't be so disappointed when I see through the facade. When he stops paying attention to what I'm saying in mid-sentence to make sure she's not giving mac n' cheese to the dogs or to distract her from a distasteful TV ad, I shouldn't take it personally. Kids matter most and they can get into dangerous situations quickly so parents have to be on their toes. It dawned on me that this is part of why parents of kids hang out together a lot while me and DH have started to hang out with more child-free couples and less with our parent-friends. Even after you get over the worst of the hurt of IF or loss (if you ever do) such that you're not 'angry' at reproductively successful people, you still don't relate to them like you used to. I found myself wondering which club we would end up in. Two weeks feels like a long time to wait for the NT scan, but it's a short time to wonder how the rest of our lives are going to look. Of course the rest of our lives don't rest on one scan, but it sure seems like that big of a deal right now.

It also occurred to me how easily I enjoy entertaining a young child being in the KU state that I'm in. I would have dreaded the day had I not been pg. Had I still been struggling with beta hell or waiting to try again or recurrent BFNs. Now that I am, I feel myself becoming a happier person, allowing myself to be happy for other people, the bitterness is dissipating. I am changing for the better. And I love it. I love how it feels and what it does for my life and my relationships and my perspective. And it scares me that so much can rest on something that I have no control over. It could all be gone in an instant. Or in two weeks. I could be thrown right back into a world of bitterness, despair, hate, helplessness, and resentment totally against my will and there would be nothing I could do about it. People say you can choose to be happy or excited or optimistic or whatever it is. But that hasn't worked for me. I feel how I feel. It's like asking me to believe in something I don't believe in. You can't just decide one day to believe something. A belief is not a choice. A belief is a belief - you have it or you don't. You can pretend to believe something or feel some way, you can try to brainwash yourself into thinking it's so by acting as though it is or acting as though you believe it. But I've always thought that kind of practice is an uphill battle that builds repression and that emotions should be indulged because you really have no other choice but to feel them. Why not embrace them?

This is why when DH asked me if we could visit some friends the day after our scan I said no. No, we can't plan anything for a couple days after. "What if something goes wrong?" I demanded. How could he think this was a good idea? Here was his response, "well if something goes wrong it might be good to hang out with some good friends..."

He is a wonderful husband, but he is still clueless when it comes to the emotions that I have wound up in this. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I've protected him by not talking about my grief too much, by not involving him in the doctors appointments until now. Whatever it is, he clearly has no idea what it will do to me if we lose this baby. NO effing clue. And for some reason I didn't explain it right then and there, instead I said "If it goes wrong I will need surgery!" So instead of blaming my emotional processes, I blamed the practicality of it all because that seemed to be the only thing he could understand. I should have added "and it would not be good to hang out with our happy friends and their happy baby less than 24 hours after we lost our second one." After I lost my second baby. Clearly he wouldn't be that broken up about it if he thinks he's running off to have beers with his buddy on his way home from the appointment. It would NOT be good. I get his point - you need people to lean on. But this is not that situation. This is still a very private thing for us - NO ONE (except for 'yall) know about the pregnancy. There is no one IRL that will be able to help me deal with another loss other than DH. And he doesn't even get it. Going out to socialize, to spend another day pretending, hiding my grief and frustration and anger and bitterness, going through the motions of adoring their son while screaming and dying on the inside would NOT be a good way of dealing with another loss. So we're not hanging out with friends the day after. We've also pushed off a visit with my parents.

Don't worry, I'm not trying to live in the worst-case scenario. Especially since all signs are to the contrary. I hate when I find myself planning my life around something that may or may not happen in the future. But I don't think planning your life around a verdict like this for a mere two days is all that crazy or unnecessary. If there's no hb I will need to deal with it physically as well as emotionally. Two days isn't much to ask. I get that the chances of bad news are low, but they are statistically significant. I have 'won' much more remote chances before, like the molar + cancer lottery. So I plan to leave a window. I am going to be firm about that. It's not like we can't see our friends in a couple weeks. I'm not talking about giving up a trip to Tahiti here.