I am sitting here crying over the news that someone I don't even know has lost their baby at 24 weeks. She has battled infertility and had several miscarriages, and I can't help but think about the unfairness of it all. I know it will all make sense one day, but I am surrounded by too many amazing women who deserve babies and can't have them. While simultaneously having to see some people pop out babies like it's no big deal. It weighs on my heart. It' been nearly 2 years since we lost Madelyn. People just assume it's part of my past. "You have a new baby now, why be sad?!" But I feel like I will always identify with the bereaved mother.
But I also go around with some strange form of survivors guilt. Why do I get to have a baby? I am so happy and feel so blessed, but I can't help but remember how it felt all those months while I watched other people enjoy what I had lost. I hated those months. It was so hard to try and feel happy for people, but really just be sad and angry. Then you get to feel guilty for feeling sad and angry. Now I am feeling guilty that I no longer have to feel sad and angry. It's so hard. I want to give everyone a baby. I honestly pray that everyone trying to have a baby will get pregnant. It may sound kinda silly, but after what we went through, it's an honest and pure desire of mine. It's strange that my life has very much moved on, and it hasn't at the same time. I'm not in a dark place anymore. I am the happiest I have ever been. But it's a different kind of happy.
I told Nathan the other day that the last couple months before we lost Madelyn were the most care-free of my life. I don't mean that I am not insanely happy right now, because I am. I am the happiest. But I will never be so naive and care-free. Life will never be that simple and easy. That makes me sad. I feel like once your heart has seen a certain amount of darkness, it can't go back. I lost the thing that meant most to me in the world. I gave birth to and held my dead daughter. I was trapped in a never ending pit of depression. I didn't go a day without gut-wrenching crying for nearly 9 months. You can't 100% come back from that. You can't go around thinking life will always be sunshiney, because it won't. I have lived my days without the sun, and I know they will come again in different forms. Maybe that's an awful attitude to live with, but it's what I've got.
I carry it all with me now; with Sadie. I am constantly paranoid about losing her. I always thought that once she was out, I would feel more calm. I definitely do to an extent, I can see her and know she's alive, but it's still hard. She wears a little sensor to bed that goes off if she stops breathing, and even with that on, I still check to to make sure she's breathing every time I wake up. It's annoying to worry so much, yet nothing hurts me more than someone who accuses me of being crazy or overly paranoid. Or laughs at my worries and fears. I always bite my tongue, but all I really want to say is that they can have an opinion once they have given birth in a silent room and cried tears over an empty body that will never take a breath. It's not something you can even begin to understand until it's happened to you. I guess I should honestly be grateful that paranoia is the worst thing that I still carry with me. Sadie has healed a lot of the wounds, but the scars aren't going anywhere. For some reason, some people think I should have forgotten it all now that Sadie is here. It's like they don't remember crying with me. It's like they think it was some bad dream to be forgotten.
Then there's the pregnancy fear. Honestly, if Nathan would allow me haha, I would have another baby yesterday. I know my body needs a break, but gosh I just want another baby. But when I actually think about being pregnant, I feel sick to my stomach. If my second pregnancy had gone smoothly, I think I wouldn't be so scared, but it didn't go smoothly. There was the problem with her brain ventricles, then the down syndrome scare, then she had too much fluid, then the awful day at 38 weeks when she stopped moving, then her heart rate was plummeting every few minutes, then she presented the wrong way and I ended up with a c-section. My nurse told me that she thinks we would have lost Sadie had I not gone in that day. I know she meant that as comforting, but all I thought was, "Why do my babies keep trying to die?" There's no explanation for Madelyn's death, and there was no explanation for why Sadie's heart was failing. It's a monster with no name or face. I have no idea why my pregnancies end so scary. It could be just a fluke, or it could be that every pregnancy will end this way. There's no way of knowing. That's terrifying.
But I have Sadie. She's here. She's safe. She's everything. And she makes my heart lighter every day. She helps me see that it will all be okay. (Even if I do have to endure another 9 months of paranoia). I don't really know what this post was about. Mostly it's that my heart is full of so much love, while simultaneously filled with worry and missing Madelyn, and that can be confusing. Sometimes I have to type it out before I even realize it was bothering me. It's hard to have two little girls in your heart, and only have one here with you. But I am also so thankful for those two little girls. They've stretched my heart quite big.
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