It’s almost that time again. That time I dread every single month. This time though, it comes with double the punch.
I know it’s normal for couples to have to try for months to conceive but it was never a challenge for me. It was alway the “let’s have a baby” conversation and bam. Done. This time, we’ve been trying for months since my miscarriage to no avail. Every month I drive myself crazy for two weeks, counting down until I can take a pregnancy test. Hopeful and yet terrified all at once. Hopeful it with say yes. Terrified it will say yes. And then completely unbelievably distraught when it says no. I’m so scared of having another miscarriage, but I also want a baby more than anything.
As I wait this time for what I only imagine as the inevitable of seeing another negative, I also get a double whammy of pain with it. The same time I’ll be able to find out will be almost to the day our baby was supposed to be due.
I feel like I’m being tortured monthly. Sometimes daily. The weeks I hold out hope that this will be the month I get a positive test. The days my son refers to the room next to his as “the baby’s room” still. The days my stomach bloats and reminds me that it should’ve been bigger. Or it bloats and reminds me that this last pregnancy for some reason changed my body far more than my first one did. My clothes should be fitting me incorrectly because of a baby inside, not because my body has just changed a lot from my last failed pregnancy. Getting dressed in the morning is a struggle that I never imagined and I’m trying to rectify as I buy myself a new wardrobe that A) fits my body correctly and B) isn’t stretchy tank tops I wore during my first pregnancy and can still picture my pregnant belly in. As I’ve gotten a few new things for myself, I know that while there are a lot of emotions and feelings I can’t change about this year, this is the only thing that I have in my power to change.
This month I’m trying to promise myself I won’t even take a pregnancy test unless I miss my period. Normally I test early because with my last two pregnancies, I noticed symptoms right away and I tested positive as soon as the test had the slightest chance of picking it up. If I think too much about it, I feel like my body starts creating symptoms for me to over analyze. Last month was awful. From the moment the test said “5 days earlier”, I was testing. I kept convincing myself with each day I tested that it was too early. Maybe I miscalculated. I didn’t want to believe that another month had gone by without those two pink lines showing up. This time, I must stay stronger. I can’t make myself so crazy. I’m already going crazy right now.
This should’ve been a happy time. I should’ve been preparing for a wonderful new baby in our family. Back when I was craving red, white, and blue popsicles I joked maybe the baby would come a week or so early on 4th of July. It all feels unreal now. Like that was some other life.
Hopefully as this month passes, I’ll feel a little better again. This month has to be the worst of it, right? I feel like I have a calendar of triggers. From taking pregnancy tests monthly, to the due date next week, to a trip I was supposed to go on with my husband in September for our anniversary to Japan. Because I became pregnant after part of it was already planned, he invited a friend to go with him instead (I told him to, so I have no one to blame but myself) and it hurts me every time I think about it. It’s a constant painful reminder that I don’t have a baby, and I’m missing out on a trip I was so excited about because of it. For months I’ve kept hoping that I’d be pregnant by the original due date, or by the time he goes to Japan, so it will all hurt a little less. Maybe I will be pregnant by September, but at this point, I’ve lost a lot of hope. Sometimes I feel like giving up on trying because it’s so painful to have my heart crushed on a monthly basis. And yet I know I don’t want that. I can’t give up because I know Bailey is destined to be a big brother. When? I have no idea. But I know he is. Every time I see him look at a baby and announce “Oh!! Baby!!! So cute!” or push the stroller of his best friend’s baby brother, I know he has to be a big brother someday. Hopefully that day will be soon.
For now, I’ll just keep on hoping. Hoping each month that my luck will change. Hoping each month that this sadness I feel will just be for a little while more. Hoping each month that I will move forward without so many reminders holding me back.
Every time I write these posts I feel so vulnerable and second guess if I should share these emotions with the world. But then, I stop and think that maybe someone else out there is going through the same feelings and thoughts as I am and will stumble across these posts and realize they’re not alone.