When someone tells you their unborn child has a fatal diagnosis and will not live outside their womb for long at all, but then tells you of plans to carry the child as far as they can... you can guess some of the pain they will face.
You can guess on your own that there's something particularly hard about carrying a baby but not setting up a nursery.
You can guess that the doctor's appointments would get really old, really fast.
You can guess that all the expectant mother will do is worry every minute that it may be her last one pregnant, and then it will hit her how limited her time with her child really is.
You can guess that the expectant father begins putting away his dreams and expectations for that particular child, hopeful for another to dream for one day.
You can conclude that it must all be very difficult, and you'd be right.
On D-Day (Diagnosis Day), I knew that I would be facing those hard things.
But there are some things you just can't guess.
She was 6 lbs and 15 oz. But I carried a lot more to birth than just the little girl in my womb. I carried so many feelings, too. I wonder every day if they made the load heavier, or if allowing myself to feel them made the weight I carried a little lighter.
And it's still different case to case, so even someone who's been through the same situation could still not have guessed what I would walk through. Someone who's been through the same situation could have guessed, too, but may have not been bothered by the same trials. That's why I changed the name of this post from "Unexpected Hardships of Carrying to Birth" to be more personal.. My experience is unique because my daughter is unique.
Feelings I felt and didn't expect to feel were:
Hurt when the conversation turned to how large I was getting. I always thought that when the time came for me to receive comments on my super huge belly, I would take them so proudly. But, when I started retaining amniotic fluid since Eden couldn't swallow it well...the comments weren't received as graciously. Who even ever had the idea to comment on a pregnant girl's size anyway? I knew that the reason for such a big belly was that there was something wrong and it made me super sensitive. At 30 weeks, a clerk asked me how far along I was and I just told her 38 weeks.
Panic when a stranger asked about the due date, made comments about life after babies, etc. To begin with, I would just pretend to be normal and talk about her due date and say that pregnancy is fun. Then I started lying to these strangers when their questions turned from pregnancy to preparation. "Oh yes, her nursery is already finished and we've got the carseat ready to go." Near the end, I gave up on trying not to make people uncomfortable and just gave them the truth.
Confusion as I danced between attachment and detachment to my baby. Here's a raw truth: The first few months of my pregnancy, I went through a short "pre-partum" depression and afterwards had a very hard time attaching to my unborn baby. Of course I loved her, but I felt funny talking to her or singing to her, and with Ryan being gone for I just wasn't in the mood to celebrate what was happening in my body. I didn't want to do anything baby related until Christmas time when we decided to go ahead and register. I finally started attaching to her when he came home and we went to find out that she was a girl. She had a name I could keep saying, and her kicks were getting to be visible instead of just tangible. D-Day was just a few weeks later, and every day after that was a tug-of-war between getting to know her and stepping away from her. Why would I want to get attached to a baby I'd have to let go? Honestly, there was no stopping it even though I tried. She will always be a part of me.
Rage from seeing other women ignore healthy pregnancy guidelines. From the moment I even suspected I was pregnant I was stepping away from any alcohol. I never ate lunch meat without it being heated and I was very wary of my California rolls. I stayed away from soft cheeses, dropped caffeine altogether for the entire first trimester. I wouldn't stand around anyone smoking, and I was careful with my physical activity. I triple-checked before taking any medication, even if it was prescribed to me. None of this was hard to do, nor was it super stressful, and I don't need a pat on the back for it. Putting my unborn child first was never an inconvenience. CDH has no known cause and there is no cure yet. There is absolutely nothing I knowingly did to give my baby a birth defect- and nothing I could have done to stop it. Naturally, I continued this way for my whole pregnancy, even knowing I couldn't save her. So it made (makes) me kind of super angry to see other women not striving for the healthiest pregnancies and therefore knowingly putting babies at risk for so much more than what can happen out of the blue. I know way too many women struggling to get pregnant, struggling to stay pregnant, and struggling after losing children to be ok with it. Sorry (not really) for the rant. *If you are unsure about guidelines for a healthy pregnancy, you can click this link to WebMD.
Sadness passing infant sections in stores. Sometimes I would wander in just to touch the baby dresses. Then I'd leave without getting whatever I came for, afraid someone might see me ugly cry.
Fear when I had to be alone. Every day I'd spend hours with Jenae until it looked like Ryan would be home for the evening. I'd try to strategically have something planned to do when he wanted to go for a hike. I'd go shopping just to be around people! When my mom finally came to stay in early May, I could finally breathe. The whole time she was here, I was never alone with my thoughts... and she even enjoyed time with my friends and shopping too.
Anger as I tried to plan a funeral for a baby that was still kicking my insides. "I wrote an obituary and left spaces for the dates and times", "I really like this poem for the program", and "Let's finish squaring away the funeral homes this week" turned into "I should not be doing this", "This is so freaking backwards", and "We can just take care of it when it happens because we aren't being fair to her obvious presence or ourselves". It seemed that every time we tried to plan something or even talk about it, she knew and would commence a fit of hiccups or begin a soccer game. We eventually just had a basic outline and left everything for after her birth.
Alarm at every. single. thing. I went to L&D about seven times. I believed my water was leaking, that I had a blood clot in my lungs, that she wasn't moving enough, that her heart stopped beating. Every time I experienced a little heartburn, I thought that something was terribly wrong. I don't know if I'm glad I did this or if I wish I would have relaxed a little. I just kept saying to myself as I left the hospital feeling like an idiot, "better to go and nothing be wrong than to not go and it all be wrong."
Uncertainty when we'd have a discussion about family planning. I have a heart for adoption and Ryan's certainly not against it, but knowing that we can create life makes us want to create more. Except there's the part where the only life we've created had a horrible birth defect. What's next? Then, we'd always said three was enough (I actually always said seven was enough but three seemed to please my husband for the time being), but did we mean three altogether? Three to raise? What we ended up saying is that we'll just cross bridges as they come, we don't need a itinerary for parenthood.
Doubt when people encouraged me. I heard "you are so strong" about ten times a week, but I kept thinking that if they really knew how I felt, they wouldn't say it.
Alienation when receiving *PREP FOR BABY* emails and coupons. (Like, c'mon post carrier. I think you're delivering my share and the share for every other parent's house in the neighborhood. I heard those diapers suck anyway.) The emails are the worst- especially when it came time for the gestation to focus completely on the lungs- things were supposed to be happening that I knew were not.
Annoyance at the comments made by those who meant well. I had quite a few people tell me, "There can still be a miracle, don't just give up on your child", and that always bothered me. Was it not miraculous enough to be pregnant? Was it not miraculous enough to carry Eden just one more minute? She was and always will be the miracle of the whole situation. God didn't not show up just because she wasn't healed. And while we never lost sight of hope for her healing, we couldn't actively pray for God to change His already perfect creation. At the same time, I know that people just need something to believe in during such trying times. It's just that when you know things are going to be a certain way, its time to stop praying to change them and start praying for the peace to deal with them.
Guilt when I said "I can't breathe". Before she started to drop, she was so high in my ribcage and crowding my lungs that I never could catch a good breath. I would automatically complain, then I'd start wondering if her entire short life would feel like that. Then I'd hate myself and start having a panic attack, during which I really couldn't breathe. I tried to have a sobering perspective on whatever discomfort I felt while it was all for her.
Overwhelming LOVE with each reminder of her existence. I knew as I tried to detach from her that I loved her, but I grew to love her in ways I never could have imagined. I would bargain "Take me instead of her" over and over every day. Her kicks when I would sing or her punchy reaction to her dad's voice, my big belly as I tried to roll over out of bed, all the clothes that stopped fitting, the swelling, and the infinite number of stretch marks she placed on my stomach, hips, and thighs all gave me the warmest feeling of adoration. None of it will ever compare the the feelings I had when they placed her in my arms, though. Each day I loved her increasingly more. Every minute I got to spend with her (in and out of my body) was the best minute of my life!
