Before I was pregnant--or maybe when I was already pregnant and didn't know it--hard to tell--I posted that I had lost the sense of confidence that I wanted to feel with a second pregnancy. Yesterday, chatting with a woman who is pregnant for the first time, I found myself describing precisely that feeling--I am not afraid in the same way that I was during my first pregnancy. I am not gaining all knowledge from books (really dreadful, frightening books!) but rather relying on my experience and faith. I am not obsessive. I am happier and less tense than I was during my first pregnancy.
A few months ago I predicted that this feeling would not come because my miscarriage had scared me back to the obsessive first-pregnancy craziness. I was also disturbed by my own attitude toward this pregnancy--considering it a pregnancy, a medical condition, not a baby. I didn't like feeling that way. I didn't like my almost indifferent reaction to the positive pregnancy test. That feeling, I think, was a result of being pregnant again so quickly after a miscarriage. And it has passed.
I am now really quite happy about my baby and I look frequently at my ultrasound pictures, which are posted on the fridge and not hidden in a drawer. And I am not obsessive or afraid. Everything is pretty good. But I don't think that means that I have "gotten over" the miscarriage--that I am no longer affected by it.
In the post linked above, I stated that I will always be aware that I have had more pregnancies than children. This is not my second pregnancy, but my third. But I think that the understanding I gained through the experience of loss has freed me to relax and take things as they come right now. It is all about that sense of control that I felt so strongly and lost so suddenly when I lost the baby. There was nothing I did and nothing I could do to change it. So I don't have the sense now that I can control what is happening in my body or to my baby. I can make healthy and responsible choices, of course, but I do not have to drive myself crazy over every minute detail of my life. Because it really doesn't matter. It's not in my hands. And, finally, I'm okay with that.
(Well, look at me being all stable and healthy--so uncharacteristic.)
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2 comments:
I'm really glad you feel that way! I can't imagine how hard it must be to have a miscarriage. Particularly after you've already had a child. My SIL had a miscarriage on her first try, at 8 weeks and she went on to have two boys. I never asked whether she still thinks of that first baby that wasn't... whe probably does.
Perhaps it isn't so uncharacteristic. You may have just needed some time to heal.
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