What is the drive to have a child? To bear a child? To bear my own child?
I want to be pregnant again. I'm scared to death, and we are not ready to try to conceive again. But I want it. You would think that the trauma of such a loss would cancel out any of the joy of a pregnancy. Of the anticipation of having a child. The sweet love I felt for my boys.
It hasn't.
The trauma is there. The pain and the fear. But I want that joy again. I want that happy anticipation. Such sweet love. Different from my love for C.
Talking with C about this, I've been trying figure out how to find some joy in my life. Reclaim the joy in my research, in my work. Even as I enjoy my work, or even think about something happy (like adopting a dog) the enjoyment is limited. Limited by anxiety. Worry. Sadness.
I know most of this is grief. And maybe trauma. I also know that I was as happy as I had ever been in my life. Happier. My grief is not just for my boys. It's not just for my old self.
It's for my joy. Nothing else seems to compare.
And yet I'm afraid to fall again.
9 comments:
What you said about the love for your children and how it differs from the love for your spouse, is so true. Also missing the happiness and joy from being pregnant, as compared to the state we are in now, is cognitively difficult to deal with.
I have found that I can be joyful of very small things: Flowers, sunshine, chocolate. I started out small...
I think the trauma does cancel out the excitement in another pregnancy. I don't think I can ever enter another pregnancy the same as I have in the past. Too much baggage. Yet, the desire is just so intense. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
I'm with C. While I'm sure there are some women who can find joy in a subsequent pregnancy, I think that for many, it's pretty much most pure terror -- at least until the baby is safely born.
Terror is why I have yet to pick up the phone. Clearly not much drive, either.
I don't know what it is, but I feel it too. I want that happiness back. For all of us.
there's so much truth here. you can never go back to the old self you were before, but part of who you were then is still who you are now, it may just be buried underneath all the grief and yes trauma. I hope you can rediscover joy again, and you will find remnants of your former self. but no, nothing will ever be the same, and yes I agree any subsequent pregnancy will be different.
Ithink for most of us, the pregnancy was part of the whole package, part of the experience, even if you didn't like the pregnancy the joy of having a baby was still there all wrapped up in it.Before. Now, all we want is the end game, the finished product. The pregnancy part of it is nothing but an obstacle to overcome, a hurdle we have to leap, a cross to bear. Terror. Everyday. And we also know, nothing is guaranteed so we jump on this train and hope like hell it's going to take us where we want to go. And we white knuckle it the whole damn way.
Thank you for putting into words what I haven't always been able to do it. The drive - that crazy, insatiable drive - to have a child, to be a mom, to become a family . . . it's nuts! But then when you have to balance the drive with the fear and the hope, crazy and nuts are nice terms as to what it does to a woman's psyche and her spirit.
I haven't been through a loss like yours (and I won't pretend I've been thru anything near it), but I have an idea what it feels like to miss your old self. Sometimes I just don't know who I am anymore. I see a different person with different eyes in the mirror (not to mention the fat, acne & hair loss!), but I hear a different voice and different sounds from my heart.
Anyway . . . I won't continue to take up your blog space, but I did want to say thank you and wish you lots of love. We'll find ourselves and our path someday soon.
You know, for me the joy and the love are separate now. Joy is rare (sadly) in this subsequent pregnancy, though it does visit on occasion. Love is always here, but so is fear. Terror, actually.
Maybe it will be different for you. I hope it is.
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