- Those that have living babies that you can't help but do math in your head about (obsessively) to figure out how close they are in age to your lost child.
- Those that are able to quickly get pregnant seemingly because they just had the thought to do so.
- Pregnant women who have zero connection to loss (and thank god), and are blissfully unaware and get to experience their pregnancy in a state that I can never be part of ever again, which was one of my most favorite parts of being pregnant. I also recognize now, how annoying I must have been to those that had already gone through a loss.
Whew. I feel better just typing all those out.
The hardest one for me is that third bullet, and man it's a bullet. I envy the women that have that wistful, blissful, dreamy and perpetual half smirk on their faces because they are that lost and into their pregnancy. I don't blame them at all because it's the freaking coolest thing that's ever happened to me personally, so I get it. Seriously. I loved it. I loved my tummy, I loved rubbing it I loved talking about it, I'm positive I was super annoying to those that had already experienced heartbreak and loss.
Now, all that goes through my mind are all of the terrible things that could possibly happen; and not just in the beginning, tenuous stages of pregnancy, I mean the entire freaking 10 months of it. There's a huge part of me that wishes that I had never gone to that group therapy after losing Lillian because it was there that I truly saw the struggles of women at all stages of pregnancy, and pre-pregnancy. You guys, I'm here to tell you, it's not pretty. It's gut-wrenching. At the time, those were my people. At the time, I needed to see others that had gone through full-term losses like I had and had come out the other side, but now that I have some distance, all I see are all the possibilities of heartbreak.
I feel so robbed. I'm not just robbed of getting to raise my daughter, I'm robbed of that blissful, unaware, happiness.
I don't see pregnant women anymore and get a warm-fuzzy, I see them and I say a little prayer, "God, please don't let them count their chickens before they hatch". That makes me feel like a terrible person. Who am I to begrudge another women's happy pregnancy? I just am so pissed off that I have the knowledge that I do now and I wish I could just go back to being blissfully unaware.
Know this pregnant people: those of us that have experienced heartbreak and loss are super envious of you. You remind us of what we don't have. We love you still, very very much, but sometimes you make us want to cry and kick and punch a wall. It is very hard to see you so pregnant and so ecstatic and so alive because we want that again; we want those feel good emotions to flow through us and to flow through to our families and to experience that collective bliss that you get when you are pregnant. Those unmatched levels of love that seep out of you and to those around you is such a gift because when a woman is pregnant, her feel good hormones and all that love is felt amongst everyone that she is near. We want that too. Desperately. It is a portion of life experience that is one of a kind. So while we definitely are happy for you, we are jealous all the same because there is no other more beautiful feeling that the one that you get when you are actively creating a life.
So...there you have it. I've been struggling a lot lately with feelings of jealousy of the bliss. It's weird, it's almost like when I listen to newly pregnant ladies talk about their experience, I look into their eyes and I can see where they are and it really is truly beautiful. I think what's happening is that I'm mourning ever being able to be there again. Regardless if I get pregnant again; that unaffected, pure happiness is gone because of what I know now.
I think I have to allow myself some time to grieve that part too.
