I am still on bed rest in the hospital...the baby has stayed put for nearly two weeks and so far so good!
Being in the hospital I have met lots of nurses and staff. Being here for an extended length of time the people I've come in contact with start to be social and ask questions. Being on the L&S/post-partum floor there are lots of questions about the baby...and of course the question every pregnant after baby loss mama dreads, is this your first?
I've come up with a workable strategy for answering. If the person is involved in my day-to-day care (nurses, techs) I reply "yes and no" and only give more details if they ask additional questions. For the food service, house keeping and random engineering staff (my tv remote w/ built in speaker broke) I usually reply "hopefully." This answer seems to satisfy the curiosity of many.
In my heart I still feel that these answers are an injustice to my first born sons. There just aren't the kind of words that easily express what I've lost. We know what orphans and widows/widowers are...if only there was a title for baby loss mamas/papas so I could say, "no, I'm a ______." it would be universally accepted and understood without explanation.
It has been nice to talk about William and Ethan when the opportunity comes up. I miss them so very much.
Two pieces of my heart that are gone forever and a new piece that brought back joy.
Hang in there!! I know it's a very scary time but I'm thinking about you!
ReplyDeleteThis is such an incredibly hard yet hopeful time. Hopefully William and Ethan will have a healthy and happy little brother or sister and you will have a little wriggling baby in your arms soon (when the time is right for this baby).
ReplyDeleteHugs!
Brooke
I know the tricky balance of protecting your heart, not getting into telling your story to every person you encounter, and still wanting to acknowledge how important our first babies were. I used "hopefully" quite a few times, or sometimes said, "This is my second pregnancy." Most of the time people got it, but still there would sometimes be the follow up, "Oh! How old is your first?" When I do talk about Eliza, though, I am always glad that I do.
ReplyDeleteAll this to say, everything you're feeling sounds exactly normal to me, given what we've been through. Remember W & E and looking forward to meeting the new little guy.