Skip to main content

Alone

I think one of the worst feelings you can feel is alone. That’s the way I feel this morning. Completely lonely and isolated. Yesterday was our 2nd baby’s due date. The baby that I carried to 9 ½ weeks. The one that I picked out a crib for and had narrowed down names for. The one that I started a registry for, and had shared the news of with all of our family and friends. The one that I thought was our miracle baby, having found out the day before starting the IVF process that we were pregnant. The one that I wish so badly I was holding in my arms right now. But I am literally the only person on this planet that feels this way about this baby. And I am the only person that realized that yesterday was his due date.

I am not writing to tell you how crappy my support system is, because truly they are amazing. I’m not writing to make anyone feel bad for not thinking of the date, although I’m sure this will do just that. I’m writing to say this struggle – this struggle that SO many people have to go through – is lonely. And isolating. And there’s no way around that. You can have the most amazing support group in the world, but they don’t feel those feelings that you do. Yes, they will feel. And they will hurt for you. But nowhere near the depth that I hurt. Even my husband, who is so wonderful and understanding and compassionate, doesn’t hurt like I do. Men process these things differently. Which isn’t an excuse, but it’s true. He didn’t feel the baby in his body. He didn’t worry about what he was eating and how much water he was drinking every day. He didn’t have (excuse the TMI) an uncomfortable ultrasound wand stuck in a very personal space a couple days a week for several weeks, or have to give blood twice a week. He didn’t have to wake up every morning at 5 to insert (that’s all I’ll say) progesterone. He doesn’t feel the gut-wrenching sadness that I feel for myself when I see someone else announce a pregnancy or hear they’ve delivered a baby.


There’s literally no one else on this planet that cares about my babies the way that I do. And I’ve known that, but today I think it’s just weighing heavy on my heart. And I’m feeling it, hard. I don’t need sympathy (although this blog post says otherwise), I just want to bring to light how tough it is. And how much we need our support system. No matter how little their understanding compares to what we are actually going through, we need them. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

After the Storm

I’ve stared at a blank page on my screen several times over the last few weeks, trying to find the words. Today I’m committed to sharing, no matter how those words come out. So please bear with me. Over the last few months, I’ve dealt with some serious anxiety. And I’ve avoided sharing. Because I had babies recently. And often the response is, “You’re a new mom, it’s normal to have anxiety.” And that’s true. It is normal to have “new mom” anxiety, and to have a new level of stress that comes with raising tiny humans. However, what I’ve been dealing with is so much more. I wake up in the middle of the night with a pit in my stomach and have to catch my breath. I often think about losing my husband or one of our babies, and I spiral into a pit of anxiety. Every time I walk up and down the stairs with a baby in my arms, I am anxious that they are suddenly going to throw themselves out of my arms and go over the railing. If Reid doesn’t do something for the babies the exact way I wou...
1 comment
Read more

Reid's health - Hospital stay #2

When I started writing this blog, it was dedicated to one topic – infertility and pregnancy loss. I guess that’s two topics, but very closely related. I did not think the type of miracle I would be impatiently waiting for would change. We now need a miracle for my husband, Reid. A month ago I shared that we were in the hospital and he had cholangitis. At that time, we knew that it meant his Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) – an inflammation of the bile ducts in his liver – was progressing. But we weren’t sure by how much. So we had follow up appointments and procedures scheduled with his doctors. Next Tuesday he was set to go have a Spyglass procedure so we could see where he was. He had been feeling significantly better after his last hospital stay, and we thought things were looking much better. Early Wednesday morning he woke me around 3 a.m. with liver pains (yes, unfortunately he actually knows what liver pains feel like). We decided to come into the ER, given his last si...
17 comments
Read more

Our Tiny Miracle - Kaylee June

Let me tell you about a little girl who has stolen our hearts, but almost never came to be. After three natural pregnancy losses and two rounds of IVF (in-vitro fertilization), we started our third round of IVF in the summer of 2018. Two of our pregnancy losses were due to chromosome issues so we did PGS (Pre-implantation Genetic Screening – checking the chromosomes of embryos for abnormalities) testing for our first two rounds of IVF. All (4) of those embryos were deemed “abnormal”… they either had an extra chromosome or they were missing one. And they were all issues that were not compatible with life. So going into round 3 we were looking for a “fresh start”. To our surprise, our doctor (who is amazing at thinking “outside of the box”) suggested we forgo the PGS testing for our 3 rd round. Each of our chromosome abnormalities, including two of the pregnancy losses, were all different abnormalities (it was a different chromosome missing or extra each time). So he thought it wa...
Post a Comment
Read more