Just over one week to go until my due date. Everyone is excited. We’re excited. We can't help but imagine the moment we will get to see and hold our baby. We can't help but imagine what it might be like to return home as three instead of two. What it would be like to feed, to cuddle, to bathe, and talk to our baby.
But it is impossible to picture all this and not think about William and Noah, and how we had the same thoughts and excitement when I was pregnant with them. It is impossible not to feel the sadness and loss that comes from knowing we no longer have our twin sons.
Everyone else seems so expectant and full of anticipation. Everyone else seems able to look forward to the baby’s arrival without the weight that we continue to carry from losing William and Noah. Matt and I both remember their birth like it only happened yesterday. We both remember the phone call I made to Matt at work to let him know I was having contractions. We both remember the silent drive to the hospital, the unspoken weight of what was about to happen sitting heavily between us. We both remember what it was like to lie in that hospital room, knowing that our twins were soon about to die. We both remember being told that Noah was stillborn. We both remember holding William in our arms as he died.
Every time I think that I haven’t felt the baby move for a while, I recall the night they were born, along with the past eleven months, and I find myself wondering how we could possibly cope with losing another child. Every day we are anxious. We ask each other, “do you really think the baby will be okay?" It just seems unreal that we might actually have a child who lives at the end of this pregnancy.
We are apprehensive about returning to the labour suite which holds so many sad memories. The place where we spent so many terrified days and nights over the course of three months, where we wondered so many times if this was the day our babies would die, until one day, it was.
As our baby's birth draws closer, I am reminded once again how difficult pregnancy after loss is. It is a lonely journey still. It is easy for people to share in our excitement as we wait for our new baby to arrive. But sadly we fear there is no one who is able to share in our continual grief and pain.
And so with only a few weeks to go, joy and excitement continue alongside sadness and sorrow…
Labels: baby, baby loss, grief, personal, pregnancy, William and Noah