Pregnancy After Loss

Welcome to the World Little Bro!

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He’s here!!! I have an alive baby (calling him “A” for now), and he is outside of my body. It is insane. I still sometimes wake up in shock.

I have so much to say but:

  1. I have no time to write it down
  2. I’m way too tired
  3. I probably make very little sense due to #2.

I knew I owed you all an update, and I have gotten a few thinly veiled “…how are you doing??” texts because people are afraid to ask pointedly, “are you and your baby alive?”

Here are a few short updates in bullet form because sentences are hard:

  • Labor and delivery went extremely smoothly. I think that was a gift from Maliyah because she knew I couldn’t handle any extra complications. We only had one very short scare (which of course sent me spiraling and sobbing), but otherwise everything was quick and uneventful.
  • I have definitely cried far more than A has. He was born with so much hair and I keep saying I think saltwater makes it grow because the first few weeks I was basically crying on it constantly.
  • The grief of being in the same hospital with an alive baby was a LOT.  Even just being discharged should have been joyful but it was complicated. Discharge for normal patients is at 11 am. This time we left with a group of new parents with babies in car seats, and a bustling hospital lobby. It was so starkly different from being discharged at 10 pm on a Sunday night, empty handed.
  • Things are BUSY with a baby but also extremely NOT busy. It’s hard to explain but if you ask me what I did in a day, I’ll say both “nothing” and “oh my god I’m so exhausted.”
  • I do NOT know how single moms do it. Because my husband went back to work after 2 weeks and he still comes home at night, and it is a CHALLENGE. And twin moms??? Good grief. I don’t know how. I said “moms” mostly because of feeding. Which brings me to my next point.
  • Breastfeeding??? What in the literal f&^% how come no one is talking about this unique form of torture???? It hurts if you do it, it hurts if you don’t. Everything hurts. Boobs. Shoulders. Back. Neck. Brain.
  • The stress of feeding is exacerbated by the fact that A was a little small. He was fine, and didn’t need any time in the NICU, which I was extremely grateful for, but he was almost a full pound smaller than I thought he’d be. I know the growth scans can be wrong, but I was thrown off. I immediately went to, “he’s starving. He’s dying.” Spoiler alert, he was not starving. But the adjustment of my expectations, especially when I am LONG LEGS BIG CITY and he was “tiny bean,” was hard.
  • I thought that the solo assignment was the pregnancy and the “keeping an alive-baby alive” was the group project portion. Why does breastfeeding make it feel like an extension of the solo assignment? I was not prepared for that feeling of, once again, being solely responsible for keeping him alive.
  • Being a loss mom makes this extra hard. On bad days I think, “my body already killed one baby, why wouldn’t it malfunction, not produce enough food, and kill another?” On good days I think, “there’s formula and he will be fine.” And then my husband can help.
  • Last year, I became acutely aware of just how tied my physical and mental health are. The body keeps the score. This is once again a reality with sleep deprivation. A social worker I spoke to said, at some point, you need to prescribe yourself sleep. It’s like a medication, you need it, your body needs it, and lack of it is cumulative. I can literally watch how my lack of sleep impacts my blood pressure and it’s true, sleep is necessary. We’re working on it.
  • Related… blood pressure. It’s stressful to have a human rely on you! I have been back to the hospital once since discharge, 7 days post-partum. Talk about continuing re-traumatization. Again, they took my blood pressure in triage. Again, it was severe range. Again, I had an IV put in. Again, they had the blood pressure cuff going off every 15 minutes. Again, they had to put the pulse ox on my middle finger because it had lighter nail polish. And this time, I was thinking, “now if I die, A has no mom.” Cue more tears. Thankfully they seem to have everything under control now and I’m a different dosage of meds and monitoring everything extremely closely at home.
  • I had a loss mom ask me how loving A is different than loving Maliyah and how I could love anyone more than Maliyah. It was such an interesting question that was difficult to answer with my currently-limited mental capacity. But the main answer is… it’s so different. With Maliyah, I always felt like she knew I loved her, and she couldn’t tell me otherwise. I had no way to reinforce that thought either way, so I just had to believe that what I was doing/saying/writing/feeling was enough. With A, it’s like… is it enough? Does he KNOW? If he does, why is he crying so much? There’s a live feedback loop that always makes me feel like I’m not doing enough.
  • My main struggle at the moment is trying to find a community. I love my loss moms so much. I loved my Pregnancy After Loss weekly support group. And now, I’m alone. I’m still a loss mom, but now I have what so many loss moms desperately want so I am not fully in the group anymore. And I am definitely not a normal mom. I’ve tried a little bit of convo with other moms and it’s good to know some of our worries are the same, but sometimes mine feel so much more serious because I immediately go to full catastrophe mode. Like A was small, and I could have just put him in newborn-size clothes, but I was terrified the fabric would somehow ride up over his face and he’d suffocate. I couldn’t sleep at all until we got him preemie clothes and a zipper swaddle (these things are life-changing).
  • Also related to not relating to moms, it’s really difficult for me to ask for or listen to advice. I know moms with living kids know better, they have done this before. They have feeding tips, sleep tips, etc. But I should have done this before. I should know what I’m doing because I should have an 18-month-old. But I don’t, I have a newborn and I never got to do any of this with Maliyah. Any time moms say, “this worked for me,” I hear, “I know better because my baby lived.” And the hard part is, they’re always right. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is new to me. But it’s hard to hear because I know how my story should have gone. It’s a lot of mental work to push down my thoughts of inadequacy and instead accept advice and tips.
  • At our first pediatrician appointment 3 days after A was born, the doctor said, “you’re both new at this, you’re both learning.” I try to channel that energy and remember that we are figuring this out together.

A is sleeping right now, which means I know I should be sleeping too, so I’ll finish this post off with a shoutout to my husband. He has been exceeding my expectations at every single turn. He has been watching out for both my mental and physical health. He was the one who pushed us to go back to the hospital when I needed to. He is the one who advocated for going to a post-natal retreat so we could relax and ease into this new life, and learn crucial skills. He has purchased (and assembled) all of the baby stuff in the house to make sure we are as well-stocked and comfortable as possible. This included finding a service that delivered preemie size diapers within an hour. He has been changing diapers and feeding A like a champion, and sleeping in shifts despite already being back at work. As I said before, I do not know how single moms do it, and I’m so grateful to have a partner in this and in everything. A few days ago, I said to him, “you know, I still love Maliyah,” and he said he does, too. We’re in a new chapter of our story, and I’m so thankful to have had him in my previous ones, and I’m excited to have him in my future ones as well.

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Pregnancy After Loss

It’s the Final Countdown

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Here we are. The final days of this pregnancy.

I apologize in advance for the stream-of-consciousness format of this blog, it is more of a brain dump than a thought-out post. This is the type of thing that usually goes in my journal. I have many pages of thoughts there too, and I’m sure I’ll add to that tomorrow, the day before I go to the hospital.

I want to start here: I am so glad that I have an induction date. Knowing there is a time at which I will no longer be pregnant is a godsend. We haven’t really told anyone my exact induction date, because I have enough stress in my mind about it. I can’t handle the other stress of people checking in, calling, and “seeing” how I am. Here’s how I am: STRESSED OUT OF MY MIND.

Here is a list of my worries:

  • Worry 1: The baby will somehow die inside me before my induction date. I am so hyper aware of his movements, and I live in constant fear that he is moving less, more, or differently. The main issue is, he tends to move in the morning or at night, so that leaves MANY hours midday where I am in a sheer panic.
  • Worry 2: I will go into spontaneous labor before my induction date. This is a fear, but not one of my top ones because I know I will just proceed immediately to the hospital. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (more like pay $200,000 in medical bills). I have a friend who was scheduled for a c-section the same day as me, and she had her baby a week earlier. Her baby is doing great, so this helped allay this fear slightly.
  • Worry 3: Labor will take a long time because I’m being induced, and because it took 31 hours last time.
    • Note: my fear is not the time I will be in labor, but the fact that the longer amount of time I’m in labor, the more stressed I will be, which will raise my blood pressure, which will then force them to put me on magnesium sulfate again either during or after labor. Note on the note: my doctor warned me about this, and said I should be very vocal about my fears and my severe white-coat-hypertension so they can get ahead of it. She also recommended pain meds as soon as possible for this reason.
    • Second note, I’m not super afraid of mag because I was on it for four days last year, but it’s not fun. It means no food, it means nausea, it means feeling like your face is on fire, but your body is in hypothermia. It also means full body shivers, again, not the worst thing in the world if it prevents seizures, but not a good time.
  • Final Fear: I will die. I suppose this is rare because I’ll likely be in the hospital already and hopefully, they will be watching me carefully, but knowing it almost happened a year ago, it seems naïve to assume it won’t happen again.

Even with those worries, I’m still glad I have an end date. I feel like I have been pregnant for three years. I HAVE been pregnant for three years. I was pregnant 3 months of 2022. I was pregnant 2 months at the top of 2023. Then I was postpartum. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists considers 3 months to be “postpartum,” also known as the “fourth trimester.” But some people consider individuals to be postpartum for as long as 12 months after birth. Then I was pregnant again for two months at the tail end of 2023. And I have been pregnant for 7, almost 8 months of 2024. I am ready to be DONE. Having an end date is good for my mental health.

That said, having an induction date looming is extremely nerve-wracking and intimidating. The idea that there is a legitimate countdown makes the minutes of every day move at a glacial pace.

I have been trying to create distractions for myself. Here are a few things I have done:

  • Laundry. Just when I think I’ve washed everything, I find more things to wash. Couch cushion covers. Our entire linen closet of extra sheets and towels. Purple Bear. Every eye mask we own.
  • Online shopped. It just so happens that Amazon Prime Day AND the Nordstrom Anniversary sale took place the week before my induction. If that wasn’t the universe saying, “Emily, you did the right thing by not buying a single thing for this baby until the last minute,” then I don’t know what it was.
  • Attempted to clean the area rugs we have. This was a fail, and the viral vacuum I bought from Amazon will be returned.
  • Checked social media constantly.
  • Scheduled dates with Chris and friends, including a comedy show, dinner, and multiple ice cream dates.
  • Finished the Medium and Hard Sudoku every day from the New York Times.
  • Went on walks if the temperature got below 84.
  • Watched Love Island.
  • Wrote this post.
Comedy Show Date Night

A lot of websites say to have your hospital bag packed and ready by the front door at around 32-34 weeks. I couldn’t imagine needing one, so I never packed one. Yesterday, at 37 weeks, 4 days, I finally started putting things in a bag. As I have been saying to people, within a week, this baby is coming out, dead or alive. So, I guess I should have a bag. Then again, last time I went to the hospital thinking I’d be there for 2 hours max, get some BP meds, and go to sleep at home. That evening, I brought a Stanley cup of water, my phone charger, one pair of contacts, and my Kindle. I was there a week. I live close enough to the hospital that my sister and husband were able to go pick up stuff for me. This time, knowing that, I’m not worried about forgetting anything.

People talk a lot about buying/bringing a “going home outfit” for yourself and the baby. How confident! I’m not sure my baby will be going home, nor am I sure I will be. Body bags for both of us are the “going home outfit” that floats around in my mind on my bad days. But last week I finally considered the other option, and got a cute outfit for him. Worst case scenario, he’s dead and I lost $9.99 and guess what, that’s the least of my worries.

It’s crazy to me that people plan their hospital stay. They assume things will go well and that they’ll be out in 2-3 days. This is still a mystery to me. I kind of assume we will face some complication or another (hemorrhage, emergency c-section, random postpartum blood pressure spike…) that will force me to stay there longer than the initially planned time. For that reason, even though I know it’s fine if I forget things, I am bringing whatever will make me feel comfortable or slightly less uncomfortable. I know they give a toiletry bag with travel supplies, but I want MY shampoo and MY facewash. What if I’m there for 6 days again? If facewash makes me feel more human, then I’ll bring it. Let them judge the size of my bag. I really DGAF. This is also why we have kept the exact dates of our hospital stay a secret. The pressure of giving updates is too much, especially if things are tenuous and the stay is longer than originally planned.

My mom asked me yesterday if we finally “thought we were going to have a baby.” I answered this easily: “yes.” The real question is… do we think we’re going to have an ALIVE baby. And my answer to that is, I’m still on the fence. It’s so hard to imagine things going well. Yes, even now. Somehow, he needs to get from inside my body to outside, and not kill me in the process. Every single night we say goodnight to him, and every single night we say, “please don’t kill your mama.” While we are so close to the finish line, for normal people, they may say the hardest part is yet to come. For me, this ENTIRE thing has been a hard part. I kept waiting to feel assured or hopeful, and that time never came.

I’m hopeful that being in the hospital will help. I’m hopeful that hearing his heartbeat on a monitor will calm me. Last time, when Maliyah died and they took the monitors off me before inducing labor, it was both a relief because they kept slipping off my stomach, and completely devastating, because I knew there was nothing left to listen to.

This time around, I’ve been having weekly non-stress tests (NSTs) for almost two months, and I find that I am the most relaxed hooked up to those monitors than any other time. Hearing his heart beating, and knowing that if anything goes wrong, I’m in the exact right place, there’s nothing like that sense of peace. Almost every time, I nearly fall asleep because it’s the one time I am calm. I am hopeful I will feel that way when I show up at the hospital for my induction.

One of my biggest worries that is unrelated to this pregnancy is that people will forget about Maliyah. I’ve talked about this in a few prior posts, first in the one about Invisible Grief, then again in No, It’s Not my First. Not only is this a concern for after he is born with friends and family talking to us as “new parents” or saying, “you’re going to be parents!” (already happened many, many times), but we also thought about this extensively for our stay in the hospital.

Chris and I attended a Childbirth for Pregnant After Loss Parents class, and one of the things they recommended was a sign for the hospital room door. I was hesitant to make one, because I know doctors and nurses rarely read my chart, so why would they read a door sign? That said, my support group coordinator (also a nurse) said it can be helpful for staff, and it may make me feel like at least I’ve done everything I can. Even if it only saves me retelling my story one time, that may be worthwhile. In what is bound to be a stressful situation, it made sense to try and reduce the stress any way I could, so we made a sign based on a few examples from the class and from PAL friends I met in my support group. I also felt that having a sign on the door could be a moment for passive education. Last year in the hospital, every time Chris was in the hallway he was congratulated by other dads-to-be. Of course I can’t blame them, how would they know? But I do think it’s a moment to have people recognize while they walk down the hall that things are not always unicorns and sunshine, and maybe they will think twice in the future.

Our Hospital Door Sign

Speaking of the hospital, I also wanted to make sure I had something of Maliyah’s with me in the delivery room. It feels so strange to know I’m walking into the same hospital, on the same floor where I delivered her, but without her. We decided to bring laminated copies of her feet and handprints with us, as well as the jewelry I wear all the time (a ring with hers and my birthstone, and a necklace with three diamonds for the three of us, and her name engraved on the inside). I hope to get a photo of this baby’s hands next to hers, so we can introduce him to his big sis. While it’s gut-wrenchingly sad to know that they will never meet here on Earth, it felt really important to me to have them be together in some way at the beginning of his life.

This post has gotten very long. I guess I had a lot of thoughts. I am hoping this blog post closes the chapter of PAL blogs for at least a while. My brain and body need a break, and I need to move on to new worries. Every time I mention to a non-loss mom how I can’t wait to not be stressed anymore, without fail they say, “you’ll just have new worries!” Quick tip: don’t say that. Also, I obviously know that. I will be worried about keeping this child alive forever. But at least after he’s out of my body, it won’t be solely my responsibility, and I may have some visual clues. I cannot wait to share the responsibility with someone else.

See you on the other side…

(Written at: 37 weeks, 5 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Hot Girl Summer

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photo of person holding electric fan

SURPRISE! Somehow, it’s July. But the real surprise is, SOMEHOW, I’m still pregnant. This was unexpected. I guess for a normal person it would not have been unexpected, because of the whole, “takes 10 months to make a baby” situation of the human species, but for ME? Unexpected.

So here I am, sweating my face off, heat wave after heat wave, and… baby is still cooking.

Don’t get me wrong, this is extremely good news.

My expectations of the summer were either: 1. have a second dead baby in a row and be absolutely devastated waiting for a bus to drive through my window or 2. Have a VERY early baby in the NICU and live back and forth from the hospital or I guess bonus #3. Be hospitalized and on bed rest for as long as we can keep this baby in.

But alas, there was a sneaky #4 I had no expectation for: still be pregnant, living at home, and working at my job, business-as-usual.

So that leaves me here, with hot girl summer, or as I should call it, “no-plans-girl-summer.”

I made no plans for this whole season because of the aforementioned 3 ways I saw this summer going down, but I also made no plans because I’m scared to leave the radius of 10-minute-Uber-to-hospital, and also because going to shows/Central Park/outdoor events etc., means lack of available of bathrooms. Also, did I mention it’s been routinely over 100 degrees on the heat index? No thank you.

I have settled into a comfortable routine of:

  1. Wake up in air-conditioned bedroom
  2. Take meds
  3. Transition to air-conditioned living room
  4. Work on laptop
  5. Go to air-conditioned gym if I can handle the walk there and back
  6. Watch tv in air conditioning
  7. Go to sleep back in air-conditioned bedroom

Plus of course the 3-4 doctor appointments per week, which, depending on weather and time of morning, I am transporting myself there in an air-conditioned Uber, or an air-conditioned bus.

I must admit, it’s weird to watch people have summer plans all around me. There are people at lake houses, people on family vacations, people on wine tours, and of course 90% of my Instagram is back and forth to Europe to see Taylor Swift. Then there’s me, thankful to be cool, home, and pregnant.

Monday, I went to see my nephrologist and she seemed completely floored by how uneventful this pregnancy has been so far. She finished my appointment by saying, “your job right now is to do nothing. Don’t go doing something stupid like traveling to the Hamptons for the weekend, and getting stuck having this baby in a small hospital on the island.” This made me laugh harder than I had in weeks. She clearly does not understand my anxiety that barely allows me to travel downtown for fear that an ambulance wouldn’t take me to the hospital of my choosing. I will heed her advice and I will not be traveling.

The weird part about staying home and having no plans, is that most people are in a frenzy right before they have a baby. There are so many things to do! Paint the nursery, put together the crib and changing table. Assemble the stroller, host the baby shower, do the maternity photoshoot. (Funny sidenote, my sister-in-law asked when I was doing a maternity shoot and I cackled. I said, “when he’s alive.”)

For all of those reasons, people sometimes take off work before giving birth to “nest.” Nesting is for people who know (rightly or wrongly) that they are going to be bringing home a living baby. I am not one of those people. I am not sure, and I am sure as hell not ready. But I am ok with that, and I’ve come to terms with it.

I don’t want to sit around a house I have completely changed for the impending additional occupant, while I have no certainty this baby will make it out alive and think about all the things I do or don’t have, for a baby I may or may not have.

Since 34 weeks, I’ve been slowly putting little baby things here and there around the apartment. I consider it exposure therapy. I refuse to buy diapers, but I do have a fully-assembled baby swing in my living room. It’s a bit anxiety-provoking, since it’s sitting there empty, but it’s helping me wrap my brain around the possibility of having someone in it. At 34 weeks, 4 days, we picked up a bassinet from Buy Nothing. It is in our bedroom. That one was very difficult. For a few days, it was hard to walk into the room and see anything else.

I’ve also been working on a few need-to-do items on my to-do list, mostly around keeping this baby safe and healthy. Since I know that is my absolute #1 priority, I have been swallowing my fear and anxiety, and doing the scary tasks anyway. For example, I took a 4 hour online-CPR class for infants. Last year, I signed up for an in-person class, and the next week I had to write them to cancel. While I think hands-on experience is better than an online class, I was a bit relieved when I saw I was too late for the live classes and they were all booked up. I can’t imagine myself in a room with normal moms-to-be who are doing this class out of a sense of obligation, not because they actually know babies who have died from SIDS. I have also begun researching/interviewing pediatricians. Again, I didn’t do this because I wanted to, but because my doctor told me to, and because I know I will need a doctor who understands how important it is for me to keep my son healthy.

The whole “buying stuff for the baby” is still an issue for me. I have found that second-hand things are far easier for me to stomach. The idea of going to a store and walking through a baby aisle with happy and naïve moms-to-be, the idea of having this baby boy specifically in mind while I pick out an outfit and picture him wearing it, I just can’t do it. I see a cute “going home outfit” and I imagine him dead in it. I know that sounds horrible, but it just is what it is. So, I have trouble with purchases.

Here are some things we have: a lot of second-hand clothes, a secondhand baby swing, a secondhand bassinet.

Here are things we don’t have: diapers, wipes, a stroller and a car seat.

For some reason, the items in the latter category seem like a hurdle the height of Mount Everest. For diapers, if he’s dead, who will I put diapers on? For strollers, stroller shopping is the last thing we did for Maliyah before I went in the hospital. We decided on one and then never got to buy it. I just can’t bring myself to get one. And the car seat is the hardest one of all. It’s the one thing required by the hospital for you to take your little one home. But what if we don’t get to take him home? Buying a car seat seems so overly confident, it seems like tempting fate.

I know it’s close to the time when these things are necessary, but the advantage of 1 day delivery and living in NYC is, it’s not actually urgent. It feels like it when I see people on social media, but it’s really not. By the time I leave the hospital, if I have an alive baby, everything will have been delivered (pun intended).

So for now, I will do nothing. I will stay inside in the air conditioning, I will drink water, and I will go to my doctors’ appointments. I will wake up every day, lay completely still in bed until I have reassurance that he is alive, then I will thank all of the gods in the universe, and then I will distract myself. I am getting VERY good at Sudoku.

(Written at: 35 weeks, 6 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Milestones

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motivational simple inscription against doubts

Last week in therapy, I told my therapist I was 28 weeks pregnant and she said, “wow that’s amazing, so you made it to your goal!” I started laughing and I said, honestly, I’ve made it to a lot of my goals, but I keep moving the goal post.

Later in the week, I had a similar conversation with a friend who was a college athlete and she told me that my mindset was an athlete mentality of taking things one step at a time to mentally push through hard things. That’s exactly how I feel. First hurdle: AFP test. Second hurdle: Maliyah’s gestational age. Next: 7 months. Next: 30 weeks or “still be pregnant on my birthday.” My absolute ultimate goal is to make it to July, which gets closer every day, but I’ve also come to a sense of peace that it may not happen and that’s also ok, because my REAL ultimate goal is a living, healthy baby.

But this post isn’t about simply gestational age milestones. First of all, that’s boring, and second of all, every single day is a milestone for PAL moms. Shit, every single minute feels like a milestone on some days!

Today I wanted to talk about other milestones. There have been a lot, and there are many more to go.

Let me start by saying, much of this post is an ode to myself. Just like my “Proud of Myself 2023” post, I am proud of myself for each and every one of these things. To a non-loss parent, some of these things may seem inconsequential. But for a loss parent, each one of these was like Everest and sometimes the mere thought of scaling the task took my breath away. I’m not seeking congratulations, affirmations, compliments or well wishes. I’m writing this to open the eyes of those who may not realize how small things seem HUGE, and how important it is to recognize small wins.

Interestingly, I had a conversation about this (recognizing wins) in therapy this week, too. I go to a lot of therapy. I was lamenting all of the things I haven’t been able to do (create a registry, have anything related to a baby in the house, call our baby by name) and all of the things I have had to scale back on (going to the gym, hanging out with friends). My therapist spent a full three minutes reminding me of all of the things I have done, how far I’ve come, and suggesting that maybe, just maybe, I was setting the bar too high for myself to ensure I’d never reach it and set myself up for failure. It’s possible. I have high expectations!

Me: I quit law.

Therapist: …After you graduated law school and passed two bar exams and got a job at a law firm that was a terrible work environment.

I guess she has some good points.

So anyway, I decided to dedicate this week’s post to my personal achievements relating to this new baby. The first milestone happened before I was even pregnant.

My first milestone for myself was following Pregnancy After Loss Instagram accounts. The thought of entering another pregnancy was daunting. The idea that I would willfully engage in the content was a huge step in and of itself for me. Long before I took a pregnancy test, I was favorite-ing inspirational quotes about “one day at a time” or “different pregnancy, different outcome.” I was hoping that by swiping by these mantras on social media, they would somehow mind-meld into my thoughts. Osmosis works, right? It’s how Chandler thought he was a strong, confident woman (there is ALWAYS a Friends reference). I’m not sure if any of it worked, but the mere following of accounts that mentioned alive babies, or ongoing pregnancies, as opposed to following solely loss-parent accounts and muting anyone with a child, was a big step for me.

The next milestone came in the form of feeling movement from baby boy. With Maliyah, I had an anterior placenta, so I didn’t feel movement until much later in pregnancy, and I was never able to feel her from the outside. This also meant that Chris was never able to feel her moving. The first few weeks of movement for this pregnancy, I was in a bit of denial. First, it started a lot earlier! I wasn’t sure if I was making it up. For a while, I ignored it. Then eventually, I would put my hand on my stomach at night (another mini-milestone) and see if I could feel him kicking around. Eventually, I knew I could. Again, I waited a few days-weeks until I said anything. Then, I told Chris. When I finally told him and let him put his hand on my stomach, that was a massive milestone for me. The idea that we were both in on this, and we could both fall so so so far, was something that took me a long time to reckon with.

Some people are excited to be a cute pregnant person in cute pregnant-people-clothes. They take photos holding their bump, they make little hearts with their husband’s hands. They purposefully wear form-fitting clothes. Not me. Not me one bit. If I showcased my pregnancy, that would mean acknowledging it. Worse, that might mean someone would TALK to me about it. That was/is the very last thing I wanted. I imagined the day that strangers would approach me on the street and ask when I was due. When you are just trying to make it one day at a time, that is a LOADED question. But eventually, I didn’t fit in my jeans. And it was getting too hot to wear leggings every day. Also, leggings are tight, and the bruises on my stomach were more and more pronounced as my blood volume was increasing. I needed clothes. I held out as long as I could, but eventually, I dove in and purchased some maternity clothes. I talked about this in support group, and someone suggested that perhaps it was easier to think about buying something for me as opposed to buying something for the baby. That reframe actually helped me a lot. Whether or not this baby survived, it was hot, and I needed to wear clothes. I wasn’t jinxing the baby by having clothes, I was just… living in a world that requires clothed people. I decided I would become an “overalls girlie” because having no waistband means having no pressure on my stomach bruises. Thank god for Amazon returns because my tall self needed to try on a LOT of shorts overalls before finding a couple that worked. #LongLegsBruisedCity. If you thought I’d be including photos here, you’d be wrong.

The next huge milestone I looked forward to was having our baby boy surpass the weight of his older sister. She only weighed 634 grams when she was born, or 1 pound and 6.4 ounces. I didn’t have a scan for this baby at the exact gestational age of Maliyah’s birth (25 weeks 4 days), but I did have one a week prior, at 24 weeks, 4 days, and he was already 728 grams, or 1 pound, 10 ounces. This was huge news for us. Trust me, I know most moms aren’t jumping for joy at a baby under 2 pounds, but the fact that he was growing bigger was a sign that things were already going better. That measurement put him in the 58th percentile, which was MASSIVE as far as we were concerned. No wonder I needed maternity clothes!

Our next milestone was one I put off for a long time: picking a name. Chris was all in on choosing names. Last time, we used an app called Baby Names, which is like Tinder for expecting parents. You tie your account to your partner’s and then you swipe left or right on names and it alerts you when you have a match. The idea is fun, it’s gamified, and it’s easy. But… it’s only really fun if you think your baby will be alive. It’s not a “fun” task to pick a name for a baby you still believe will likely be dead. Chris had more confidence than me. He also probably remembered how hard it was for us to pick a name last time, so he thought we should start the process early. He redownloaded the app and told me to, too. He purchased the upgraded account so we could filter different names by national origin, celebrities, all sorts of things. I put off downloading the app, and put it off some more. I wasn’t ready to call this baby anything other than “baby.” Or “maybe baby.” Finally, after much cajoling I downloaded the app and forced myself to swipe a little bit every day. As you read in the post about our “maybe babymoon,” we picked some front-runners. We have a name we have been test-driving in the house. By we, I mostly only mean Chris. We picked a name, but I can’t bring myself to say it. I cannot acknowledge him by name because what if…

I’m working on it. Let’s call it a milestone-in-progress.

The final milestone I’ll mention for now, was when I decided to tell my coworkers I was expecting a baby. I put this off for a WHILE. When I was pregnant with Maliyah, we had some worries about her before things went south for REAL for real. So I put it off. I didn’t tell my work until I was 22 weeks pregnant. I waited for our anatomy scan, and once that was clear, I thought we would be smooth sailing. I told the whole staff on a zoom meeting, with all cameras on. 3 weeks later, to the day, I checked myself into the hospital and my supervisor had to un-tell the staff.

I swore I would never make that mistake again. I thought I had waited a long time last time, but this time, the idea of telling anyone at 22 weeks felt like tempting the universe in a huge way. I needed to wait longer. And I could not imagine looking at anyone’s face while I said it. I assumed I would see either sympathy or excitement, and I didn’t want to see any of it. I didn’t want to be forced to react to any of it, either. Also, I am now so keenly aware of many others’ silent struggles, and I wanted to minimize the pain that I might cause them as much as possible. I decided I would wait until absolutely necessary, and then I would send an email. I wrote and rewrote that email 5 times. Then, I asked Chris to proofread and approve it. He told me it felt “cold.” It was. I didn’t want warmth in return, I didn’t want ANY response in return (in fact, I even said that). I wanted to simply make an informational announcement. I made Chris stand next to me while I sent the email. My heart was racing, I got zone minutes on my Fitbit. But I did it. Then, I immediately went to the gym and locked my phone in a locker, which has become my standard way to avoid the world and human interaction.

I am on to the 4th page of this blog. Those are a lot of milestones to celebrate! Again, I will reiterate that to some, these things may seems small. So what, I followed an account on Instagram? Obviously, I would let my husband feel our baby move. Of COURSE I told my coworkers I have leave coming up in 3 months (hopefully). But none of those things were easy, small, obvious or straightforward. To me, those things were huge. I hope to have more milestones soon… as my therapist would say, even a tiny step forward is a step forward.

(Written at: 28 weeks 4 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Crossover Day

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It’s Crossover Day: the day I have been both dreading and looking forward to since I saw two lines on a pregnancy test.

At this exact gestational age last year, I checked myself into the hospital, only to be discharged 6 days later with no baby.

I’ve wondered for many months how it would feel to be here again, and the only word I can put my finger on is: weird. It feels weird. Not good, not bad, not really nerve-wracking (ok… a little nerve-wracking), but it feels strange. It’s kind of like déjà vu, but actually not. This pregnancy has been so different than my last one.

I was having dinner with Chris last night and I brought this up. He asked what I meant by “different,” and the best way I could describe it was that last time, I felt like my pregnancy was going on in the background of my life. Yes, I was growing a human, but I was still going about my life business-as-usual. I had the same friends, the same activities, I was following the same people on social media, I was still focused on work, I was still going to the gym, and I was still hanging out with friends. On the side, I was watching YouTube videos about what to add to your baby registry, and I had doctor’s appointments about every 4-5 weeks, but that was just going on in the periphery.

This time around, my pregnancy IS my life. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing I think of when I go to sleep. My friends group has changed. I rarely leave my house. My morning and evening centers around my meds routine and taking my blood pressure. My main focus in my life is reducing stress. My Instagram is flooded with loss-mom-content. My social calendar is mostly non-existent, but when I do have things to do, they are scheduled around my frequent doctors’ appointments and scans. Almost every conversation with Chris eventually veers into “do you think the baby is ok” territory.

My entire life is this pregnancy. And finally, tomorrow, I will be the most pregnant I’ve ever been. Well, that’s not entirely true, Maliyah lived for 48 hours after I checked into the hospital, but tomorrow will be my most-pregnant-not-hospitalized day. Hopefully. I don’t foresee any emergency hospital visits, but you never know. 25 weeks and 2-4 days has been in my mind for months.

For crossover day, we are currently in the Catskills. The main reason we picked this week was because my office was closed. Also, of course, I knew crossover day was coming and I needed a distraction. After we booked the trip, I told Chris we’d be away for crossover day, and I fully expected him to be surprised. I feel like he is able to compartmentalize much better than I can, so I figured he hadn’t thought about the timing, but I was wrong. He said of course he knew that. I asked him if it made him nervous to be away from a hospital (because it definitely made me nervous!) and he said no. He said no, because we had a scan 2 days before we left, everything looked perfect, my blood pressure has been great, and we have no indications of things going south. But still, I’m nervous.

We also picked this week because it’s nearing the time I will not feel comfortable leaving the city anymore. I know for my mental health, I will need to be within 15 minutes of a Level IV NICU at all times. Also, I will need to be within New York State, because every other state continues to make headlines for killing pregnant women.

A few weeks ago, someone asked me how far along I was, and I said 20 weeks. They were surprised, and they said, “wow! 20 weeks already? Time flies, doesn’t it?” I looked at them dead in the eyes and said, “no. time does not fly. Time is crawling.” I thought 25 weeks 2 days would never come.

I have been jealous of my loss mom friends who had earlier losses and therefore had their crossover days many weeks ago. I know this makes no sense; I didn’t actually want Maliyah to die before she did. But when you have an early loss, you get past that date in a subsequent pregnancy sooner and sometimes getting past that date brings along with it some peace and confidence. For me, 25 weeks and 2-4 days was soooo far away from that initial positive test. There were many months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds to get through before this moment. And they did NOT fly by.

Two weeks ago, I spoke to my mom on a Friday afternoon, and she asked me what my plans were for the weekend. That question stopped me in my tracks. The weekend? I had completely forgotten it was Friday, and I had literally 0 plans. By the way, I am completely fine with 0 weekend plans, it was just remarkable that I hadn’t even considered the two days ahead of me. I was so extremely laser-focused on the current moment in time and getting through it, that it had not occurred to me to make ADVANCE plans.

I mentioned in my post about the danger zone that everyone has different points at which they feel confident in their pregnancy. For a lot of people, 24 weeks is that point. Many doctors call this “viability,” or when a baby has a chance of survival outside the womb. But that chance is not great, and I was already past 24 weeks when Maliyah died. Also, “survival” could still mean immense complications. The numbers are: 40% of babies born at 24 weeks’ gestation survive, 50% of those born at 25 weeks, 60% of those born at 26 weeks, 70% for 27 weeks, and 80% for 28 weeks. The countdown is on.

As I approached crossover day, my anxiety was ramping up. I could tell by my heartrate when I took/take my blood pressure. It’s a vicious cycle, I’m nervous it will be high, I get stressed about taking it, the stress and anxiety makes it high, and then I’m more stressed and nervous because it’s elevated. Being out of town and far from the hospital doesn’t help. I see that my pulse is nearly 100 before I’m going to take my blood pressure and the moment I’m done, it goes back down to 75. I can’t seem to get a handle on my stress, and I know it’s crucial to do so, which only makes me more frustrated. The loop continues.

I am hoping I will feel less stressed once we cross this threshold of 25 weeks 4 days, and once I am back in the city in proximity of emergency care.

I keep hoping and hoping to front-load the growth of this baby, in case we need to take him out early, so he has the best chances. So far so good. We’ve already hit a few crossover milestones (more on milestones coming soon). He is officially bigger than Maliyah ever was. And he’s probably 2 pounds by now, which is a weight Maliyah never hit. At our last scan when we found out he was 1 pound 10 ounces, I turned to Chris and I said, “2-pound babies live.” Would I like him to be 3 pounds? 4? 5? Even 6? Yes! But being across the 2 threshold is already giving me some hope. I would not say I’m “confident” in any way, shape, or form, but my hope is slowly growing.

I remember vividly being in the hospital last year and begging for additional days or weeks, and now, I’m getting them (hopefully). I am thankful for each day more, and I hope there are many of them.

I’ve used the word, “hope” 7 times in the last three paragraphs. Maybe if I type it here some more, I’ll internalize it!

Hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope…

(Written at: 25 weeks, 2 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

The Blame Game

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Recently, I have been extremely bothered by the seemingly-innocuous question, “how’s the baby?” So many people have said this to me recently in person, by phone, or by text. It always leaves me completely frozen.

How’s the baby? I HAVE NO IDEA. And trust me, I wish I did.

I want to scream at the question-asker, “I FUCKING WISH I KNEW.” It’s something I think about basically every waking moment of every day of every week of every month.

Depending on my mood, I usually say something with a similar meaning to, “I fucking wish I knew,” but in a slightly nicer tone. I’ll say something like, “I wish I knew! Lol”. That “lol” gets them every time. I want people to think, “She’s so breezy! So casual! Look at her, what a chill loss mom!” FALSE.

Sometimes I say, “your guess is as good as mine!” Sometimes I say, “how do you think?,” which always leaves them confused, because how would they know? But the thing is, they honestly do know just as much as I know.

In this weird in-between time where people know I’m pregnant and I’m definitely showing (if you know what my body usually looks like), but I’m not feeling consistent movement and I don’t have closely-spaced appointments, I really do not know how the baby is.

I was chatting about this with my therapist this week, and she said, “why can’t you say, ‘last time we saw him, he was good’?” Sometimes, I do say this. But that usually leads to follow-up questions about why I stated it that way, and what happened since that last time. Nothing bad happened! But also, nothing happened at all. I am just operating on a wing and a prayer. I haven’t had visual confirmation that my baby is alive in weeks.

In my mind, I compared this to another frequently-asked question I receive, “how are your parents?” Of course, I don’t have airtags on my parents and I don’t watch them on monitors at all times, I have no idea how my parents are doing at the exact moment when someone asks me about them. And yet, I answer that question all the time. I say they’re great and give some sort of recent update about them. It doesn’t send me into a panic, and I don’t say, “well, I haven’t had proof of life from my parents in 9 days, but last time I spoke to them, they were very much ok.”

So, why is it so different when someone asks about my baby? First of all, just like I mentioned about trauma informing anxiety around pre-e, trauma is also informing my thoughts here. Thankfully, I have never had someone ask me how my parents were, and then something horrific happened and I didn’t know about it. If that had happened to me, I might have a similar trauma response now when people ask about them. That’s exactly what happened with my last baby: things were very bad, and I had no idea.

But it’s more than that. People don’t expect children to be their parents’ keepers. People do not expect a human to know IMMEDIATELY, with some sort of psychic capability, when something happens to their parents. With pregnancy, people do. If it turns out that a mom had no clue their child was in danger, the blaming and shaming comes out with a vengeance.

When speaking with my therapist, I told her that for some reason, with this specific question, I find that I can’t “lie” and say the baby is good. When pressed, I said, “what if I say the baby is good, then the next day I find out he isn’t, and then not only did I lie, I will be blamed for not knowing something had happened?” We dug into that blame a little bit more, and as with everything else, there’s a touch of PTSD there.

Last year, I will never forget when I checked into triage at labor and delivery, and the nurse there called me a mom for the very first time. She said, “you’re doing great mom; you did exactly the right thing for your baby coming in and getting everything checked out.” At the time, I said, “don’t call me mom, it’s way too early.” In hindsight, that statement bothered me even more, but for a completely different reason. I know she meant it to bolster my confidence, and to make me feel like I did a great thing by coming in when I thought something was amiss, but the reality is, I didn’t know anything was wrong. I had no clue. I felt great and I was at home cooking dinner! The only reason I went to the hospital was because my doctor called my cell phone and told me to. That statement from the nurse actually made me feel terrible because, if great moms knew when something was wrong with their babies, then what did that make me?

Good moms are expected to always know what is going on with their kids, and this extends throughout their lives. I hear the guilt from moms who had reduced fetal movement and didn’t know, or moms who put their kids to bed and then they never woke up, and from parents of much older kids who maybe let them go out late at night, even when they had a “bad feeling.” The guilt never ends.

My therapist shared a personal story about someone she knew who was taking care of her 20-something-year old grandson, and he had a seizure and died, but she hadn’t known because he was in his room with the door closed. This poor woman was blamed for not checking on him sooner, and somehow not preventing this completely unpredictable event. He was a fully-grown adult who had the right to privacy and a closed door! It’s not just guilt, but also blame that never ends.

In pregnancy, it feels like, as Gen Z says, “you have one job.” The job is to keep your baby alive, but it’s also to know when they’re not alive, or not doing well. This is easier said than done.

As I’ve said many times on here, with Maliyah, I had no symptoms and no signs. But I also didn’t know what the symptoms or signs were that I was supposed to be looking out for. Parts of me blame myself for this, and wonder that if MAYBE I had known what to look for, I would have spotted something. I know this is probably not true, since I was in the hospital for days, and doctors were asking all the right questions and looking for all signs, and I had none.

But this time, I do know. The main difference between last pregnancy and this one is my knowledge. With that knowledge, comes more blame. I say to myself, “this time I will KNOW if something is wrong.” But what if, yet again, there are no external signs? What if I don’t know? I will never be entirely sure. What if I say things are good, and they aren’t? I wish I had an ultrasound machine at home, but I don’t.

I am symptom-spotting all day every day. I know that a headache is a tell-tale sign of high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia due to brain swelling. But headaches are also just a common occurrence in pregnancy. Also, I am prone to headaches outside of pregnancy! This does not help my anxiety. I also know that dizziness and light-headedness is a sign of low blood pressure. Since my blood pressure has recently been on the low side, I am now looking for this possibility as well.

Monday, I was at the gym, and I started to get a headache. I was panicking. My blood pressure had been fine in the morning, but what if it was spiking? How quickly could I get to the hospital? Should I go home and check my BP or just go directly there? I felt paralyzed, stared blankly at the wall, and I hadn’t done any exercises for 2 minutes when my friend asked me if I was ok. I remembered that I had not had a headache before class, and one thing that had changed is that I put my hair up. Sure enough, when I took my ponytail down and quickly braided my hair, my head felt a lot better.

Then, 3 minutes later, we went into a circuit of chest presses to high bridge pulls on the TRX. I got up from the bench, and felt light-headed. Panic set in again. Was my blood pressure actually too low? How do I make it go up? I’d never had this problem before, so I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I also go to the hospital for that? Again, I stood paralyzed by fear. Then I remembered that it is semi-common to get light-headed from standing up quickly, and it’s even more common in pregnancy, especially when feeling overheated. After standing there staring at the wall for a second, I felt completely normal again. At least, I felt normal physically. Mentally, I felt like a crazy person.

Meanwhile, the blame game was continuing in my head. What if I went to the hospital and they asked where I had been when it happened, and said I shouldn’t have been at the gym? I have followed all of my doctor’s advice, but surely this would somehow end up my fault. Don’t I care about my baby? I should know better! As a reminder, readers, I entered this thought spiral simply because my ponytail was too tight. The self-blame is never-ending.

In my rational mind, I know there’s no explanation for what happened with Maliyah. It is not my fault. Many doctors have told me this. But to me, it still feels like I somehow made some mistake. Maybe I didn’t make a mistake causing her demise, but I certainly feel like I made a mistake by not realizing it faster. Everyone is allowed one mistake of innocence. Two mistakes though? Not ok. I feel even more pressure now to do everything in my power to protect this baby because I already used up my naiveté, and I do not want to be blamed if something goes wrong again.

There’s no good way to answer the question, “how’s the baby.” This is part of why I avoid discussing my pregnancy in general. I have decided that for now, I will simply sidestep the question like a good politician and instead say, “physically I’m feeling good.” That is true, but a non-answer to the actual question. Another one of my favorites at the moment is: “no news is hopefully good news.” Also true. Note I didn’t say, “no news is good news,” because that may be a lie. Every one of these interactions is a stark reminder of how lovely it would be to be pregnant and naïve, and how nice it must feel to just answer simple questions with simple answers. But that’s not my story, and none of this is simple.

(Written at: 21 weeks 4 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

The Anger Zone

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Anger is not an emotional state I typically find myself in. Not before my first pregnancy, not ever. This is not to say I never get mad, but I don’t usually sit in a space of anger. Recently, that has changed.

I noticed a drastic shift in my mindset toward anger in February 2024. The days were slowly moving forward toward Maliyah’s 1st birthday, and I could not stop myself from reliving my February 2023. Every day in February 2024, I found myself logging into the hospital app on my phone and obsessively rereading my old medical records. I read doctor’s notes, ultrasound tech annotations, and blood test results. I was back and forth, furiously switching apps between Epic and Google, searching every single medical definition. I went into my blood pressure app and looked at my readings day after day from the year prior. Truly masochistic behavior, day after day after day.

I got madder and madder.

We all know the saying, “knowledge is power.” Well, in my case? Knowledge was anger. Knowing what I know now, when I looked back at my charts from last year… I became increasingly angry every day.

I found my anger directed more inward than outward. I did not blame my doctors. I truly think they were doing the best they could with the knowledge they had. I have learned over the past year that doctors have specialties, and often, despite our common belief that doctors know everything, it’s truly a misconception. Doctors know their field. Doctors know how most cases resolve in their field, and how most bodies react to certain things, they know means and averages and medians. Unfortunately, as I said two weeks ago, I was an EXTREME outlier. I do not blame my doctors for not expecting I would be the .00001 case.

However, I found myself in February in an anger spiral, extremely angry at myself. The reason I was so mad, was because I know now that I had a lot of red flags. I had yellow flags, and they were flags I raised to my doctors. However, because the yellows don’t usually transform into reds, my concerns were dismissed. Now, knowing what I know, knowing the ending of my story, I am extremely livid with myself for not pushing harder. In my rational mind, I know this is not fair to me. I know that I did my best, and all I knew last year was to raise any concerns I had, and to trust my medical team’s expertise. But now that I know what I know, I find my blood boiling.

I mentioned a test last week called an AFP test. I am not going to get into the details here, but the short version of my story is, my test result was high. Not just high-ish, but HIGH. Now in 2024, I am an AFP expert. At the time, I was not. At the time, I raised my concerns, my doctor did a scan, said it was “unexplained,” and I threw up my hands. Now that I know what I know, I see my records and I say, “why didn’t I insist on seeing an MFM immediately?” I’ll tell you why… because I literally didn’t know what an MFM was last year.

I chastise myself now for not reading my charts during my first pregnancy. At the time, I was told specifically not to check the ultrasound reports or notes, because they said the baby’s sex, and we were keeping that a secret. My doctor told us that she would tell us verbally if anything was wrong. I really did not question this. I naively thought that medical notes were meant for a doctor’s own records. Yes, I knew I could access the notes on my app, but why would I? Wouldn’t my doctors say everything aloud to me that they put in there?

It turns out, that answer is no. There were many notes in my chart that were either inaccurate to the information they said aloud, or were just excluded from our 1:1 conversations. I know now, that notes are often not added to a patient’s chart until 3-4 days after the appointment. I know that, because nowadays, I refresh the app constantly after appointments, and I read the notes religiously and thoroughly.

What happens between the appointment time and the notes-entering time? I really can’t say. But I imagine that sometimes, a doctor looks over what they saw, observed, felt, heard, etc., and then later, they put those pieces of information together and write down some theories in the chart. Also, days later, when a doctor is seeing patient after patient, it’s very possible they told one patient something that they didn’t tell me, but 3 days later, how could they remember what they said to whom? Also, just like in any profession, doctors have specialized knowledge that they may inaccurately assume patients also know.

One glaring personal example is that no doctor ever mentioned pre-eclampsia to me after 12 weeks. At 12 weeks, my doctor told me to start taking one baby aspirin a day because it was proven to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia, and I had two risk factors of pre-eclampsia: being 35 years old, and the fact that it was my first pregnancy. I started taking that one aspirin daily, as suggested, and nothing else was ever said. I didn’t ask what pre-e was, what to look for, how early it could begin… I didn’t ask anything. I just took the pill daily, and lived my life. And that word was never said again to me until I checked myself into the hospital.

Imagine my surprise when, in February of this year, I opened up an ultrasound report from 5 weeks before Maliyah was born, and found the note “close monitoring for preeclampsia.” I don’t know what “close monitoring” was meant to entail, but first of all, it was never said out loud, and second of all, I never saw a doctor in 3D between when that note was written, and until I was in triage with stroke-level blood pressure readings. But I didn’t know. So when I saw that note, I was mad. Very, very mad. Also included in that same notes section of the ultrasound was this: “We reviewed the association of an elevated AFP with adverse maternal and/or fetal outcomes including but not limited to stillbirth, fetal growth restriction and preeclampsia.” None of this was true. I mean, the actual risks are true, but they certainly did not “review” that with me. Nobody ever said the word “stillbirth” to us.

I felt so blindsided when I saw that note, that I asked my husband. I don’t remember being in a heightened state of anxiety such that I would have forgotten such a dire possibility being mentioned, but I was glad I had an additional witness. Sure enough, my husband confirmed, this was never stated to us.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20. I’d like to think that if I had seen that note, if they had said those words aloud to me, I would have asked more questions and I would have done more googling. I’d like to think that I would have advocated for myself more when, 3 days later, I had a video appointment with my doctor, I told her my blood pressure was rising, and she said, “that’s normal in pregnancy because your blood volume is increasing, it’s not high enough to medicate.” I didn’t know what that could mean back then, and I didn’t even know that I had already been flagged for pre-e. But now when I read those notes, and relive all of the events that followed, the what-if voices in my head are loud, and they are incessant.

Five weeks after that video call, as we were pleading with the doctors in the hospital for 1 more week, 5 more days, 3 more days, it’s impossible for me not to think, “WHAT IF I had just started on blood pressure meds a few weeks prior? What if I had actually been monitored closely and had even one routine blood draw?”

I’ll never have those answers, and it’s infuriating.

I had months of anger about my previous pregnancy, and what I should have done, if I somehow could have known. Then, I thought I was through my anger phase. Things continued to progress smoothly through pregnancy #2. I had a week where I had two very big appointments: first, an appointment with my MFM, then, an appointment for an anatomy scan, which is often the most detailed scan a pregnant person has throughout their entire pregnancy. I was extremely anxious (as usual), because I could have learned about many possible anomalies, or likelihood of preterm labor. I also could learn if my baby was growing on pace.

Everything went extremely well, and I was so incredibly happy that I screamed it from the rooftops! I announced baby #2 immediately on social media and excitedly told all my coworkers!

PSYCH!! I did none of those things.

I took the bus home from the hospital and cried. Then took a hot shower and cried. Then I laid in bed and cried. A lot. And I wasn’t even sad, I was MAD. Truly furious.

I couldn’t understand why everything was going so well. Of course I wanted it to go well, but why did one of my babies die, and this one was just… hunky-dory? I wanted to be so happy but I couldn’t get over my comparison and frustration.

I dug into my brain and went through everything that I was doing differently this second pregnancy. There were a lot of things. I had pre-conception consultations and tests. I’m taking some different meds. I’m taking two aspirin daily instead of one. I’m overseen by a team of doctors who are extremely knowledgeable.

On a good day, those things give me peace and solace. On a bad day, like I was having around 19 weeks, 5 days, it made me furious. Here’s why: the things I’m doing differently are so easy. SO EASY. They’re so easy, that I cannot possibly grasp why I didn’t do them last time. The most invasive thing I’m doing this pregnancy is giving myself one injection a day. Needles don’t bother me, and if I’m honest, I don’t mind the injections at all. It’s not like I had a massive surgery or reconstructed my uterus. I’m taking 1 additional aspirin a day! Those pills are so small I routinely drop them on the ground. The things I am doing are SIMPLE.

And yet, I wasn’t told to do them last time.

If I had done those things, would I have a living child at home? If I had, would our baby boy be able to meet his sister instead of just seeing her handprints? I just cannot make sense of the fact that I had to lose a baby when it seems so SIMPLE to have an uneventful pregnancy. Like I said before, the what-ifs are loud, and they are incessant. I absolutely hate when people in the loss community say “if you didn’t have baby 1, you wouldn’t have baby 2” because it’s just simply not true. We always wanted more than one baby. And I very easily could have had both alive. But I don’t, and I will never know why. It’s unfair, and it makes me angry.

I know anger is one of the classic stages of grief, and somehow, I hadn’t found myself there until recently, but here I am, and who knows when I’ll see myself on to a different stage. Everyone says, “grief is not linear,” and I’m here as a shining example, finding myself back in stage 2, after I made it through the other 4. If you need me, I’ll be at the nearest rage room.

(Written at: 20 week 4 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

The Danger Zone

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Here’s a warning up-top: This may be my most boring blog to date. There are a lot of numbers and statistics. That said, it is also possibly my most important blog I’ve ever written. While I’ve never been fully transparent about what happened to me last year during my pregnancy, today seemed like the right time to share since May is Preeclampsia Awareness Month, and May 22 is World Preeclampsia Day.

You will read that my story was incredibly rare. That said, preeclampsia is still one of the leading causes of maternal death in the United States.

American women are more than three times as likely as Canadian women to die in the maternal period, and six times as likely to die as Scandinavians. In every other wealthy country, and many less affluent ones, maternal mortality rates have been falling; But in the U.S., maternal deaths increased from 2000 to 2014. The rate of preeclampsia in the U.S. has increased by 25% in the last two decades and is a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. Preeclampsia is responsible for over 70,000 maternal deaths and 500,000 fetal deaths worldwide. Up to 24% of pregnant women with HELLP syndrome and up to 34% of babies die from the condition.

There are a lot of statistics, and in my case, I came down on the wrong side of basically every one, with one important exception: I’m still alive and I could very easily not be.

This blog was a tricky one to write, because my idea of “the danger zone” is very different from other moms. Therefore, even though I know this is my personal blog where I am sharing my personal opinions, I want to start with the disclaimer that, as always, people may feel very differently than I do.

The danger zone in pregnancy is historically prior to 12 or thirteen weeks, or prior to the second trimester. Most people think of the weeks after that as the safe zone for one very specific reason: 80% of miscarriages occur before the 12th week of pregnancy. As someone who has been on the shit end of a statistic before (more on that later), when I see that 80% number, all I see is “1 out of 5 miscarriages happen after that time.” But most (non-traumatized) people don’t think that way. This is why most people announce their pregnancy after 12 weeks. The actual miscarriage danger zone is far more nuanced than that, of course. The rate does not DROP after 12 weeks, it slowly decreases over time, and once you have a confirmed strong heartbeat, a confirmed uterine pregnancy, and a confirmed growth rate, all of these numbers decrease. This can happen far before 12 weeks, even as early as 6 weeks. But in general, people feel “safe” after 12 weeks.

Now that I’m in the loss community, however, I know innumerable ways for babies to die at all different stages. For me, I think about genetic abnormalities such as trisomies, things you might be able to detect in a non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) blood draw at 9 weeks. I think about neural tube or abdominal wall holes or placental leaks, which may be detected by an alpha fetoprotein (AFP) blood test at 15-20 weeks. I think about anencephalies, which may be detected in a 12- or 20-week anatomy scan. And of course, I think about everything that could go wrong after, up until full-term stillbirth, SIDS, school shootings, you name it, I’ve thought about it.

Some of those dangers will literally never go away. There is no “safe zone.”

That said, I have learned from my experience, and from my peers in the loss space, that a person’s individual trauma tends to inform their anxiety and their own fears.

For example, I know a lot of women who experienced early miscarriages by discovering bleeding, so then in a next pregnancy, they fear going to the bathroom because they think they’ll find blood. For me, in this second pregnancy I am always elated to go to the bathroom, because of my whole organ-shifting snafu in my previous pregnancy.

For some women who found out their babies had no heartbeat from a scan in their first pregnancy, they are terrified of ultrasounds in a next pregnancy.

For me, my personal “danger zone” is 20 weeks and up, which is exactly what I am right now, to the day. The rate of miscarriage once you get to 20 weeks is less than .5%, but for me, I feel as if I’m entering the danger zone. The reason for that is, except in EXTREMELY rare cases, the risk of pre-eclampsia begins at 20 weeks.

I’ve never gone into the particulars of my story on my blog before, but the reason my pregnancy ended last year was due to an extremely severe form of pre-eclampsia (“pre-e”), known as HELLP Syndrome. HELLP is an acronym that stands for hemolysis (H) elevated liver enzymes (EL) and low platelets (LP). The severity of HELLP is divided into three classes, and I had the worst kind. Serious illness and death can occur in about 25% of HELLP cases, and most of those deaths occur in the top class, the one I had. That percentage is only the first of many in this post, so strap in.

As I mentioned before, I’ve gotten the shit end of the stick in a LOT of statistics. Let’s do some math, and start at the top. Among pregnant women, 5 to 8% develop pre-e but in the United States, it’s more like 3 to 4% of pregnancies. That means 96-97% of women in the US do not develop pre-e. Unfortunately, I was in the 3-4%.

Of the 3-4% of pre-e cases, 15% of those cases develop HELLP syndrome, 85% do not.  Therefore, I was 15% of the 3-4%. Also, of the 3-4%, 90% of pre-e cases occur after 34 weeks of gestation. Therefore, I was in the 10% of the 3-4%, and then 15% of that.

Let’s do the math another way: HELLP syndrome happens in about 1 to 2 of 1,000 pregnancies, or .1 to 0.2% of all pregnancies depending on the study. HELLP syndrome is typically a third-trimester condition, with most (68%-70%) cases occurring between 27 and 37 weeks of gestation.

For me, I was at 24 weeks when I started showing signs. I haven’t done the exact math, but basically, I was in the 30% of .5% of pregnancies. And the percentage is actually even smaller than that, if you consider the fact that my case was so severe.

Most doctors agree that test results are not alarming until they are “twice the upper limit of normal.” When I checked into the hospital, my liver enzymes were five times the upper limit. By the time they said it was “not safe for me to be pregnant anymore,” which was two days later, my enzymes were 11 times the upper limit. This all happened within 48 hours.

If you’re an optimist, and you’re a believer in “lightning doesn’t strike twice,” then you may be thinking that I am worried about nothing. The statistics are SO small, it couldn’t possibly happen to me again, right? WRONG. Here’s the problem: once you have it once, you’re far more likely to have it again.

More stats… here we go:

Research suggests that for women who had HELLP, the rate of recurrence ranges between 5-19% with higher rates if HELLP developed in the second trimester aka me. Now again, if I hadn’t already been 1 in 100,000,000 or something like that, I’d be calmed by that fact that at WORST, 81% of people do not get it again. But in my traumatized brain, all I see is, “1 in 5 chance this happens again.” When I mentioned in a previous blog about the bravery of pregnancy after loss, this is exactly the statistic I was thinking about.

If you’ve gotten through the numbers, thanks for sticking around. For most people this is boring, and completely irrelevant. For me, I do these calculations literally every day in my mind. I think of the risk factors I have, the gestational age of my baby, his chances of survival, how quickly things may escalate, and the time it will take me to get from my apartment to the hospital. I do math in my head all day every day. No wonder I have trouble thinking or caring about anything else. I’m in a constant loop of risk assessment calculations.

Many experts would say that there is a lot of hope, and that in most cases, even if I get HELLP again, it’s likely to happen later, and less severely. But again, when I see “most cases,” I think, “I’m not most.” I wasn’t “most” last time, and I probably won’t be “most” this time.

As I consider how scared I am, even at 20 weeks, my feelings of jealousy continue to creep in. Just last week, I saw 3 pregnancy announcements on my social media feeds. You’d think I’d be happy, because I have a little bean growing too! But instead, I have begun a terrible habit of zooming alllll the way into the ultrasound photos. I know exactly what I’m looking for, after all, I’ve had many of my own photos on my fridge, 6 with Maliyah, and 7 so far with baby 2.

I look for two very specific things in the social media posts on the scan photos: the gestational age in the ultrasound, and the date. Then I calculate how long they waited to post. The only reason I do this is jealousy. I wish I had the confidence to tell people at 13 weeks. I wish I saw my 12-week scan and thought, “I’m going to bring home a living baby and I’m going to tell everyone!” But I am 7 ultrasounds in, and I still don’t believe that.

If anything, as I enter “the danger zone” today, I think less and less that it will happen. All of a sudden, I am watching my own body like a hawk.

Yesterday, I walked 15,000 steps. I came home and I put up my feet to watch tv and I inspected my legs like a scientist. Were there signs of swelling?

If I feel a possible headache coming on (which I’m prone to outside of pregnancy), I wonder if my brain is swelling.

Every night when it’s almost midnight, I play the constant game of, “am I seeing spots, or do I just need to take out my contacts?”

I leaned down to pick up a pen from the floor today, felt a slight twinge in my side, and wondered if that would be considered “upper right quadrant pain.”

All those bolded words are signs of HELLP. They are signs I knew nothing about last year, and to be honest, I didn’t have any of those symptoms, anyway. But now I know, and now I am VIGILANT. I have never known my body more than I know it now.

You may think that makes me feel safer, and that I will now know when there are signs of things going south, but my previous pregnancy took that from me as well. Last year, when I checked into the hospital, even the specialists were floored by the incongruity of my lab work (BAD), and my physical symptoms (NONE). If the doctors couldn’t believe it, how am I supposed to trust my own body? The doubts and fears I have are creeping in with a vengeance, and I am only on day 1 in the danger zone.

Every morning when I wake up, and every night when I go to sleep, I remind myself of what I can control (taking my meds and trying my hardest to keep my stress down) and what I can’t (everything else). I have no words of wisdom. I have no sage advice. All I have is the fact that I will wake up again tomorrow, and try to get through that day, just like I got through this one. One day at a time, day after day. I have a feeling this herculean task will become more and more difficult as the weeks wear on, as we approach the date I carried Maliyah until, and then after, as well. The danger zone is forever, so I am arming myself for battle.

(Written at: 20 weeks 0 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

No, It’s Not My First

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Three weeks after Maliyah died, I reached out to the Pregnancy Loss Support Program, and they matched me with a Peer Counselor, who I spoke with a few times. The thing I remember most from our conversations was when I asked her when I would feel normal again, and she said “never.” She said, “even if you decide to have another pregnancy, a random stranger will stop you in the grocery store aisle and ask you when you are due, and if it’s your first. And for the rest of your life, you’re going to face that, and other questions that have no good answers.”

At the time, I thought she was insane. Another pregnancy? Over my dead body. Literally.

But she was right, of course. I am still non-pregnant-passing in most random-stranger scenarios, but at the gym, in spandex and tank tops, it’s become obvious.

The issue is: it’s not my first. But unless I want to follow up with “my first one is dead,” then I never quite know what to say. If I say I have another kid, then they ask how old she is (dead) or how I feel about being a mom of 2 (probably not the way they think I’d feel, since one is dead). If I do say it’s my first, then people assume I don’t know what’s coming, and offer their unwelcome advice, and I do know.

When I first started to tell my coaches at the gym that I was pregnant, only one of them knew about my pregnancy last year. For the ones who didn’t know about it, I figured they would ask me if I wanted modifications for certain exercises, and I wanted to nip that in the bud. To get ahead of that question, I came in for the kill with the overshare. After their squeals of excitement, I said, “I don’t think you know this, but I was also pregnant last year. The baby died, and I almost died. So, this time around I have a very large team of doctors giving me a lot of advice, and I’ll be following that advice and making some of my own modifications.” This was usually followed by shock, nods, a few “I’m so sorries” and “of courses,” and from then on, I was free to take things at my own pace, unbothered.

I wish I didn’t have to be so blunt, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of playing dumb. I didn’t want to pretend I needed help with a modification for a cross-body woodchop when I was already 25.5 weeks pregnant less than a year ago. I knew what to do and what not to do, and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.

It’s not my first. I know what exercises to modify. I know what foods not to eat. I know to try not to sleep on my back. I know to take the trash out daily because the smell makes me want to vomit. I know every test and scan that exists. I know how my body will look and change and feel. I know, because I’ve done it before. RECENTLY.

This time, I also have a huge team of doctors giving me (sometimes conflicting) medical advice, so I don’t need any more people’s advice, especially less qualified people. I now have the BEST OF THE BEST on my team, experts in their field, sometimes the foremost in their field in the country, thanks to living in New York. They know their shit. As I said to someone recently, “you know the saying, ‘there are too many cooks in the kitchen?’ Well, I have too many doctors in my uterus.”

Also, my pregnancy is not a normal one. Most people under the age of 85 don’t have a nephrologist on speed dial. Therefore, while some coaches at my gym may have training in coaching normal pregnant people, they probably don’t have training coaching “special needs Emily.” I don’t blame them, even most doctors wouldn’t know! Heck, I had different advice from 2 doctors on my own team! But the point is, this ain’t my first rodeo. I know more about the specifics of pregnancy than probably 99.9999% of childless non-doctors; I’ve dedicated the past year of my life to research and information-gathering.

I also know more about pregnancy than a large percentage of people with living children. That’s because I’ve now gone through 2/3 of a pregnancy twice, first with a very complicated pregnancy, and now, a super high risk one. I know every possible scan, every possible blood test, every possible complication. I know the different trisomies by heart, and which tests can screen for them. I know multiple different types of cerclages. I know when bed rest is recommended (almost never) and which recommendations are old wives’ tales. Most people go through a pregnancy with naïvity. I have none of that, but I have a boatload of knowledge. So no, it’s not my first.

The complicated part, of course, is that I have nothing to show for it. How do I explain that I have been 25 weeks pregnant, AND 14 weeks pregnant, but I’ve never parented a child? I don’t. I just stay away from people, mostly, especially parents. I steer clear of conversations I don’t want to be a part of or can’t contribute to. When I see people talk about how they don’t want their kids to grow up, and they want them to stay just this age forever, I shut my mouth. Because I know that’s not true. I know they’d be devastated if their kid, in fact, never grew up. I know because mine never did.

I find that the more often I share about Maliyah as part of my story this time around, the more comfortable I am. Instead of just saying, “I’m pregnant!” I’ll say, “I’m pregnant again!” Depending on the situation, and if I’m in a charitable mood and want to lighten the emotional load on the listener, I sometimes add some humor or jest.

I used this humor tactic recently when I went to the dentist. One year ago at the dentist, I was pregnant. At the time, my gums were bleeding every night when I flossed, so I mentioned it. The female dentist said that it happens often in pregnancy, and not to be too worried about it. Then, 6 months later at the dentist, I wasn’t pregnant. Unfortunately, they assigned me to a dental hygienist who was 9 months pregnant. She asked me if anything had changed “in my general health” since my previous appointment. I said, “I was pregnant, and now I’m not.”

Last month, pregnant YET AGAIN at the dentist, I was asked this same question about my general health. This time I laughed, and I said, “it seems I’m on a schedule to get pregnant annually, so I tend to have the same issues every other time I come here! Still no living babies, but hopefully this time’s the charm!” I laughed, she laughed (uncomfortably) and then the moment passed. I didn’t want to go through the fake chit chat about me being pregnant before, so I led with the facts and a joke.

It turns out my Peer Counselor was right, people always ask about the rest of your family unit when you mention a pregnancy or appear pregnant. I’ve decided that in most scenarios, I am not going to say it’s my first. Usually when I think about the reasons I’d say that, it’s to save the listener from an awkward encounter; but it’s not awkward to me, it’s just my family. My feelings have definitely evolved over time, sharing here on the blog has helped me feel more comfortable sharing IRL. Hopefully I’ll have a living addition to the gang this summer, and he’ll be my second.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 6 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Gender Disappointment

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boy and girl cutout decals

“All I want is a healthy baby.” Everyone says that. It’s true, but it’s also not the full story.

The topic of “gender disappointment**” is a hot button issue in pregnancy in general, and in the “normal pregnancy” world it isn’t talked about much, but in the loss-mom-world, it’s talked about quite a bit.

In normal pregnancies, people have expectations and wants, they picture the little outfits, and the hairstyles, the sports they want to teach their kids, the dance recitals, the blue or pink nursery, and sometimes, they are disappointed when they find out what they are having. This is 100% normal and 100% understandable. Almost everyone thinks about their future and what it will look like, and it makes sense that if you find out it will look different than you imagined, it will be disappointing. That’s human nature.

With loss moms, it’s that, and a dumpster fire more. With loss moms, you not only had those dreams, but you had the baby! You possibly already had the clothes. The nursery. The pink carrier on your registry. And then, it’s all ripped away. Not just the tangible items but the hopes and the dreams. It was so close and within reach, and then it was so far. Therefore, the “gender disappointment” can hit even harder.

With my first pregnancy, we decided we didn’t want to know what the sex of our baby was. Chris didn’t feel as strongly as me, but he agreed with the decision, and he said he didn’t care, he would love them either way. I had my own reasons, and one of them was exactly that: I’d love them either way. But there were other, less benevolent and more rational reasons, too.

  1. I always wished I had a big brother growing up. Or a little sister. Those were the two things I didn’t have. I had a big sister and a little brother. So I figured, if I had a boy first, I’d be elated! Then I’d have that possibility of having a family with a big brother and little sister! We could have a built-in someone to look out for her.
  2. I knew I wanted “at least” one girl at some point. I literally have a business styling hair, I was MADE to be a girl mom! Plus, tutus and sparkles and headbands are kinda my thing.

For those two reasons, I knew it didn’t matter. Girl first, FAB, I get my girl. Boy first, FAB, I get my “older brother” dream. The third reason we chose not to find out the sex of our first baby was:

3. We wanted to be “surprised.” I figured, this was one of the final surprises left in the world, and I wanted to have that amazing moment in the hospital. Besides, like I said, I’d love them either way.

HA! We sure got a surprise. A dead one. Not exactly the surprise we planned for. But you know what they say about plans… We did love her, and do love her like we planned, but the surprise part? We did not love that.

Early on, post-loss, Chris and I decided we definitely wanted to learn the sex of our next baby. We decided this LONGGG before I was pregnant again, possibly even while I was still in the hospital.

We made this decision for a few reasons. Some were for Chris. We both wished he had more of a connection with Maliyah before she died. He came to literally every appointment and ultrasound with me (and there were a lot!). He knew all the facts, he sat (and slept) by my side in the hospital for a week. He spent time with her after she was born. But, the bond of a carrying parent is just not the same as the bond of the non-carrying parent during pregnancy. And since we only knew her during pregnancy, it felt uneven. We talked about how we could help him create a stronger bond, if there was a “next time,” and one of the things we agreed upon was knowing the sex. Knowing the sex would help him create more vivid and specific dreams of the future for his child. He could think about himself as a “girl dad” or a “boy dad” and what that meant to him.

As for the reasons for the decision for me, I knew for a FACT that I had enough surprises for a lifetime. I was full up on surprises. Done. Also, I know now that 99.9999% of pregnancy is completely out of my control. For an anxious control freak like me, this is not an ideal situation. Therefore, I knew I needed to control the controllables. I needed to gather absolutely every piece of information that I could. That included everything from reading scientific, peer-reviewed papers on placental health, and it meant learning the sex of my baby ASAP. I know now, I do not do well with surprises, and I needed time to adjust to the news. I did not want that “adjustment” time to be in the delivery room.

We knew we wanted to know, and we wanted to know FAST. Unlike last time, where I didn’t care which sex I was carrying, this time, I felt completely different.

I wanted a girl. Everyone says they “just” want a healthy kid. And that is not a “just” for me. OBVIOUSLY that’s what I wanted. That’s what I still want. I know it’s not a given. I know it’s out of my control. I know I’d do ANYTHING to get a healthy baby. But still… I wanted a girl.

So why did I want a girl? I asked myself this question millions of times. In my head. On support groups. In therapy. To Chris. Why did it matter to me? I listened to a few podcasts and learned I was not alone. It seems almost ALL loss parents want the same sex next baby as the one they lost.  At first, it seemed so strange to me. I knew this next baby would never replace Maliyah. I knew she was gone, and I knew she was irreplaceable. A new baby doesn’t replace a dead baby.

But still, deep down in my soul, I wanted a girl. By the time I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test again, I had 9 months of images in my mind. Maliyah as a baby. Maliyah as a toddler. Maliyah as a teenager. Maliyah at her wedding. Those were all milestones I would never see because they would never come to fruition. I had a girl, but I didn’t get to raise her. I carried her and I birthed her, but I never got to dress her, create a bond with her, TALK with her, learn her hobbies, braid her hair, it was all missed opportunities. I felt in my soul that I needed a girl back. Not the same girl, but a girl. I needed a chance to do all of the things I had imagined for Maliyah throughout the previous year.

I’m not getting a girl. I had my girl, and she died. And now, we’re having a boy.

When we first received the results, I thought I’d have a lot more trouble with the sex.  I thought all of the thoughts I had above would come to me in a deluge. It didn’t happen that way, they didn’t come to me until many weeks later. Instead, when we first received the news of our new baby brother, I just had trouble accepting he was a human. The more I thought of him as a boy, the more I thought of him as a person. Of course, I have no idea what his likes and dislikes will be, whether he will love laptops or lacrosse more, but just thinking of him as a person who HAS likes or dislikes was really troubling. I was so terrified to think of him as real. Thinking of him as a boy was TOO real. The more I thought about him as a person and not just a parasite, the more I was terrified to become attached. Those feelings lasted for a month, maybe more. We held on to the information without telling a soul (besides my therapist) for 7 weeks.  I felt that sharing the news about him being a boy would immediately make me attached to him. But then, I listened to a podcast that said, if you’re afraid of becoming attached, it means you’re already attached. And I knew it was true.

Part of me is happy I am carrying a baby of the opposite sex. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am constantly looking for differences between this pregnancy and my previous one. I am trying so hard to see a different outcome, so any time I can hold on to a tangible difference between pregnancies, I am hoping that is more evidence that a different outcome is in our future. Is this rational? Absolutely not. There is literally zero evidence that Y chromosomes in general cause less pregnancy complications. But for me, I am trying to trick myself into believing that this marks an important change.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling less kind to myself, I think I caused this. Not just that I caused myself to have a boy this time around because I wanted a different pregnancy, but also that I somehow cause Maliyah’s death because I originally said I wanted a boy as my firstborn. I have been to many, many hours of therapy and I am very aware that my thoughts did not cause Maliyah’s death. But sometimes, I still let my mind go there.

Practically speaking, raising a boy terrifies me. I don’t know anything about boys. I barely understand my husband. I think about the different relationships of men and their mothers versus women and their mothers, and it makes me sad. I know I call my mom to chat 3-4 times/week, and I know my brother only calls when he needs something. I know I talk about my feelings constantly, and my husband pushes them down. I know most men don’t love a tutu and a bow, and I live for them. I don’t know how to teach someone to pee standing up. None of those things mean I won’t be a good mom, they just mean I may have a steeper learning curve.

There’s another piece, too. I won’t just be raising a man, I’ll be raising a black man in the United States. I know there are so many things about his experience in the world that I simply won’t be able to relate to. Not just that, but there are also fears. I know that the United States is not a safe place to be a black man. I know that while things are possibly moving toward equity, we have a longggg way to go. This is a whole other post that I don’t feel fully qualified to speak on, but I will just say, it’s something I think about a lot. I know that I am anxious in pregnancy because I fear for my boy and he’s inside me, and I know that fear for his safety is not likely to go away after he is born.

Since I found out about having the opposite sex pregnancy, I have been talking to a lot of loss moms and listening to podcasts about this, and I have realized that almost all loss moms who had girls in their first pregnancy, have a boy in their subsequent ones. I actually could not find one single person who had a girl who died, then another girl. I found a couple who had a boy and then another boy, but ZERO girl-girl. The good news about this is, I’m not alone. There are many stories out there for me to see, and there are many people for me to talk to. I have realized that all of my feelings are common. Many loss moms who had girls who died have talked to me about how they notice things they never looked at before, like moms and their sons of all ages on the subway. I have tried to look closely for these things, too. I need to reframe my whole schema of what my mothering relationship will look like, so I am seeking out examples. I find much more in common with moms-who-lost-girls-and-have-living-boys than just mom-who-have-living-boys. There’s this grief and sadness that pairs together with extreme happiness of living children that I find myself at the intersection of. This is another example of feeling “other,” like I talked about in my post on being a “loss mom not a regular mom.”  I know this “mom-of-living-boy-after-dead-girl” seems like a small sample size, but now that I exist in these spaces, I know there are actually very, very many of us.

I don’t think my what-ifs will ever go away. I will continue to wonder if my only girl I will ever get to parent is dead. I will continue to think about my unrealized dreams for her. But I am also now looking to create new dreams for our son. I find myself constantly looking at old photos of Chris as a kid, and seeing how cute he was. When we have conversations, I look at his face and his gesticulation, and I notice little things in him, mannerisms and physical traits, that I hope our son inherits. I watch him snoring away at night, and wonder if our little boy will sleep as soundly.  One thing I know for sure is that we will love him a LOT. He is already loved so much, and we can’t wait to meet him (but not too soon)!

**Sidenote: I know the term “gender disappointment” is a misnomer, since what we are actually talking about is genitalia and sex, not gender expression, but historically, the term has been “gender disappointment” so that’s what I used here. Also, “sex disappointment” reminds me of a whole other thing: what most women experience throughout their 20’s.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 3 days)

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