PAL --Pregnancy After Loss

PAL--Pregnancy After Loss

There seems to be terminology for many aspects of parenthood after losing your child and PAL is a major one.  It is a very specific and unique experience that is best managed when surrounding yourself with others who understand from experience or understand by learning from a parent that is experiencing it.

My personal PAL journey has two very specific components: the emotional and the physical differences...

Emotionally we are no longer naive, blissful, healthy adults bringing a baby into this world and then home with us.  We are two healthy adults that have only conceived and brought into this world sick babies.  Sick babies with no given explanation as to why they were sick.  Therefore, I experienced a lot more stress about following all of the rules and doing nothing that could risk harm to my baby but yet trying to remain sensible and sane though it all.  When you're pregnant people will try to reassure you and tell you how they broke the rules and their child turned out fine... "my doctor told me to have 1 drink a week if I needed it, so I did", "I was careful with my first but by my second I ate lunch meat whenever I wanted", "my mom smoked the entire time she was pregnant with me"...  People mean well but that is just not helpful because my babies did get sick and I don't know if it is because of something I did.  The statistics are low but statistics were never in our favor for Millie, so statistics just don't mean crap anymore.  So the first trimester was particularly littered with worries about every little detail of every little thing I did.  Since I can't feel or even really see changes that early I had no reassurance that baby was well.  Therefore I worried that if I exercised too much I would harm baby but if I didn't exercise enough I wouldn't manage well physically through the pregnancy.   I wanted to honor this life inside of me so we shared the news but I couldn't help remaining guarded.  I also continued to find it very difficult to be around other pregnant women and the jealousy that they never experience a PAL pregnancy.

The second trimester was when I started to see my growing bump and get little nudges from baby.  The second trimester was when we learned that the blood work on baby was good and the ultrasounds were showing healthy development.  These factors helped but they never eased my worries entirely.  What did help was learning that we were having a boy, starting to receive gifts for Millie's little brother and agreeing to celebrate his life with a baby shower.  These factors helped me shift my point-of-view towards actually bringing a baby home with us to stay.  My fears were less and my hope was stronger.  I honestly started to feel faith that he was doing just fine and would definitely be joining our family.  By the time we reached the 28 week ultrasound (the one where we learned Millie was sick) I already knew in my heart that he wasn't sick.  My instincts were right, his ultrasound scan was perfect.  

The third trimester has been both up and down. Celebrating our baby boy with three separate showers brings us joy and comfort to see how loved he is.  Organizing his many gifts gives me something very positive to do and makes me feel reassured in imagining him joining our family.  I am also growing bigger and feeling him move so much which is great relief and helps make me feel excited to hold him in my arms.   But being bigger automatically draws a lot more questions about my family.  I have decided that I will never deny Millie's place in our family so whenever I get asked if this is my first I always answer "no our second".  This answer often results in follow-up statements or questions like "so you're an old pro" or "great you have one of each now".  I then feel the need to explain our situation.  I'm so matter-of-fact about it now after having to have these conversations at least a dozen times a week that I start to feel guilty about my seemingly emotionless management of our situation but this is our reality and the type of questions I will continue to get for the rest of our lives.  I suppose I could just pretend he is our first to eliminate the follow-up questions/responses but I just can't.   I've also learned that as I get bigger everyone is an expert in delivering babies and is certain I am delivering any minute despite the fact that I'm only 35-36 weeks along.  I know their comments are harmless but as a parent who has been through loss, delivering a child early is a frightening concept and one I do not want to consider.  Having your child taken from you via c-section, being unable to hold your child for over 24 hours and having to visit your child for only short periods of time in the NICU is not something I wish to relive, if at all possible, so having a child 4 or 5 weeks early is not something I am hoping for.  I try not to get offended by any one single person, as I know no one means harm by what they say, but the combination of many comments every week can start to wear on a person that is just trying to carry a healthy baby to full-term and deliver a baby safely so that he may survive.  

As we approach delivery we have had very serious decisions to make about how we will deliver.  I feel so strongly about having a natural, unmedicated delivery but it is just not possible for a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) and I would be required to have the epidural very early on.  This strategy makes me very nervous about the baby's health, my health and my emotional well-being so we have opted to go with another c-section.  Heath is more at ease with this option and overall it feels safest for baby which is the most important factor.  So I have dealt with the secondary loss of ever delivering my babies vaginally because we originally chose to keep Millie safe through c-section.  I am totally okay with this plan now but originally this was an extremely emotional loss for me.  It makes me feel like less of a mother having absolutely nothing to do with the action of bringing my babies into this world. 

As we enter the last month of pregnancy with less than 3 weeks to go I am finding myself becoming very anxious and nervous.  We have officially been discharged by the high risk doctor because our baby boy has looked perfect on every ultrasound, including his 36 week one.  This is relieving but this is so different.  With Millie we were checked almost every single day until one day we were finally told that it was time to deliver.  With this baby we are just waiting for nature to take it's course or July 29th to arrive, whichever comes first.  I am emotional knowing that we are about to enter the stages of Millie's life that are my only memories of her and they are going to be written so differently for this little guy.  I am so comforted and blessed to know he is healthy but I am nervous about getting to bring a baby home and do the normal 'caring for a baby' stuff.  I am fearful of an emotional breakdown and feeling the loss of Millie all over again with everything we didn't get to have with her.  Physically I hurt so much more with this baby than I ever did with Millie.  I didn't have any real pain with Millie but with our son I have felt pain in my hips, feet and hands from my ever loose ligaments, I have much worse varicose veins and recently increased swelling in my hands and feet.  The swelling in my hands has gotten so severe this past week that it is causing carpal tunnel syndrome and very stiff joints which is actually impacting my ability to sleep and even worse impacting my ability to do my job.  It is hard for me to accept that I am physically not as strong as I was with Millie but I know that is to be expected having babies only 18 months apart.  

So while the house is prepped for a baby to join our family, my mind is not entirely there yet.  I can't seem to pack my hospital bag or plan how I want Millie present with us at the hospital or how I want to handle visitors.  I also cannot commit to a name yet.  This bothers me because I feel like his name should be obvious but I'm just plain unable to commit.  I guess I have to meet him to know.   But coming towards the end of our PAL journey I am comforted by the beautiful babies I see my friends parent after the loss of their child.  It also helps to walk this pregnancy step-in-step with my sister, Jenny, who is expecting my niece July 23rd.  I am excited for these cousins to be born so close together.  My nephew, Avett, will always have a special bond with his cousin, Millie, and now these two cousins will have a special bond being born so close together :)