Fun Facts

So, I'm sure you've seen (or will begin noticing now) the "Pregnancy Fun Facts" statuses that have been popping up on Facebook.  Women are randomly posting a few facts about their pregnancies as their status.  The amount of facts shared is related to a number assigned to them by a friend.   I saw one for the first time the other day and read it with curiosity, excitement, and, obviously, jealousy.  How wonderful it must be to have a pregnancy that results in happy, living children!  I don't mean that sarcastically at all.  There's a sense of innocence to these posts that I envy.   

For the last several days, I have wondered if I should create one of these statuses myself, but I held myself back.  Not because of my usual "hatred of the norm" attitude, but because I wasn't sure if people would want to read about my pregnancies since the first one ended in tragedy and the second is still only halfway through.   But when it comes to "normal" baby related activities, I want to participate so badly in all of them.  I want to be normal.  I want to be the happy-go-lucky mom who can talk about her babies without taking a sharp emotional left turn.  So, I am going to share that here.  

1. I got pregnant with Kenley the first time we tried in June of 2012.  Mike and I had been married almost a year, but knew we wanted to start a family quickly.  It took me three cycles of trying to get pregnant with Bean, which happened in August of 2013.  

2. With both pregnancies, the first trimester was very hard.  With Kenley, I threw up about 5 times.  Bean's number is closer to 10.   Regardless of actual vomiting, I had food aversions and nausea constantly from about week 7 to week 14.   Nausea with Kenley lightened up faster than with Bean.  Even at week 17, I am still very sensitive.

3. I lost about 6 pounds my first trimester when pregnant with Kenley.  Overall, I gained 18 pounds.   I lost almost all of it within a week of her birth.  With Bean, I have lost a little less than 10 pounds, but am starting to level out and hopefully, will start to gain.  I expect the weight gain to be similar.

4. Kenley moved like crazy.  I felt her for the first time around 13 weeks.  I know that's early, but I remember very clearly sitting on the couch, leaning forward, and feeling three little pops.  I wasn't sure then if that is what I really felt, but as time went on and I felt her more, I knew that was it.   

5. Bean is much more mellow than her sister.  I haven't felt her very often, but I am just now starting to feel her more.  When I do feel her move, it's not pops, but more of a wiggle.  Sometimes, I think maybe my stomach is still numb in places from the C-section.

6. Kenley was born on February 25, 2013 at 36 weeks and weighed 5 pounds, 1 1/2 ounces.  She was 19 inches long and had a boatload of dark hair, just like her mama.  Bean will be a scheduled C-section at 36 weeks as well, which puts her birth near April 20th, 2014.

7. I really didn't like being pregnant very much.   The only things that made it worthwhile were those quiet mornings where Kenley would move and wiggle and I would poke her back, giggling as she tickled me.   I loved to feel her move and to picture what each of her parts were doing in there.   I am looking forward to those moments with Bean.

8. My pregnancy with Kenley was very typical and normal right up till the end.  So far, Bean is healthy and normal as well.

9. I had a really hard time finding names.  I didn't want my daughter to have a name like every one else, but I didn't want a crazy "flower child" name either.  When I first stumbled across Kenley, it was under the boy section.   I'm still working on Bean's name.  It's hard because I already went through - and rejected - so many names when naming Kenley.  And I don't want to give Bean a "Kenley cast-off".

10.  I admit, I did love not having to ever suck in my stomach.  Now that I'm starting to show, I'm letting it all hang out again.   Nice!

11.  Maternity clothes are the most comfortable clothes in the world.  When I was pregnant with Kenley, I joked around that I would continue to wear them for the rest of my life.  I really see no reason to revise that statement.

12. Kenley was supposed to be the first of two.  She might now be the first of three, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  I'm no spring chicken.  Plus, I really just want to focus on getting Bean here safely and dealing with her when she does.

13. I took two pregnancy tests with Kenley.  Obviously, I took the first one to confirm I was pregnant.  A few weeks later, I took the second one simply because it was just sitting in the box and I felt like it.   Still pregnant.

14.  I have more ultra sound pictures of Bean's first 17 weeks than I do of any pictures of Kenley, including the 5 taken in the hospital.  I don't really feel guilty about that, though.  It's just the way it is.   

15. When I found out Kenley was a girl, I made pink frosted cupcakes for my class.  This year's class still doesn't know about Bean.  I think they think I'm just getting fat.   I have no plans to make an official announcement to them any time soon.  Probably after Winter Break sometime when it becomes more obvious.   

16.  I am doing all the regular pregnancy things with Bean that I did with Kenley.  I am writing to her in a journal.  I am tracing my belly on canvas.  I talk to her.  Sometimes, I sing (badly) to her.  I don't care about "getting too attached."   She's my baby.  I'm already attached.  

I could probably continue forever.  I love to talk about my children.  But, that's enough for a Fun Fact Post.   Maybe you learned something about me.  Maybe you already knew all these things.  But, I feel better being able to participate in something "normal" with my babies.  

Conflict

Some days are extremely overwhelming.  Some days, I feel like those migraine commercials where the woman is holding her head and the camera zooms shakily in and out to represent the pain she feels.    I am overflowing with too many different emotions - emotions that completely contradict each other.  Some days, I don't know how I am going to handle this for even the next few months, let alone the rest of my life.    I feel like I am going to explode and implode at the same time.  Explode because I am so full of so many things that need to be sorted, but just can't.  Implode because the world just seems so heavy and crushing - and not always understanding of or accommodating to what I need to sort.  It pushes down on me to feel things a certain way, to process things a certain way, to have some sort of linear motion to this journey.  But, that isn't the way it is.  It has never been that way and it will never be that way.  I am stumbling through my life, like someone who drank too much, but is still trying so hard to walk upright.  I'm hazy and unfocused, and I'm afraid I'll never get a handle on myself again.

I miss Kenley every day and with no less intensity than the first day she was gone.  I think of her every day.  I love her every day.   My heart is still broken for her.   There are moments of those first few days that I do not let myself think about for too long because they just hurt too much.  Moments of writhing in anguish on the ultrasound table after seeing her unbeating heart - of what it felt like to walk, swollen with death, to the operating room for my C-section - of how cold and soft she was in my arms - and of how absolutely beautiful she was despite her lack of life.  I can't even write those sentences without taking ten minutes to compose myself.  Even as hard as I have worked to wade through this mess, I have still pushed a lot of it away.  I just can't do it.   I am still actively mourning for her.  

And yet, I am now pregnant with her sister.  How do I push all of that sorrow aside and be joyous for this new life?   How do I decide which child is more important to me?  Which emotion?  I can't.  And, you might be saying, "Well, you don't have to."   While that's true - while I don't have to choose between my children - there is only so much a human heart can take.   There is only so much room for such conflict.  Sorrow and joy can go together in a bittersweet swirl, but not always to this extent.  I try so hard to find that balance.  To find that path where my devastation over losing my firstborn can live harmoniously with my excitement over carrying my second.   But, I am not even sure there is a balance.  I don't know how to achieve it.  I am constantly faltering back and forth, back and forth.  Feeling intensely guilty towards one daughter if I spend too much time on the other one's side.  

I often find myself saying "I just want my baby."  I want both, but I can only have one.    In a perfect world, I would have both.  But, in a perfect world, Kenley would still be alive and I would not have had a reason to get pregnant again right now.  So, what does that say about Bean?  If I give Kenley priority in my heart, then it seems like Bean is a consolation prize.   If I focus on Bean, then what about my Little Ninja?   You might say I am over-thinking all of this, but really, I'm not thinking anything.  I'm only feeling.  And I don't know how to make it manageable.  I don't know how to organize these emotions anymore.  I'm just a swirling ocean of one crashing wave after the next.  Slam, slam, slam. 

Love, anger, excitement, fear, joy, sorrow, guilt.  All at once.  All the time.  

I still can't believe this is actually my life, and not some horrible nightmare.

It's Not Easy Being Green

It's hard to pinpoint what my thought process has been in getting pregnant again, but I can easily tell you I wasn't expecting it to be this hard.  I knew it would be tough.   I knew it would bring forth stress and conflicting emotions, but I really wasn't prepared for this.   I don't think any mother is.  I remember thinking, "If I can just get pregnant again, then I will feel better.  I will feel less empty.   I will feel like I am moving forward."  And while some of that is happening, it's not happening to the extent I thought it would.  And so many other things are going on that make this roller coaster ride even more stomach dropping.  I can't put all of them in one post, so I'll just write about things one at a time.

The first thing that caught me off guard was my emotional reaction to my physical changes. I'm not one of those lucky women who float through their pregnancies with a happy sigh and a joyous glow.   My first pregnancy was physically difficult.  My second is not different.  Nausea, heartburn,swelling, bloating, fatigue, soreness - you name it.   I had all of these things with Kenley - and I have them again with Bean.  I knew they were coming.   But, there's a part of me that feels that it is just so unfair that I have to go through it all again.   I am angry that I have to put my body through the pains of pregnancy a second time without being able to reap the benefits of the first.   While every pitch over the toilet bowl reminds me that Bean is alive and growing, it also irritates me that I have to be there.  And it makes me think of the last time, when it was Kenley who was causing my stomach to flip flop its contents.  Every time I wake up in the middle of the night with my esophagus on fire, I reach for the Tums with a sigh of frustration, not just because I'm uncomfortable, but because I'm uncomfortable again.   And when I'm too tired to do anything after work but sit and breathe, I wish it was because my baby kept me up all night crying and not because she's dead and I'm pregnant with her sister.  Every ache, every pain, every discomfort of my body is a reminder of what I have and what I lost.  

And then, there is the comment that always comes after I express these feelings.  "It will be worth it."   Oh really?   I'd love to take a look in the crystal ball you have.  Please, show me the guaranteed future where all of this is worth it.  Where my baby is in my arms, healthy and alive. Then there's the "At least you were able to get pregnant again."  These comments frustrate me for many reasons.   The main reason being comments like this make me feel like I have no right to complain about being pregnant - and that's just not fair.   Every woman has the right to complain about being pregnant.  Being pregnant is hard!   Our bodies go through so much.  I should still be able to talk about how crummy I feel without someone reminding me to remember how lucky I am to have a second chance.  I know how lucky I am.  I know so many women don't get pregnant as easily as I have.   My many support groups are full of these women, whose hearts break every month over and over and over again.   I get it.  No one needs to tell me of the hardships of pregnancy or infertility.  I have cried for them and with them.  We cry for each other.  I have been in this community for several months.  I know I could have it so much worse.   But, that doesn't mean I still shouldn't be able to complain.  In fact, I need to complain.   I need to have someone tell me they understand - or at least that they understand my right to be upset.  Let me hang on to this one bit of normalcy in a life that is anything but.

There's this mindset among those who aren't in the baby loss community that a Rainbow pregnancy is - well - full of rainbows.  This attitude that once that egg has been fertilized again, it's just smooth sailing until a screaming baby pops out.  And that any slight bump along the way should be taken with a smile because - hey, you're pregnant again!  Yay!    Yes, there are moments when I am truly happy and excited - when I'm not nauseous, when I have some energy, when my stomach isn't a boiling pit of acid.  And then there are moments when I feel like crap and I wish I had a baby already.   By the time Bean gets here, I will have been a human oven for almost two years, with a sixth month break in between babies.  And I will still only have ONE baby.  (The uncertainty screaming around in my head regarding that statement is definitely for another post)   I have earned my stripes.  I have earned the right to vocalize whether or not I have a stomach ache, or how tired I am, or how I just want my body to be done with this already.   

I have five more months - twenty more weeks - to go.  Twenty more weeks until my body is mine again.   Twenty more weeks before Bean is in my arms.   It seems like an eternity.