Pregnancy After Loss – On the final trek

Last year, around this time, I exerted physical and mental energy beyond anything I ever imagined as I completed the Yorkshire 3 peaks. It was basically 25 miles of pure torture and, whilst there were moments (like stood on top of the mountains) where nothing but awe and beauty filled my soul, the dominating feeling was one of how hard it was and how much my body hurt! I often think of that and think about it as a comparison to my life now and how at times it really is an uphill struggle to have another baby. It’s a time where we feel some days that we can’t possible take another step, but somehow we do and things seem lovely when finally reach the “summit” – but right now its a flipping long trek to reach that end goal!

I have to say, I have felt rather melancholy recently and when I feel like this I often will analyse my life and try to pin point what the trigger of these emotions are. The thoughts started at Pregnancy hormones? Stress? Life? and I guess it could be down to a mixture of all of these elements, along with the realisation that the closer I get to having my rainbow baby, the more it is shown to me of what I missed out on with Poppy.

With her being my 3rd child, I always knew in the back of my mind what loosing a baby would mean in regards to what would physically be lost from our life (shopping, nappies, feeds, cuddles, milestones etc), but as I narrow down my choices of pram and crib in this pregnancy and start to prepare our home to welcome her home in, it seems so much more apparent of what we actually did miss and that is very hard!

I get excited as look at prams and imagine my fresh new bundle of joy wriggling around in it, but I also feel rather a lot of fear and sadness that I didn’t expect to.

Fear that it will all be lost again and my body might fail another child, and sadness that we missed these talks, plans, shopping trips and ebay trawls!

And then there is some guilt that as her mother I didn’t do any of this for her.

To protect MY feelings and to prevent the heartache or returning things, I bought her nothing.

I planned very little and I missed out on so much.

Right now, as much as I want to embrace the opportunity I have to be a normal pregnant woman and commit to a pram or baby crib and, as many lovely ideas I pin, the reality is that at 30 weeks pregnant I feel like I am stood on this path that’s is so incredibly hard to walk. And yes it is actually quite a hard slog at times. I know it leads to beautiful views of life and awe filled experiences with our new addition and, I know I am utterly grateful to be pregnant again, but its very much like that of the 3 peaks which required a lot of confidence to keep walking along it and push through the pain involved to reach the beautiful destination.

I really hope now as we are into single figures of counting down to meeting baby number 4, that I can muster the strength to make final decisions of what to buy her, and that I can enjoy preparing things for her arrival and shake these emotions of fear and worry that seem to have settled upon me!

I look forward to the final destination, but the journey is one of great mental and emotional exertion.