Pregnancy After Loss

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Loss Mom

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There are so many things I lost when my baby died. I lost my baby, obviously, but there were a million secondary losses. One of the big losses was the sense of community. I was in the “expecting” community, then all of a sudden, I was not. If you are the type to join the “bump groups” on reddit or Facebook or anywhere, where you find thousands of women looking to have babies around the same time, all of a sudden you are left behind. Personally, I’m not that kind of gal, and those groups always made me a little uncomfortable. However, last year when I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Maliyah, I did join a local moms group, looking to see where people were signing up for daycare wait lists, what the going rates were for nannies in the neighborhood, and who was selling second-hand strollers, etc. When I came home from the hospital empty-handed and empty wombed, I immediately exited all of those groups and it was devastating.

But I’m pregnant now! I’m back in the club! The COOL MOMS CLUB! The regular moms club! Except… I don’t feel part of the club at all. In fact, I feel exactly the same as I did before, like I have a dead baby. Yes, I’m growing a new one, but I feel completely out of the club.

I didn’t realize just how “other” I felt until last month, when I saw an Instagram friend repost from Vogue Weddings the announcement that Sophia Richie Grainge was pregnant. The photo showed her in an unbuttoned, oversized men’s shirt and underwear, belly on full display. It had 1.9 MILLION likes. I saw it, visibly cringed and recoiled, and clicked away. I couldn’t look at it. I had to take a moment and realize my own reaction. Why was I so uncomfortable seeing a woman pregnant, when I myself was pregnant with a little bump of my own? I reflected on how I felt the week prior at my doctor’s appointment. As it happens when you go to a maternal fetal medicine specialist, most of the people in the waiting room, indeed are carrying babies. It’s why they’re there. But to this day, I look around the waiting room and I can’t stand looking at them. I find myself averting my eyes from anyone pregnant, even walking past strangers on the sidewalk.

After Maliyah died, when I had to go to my doctor for follow-up appointments, I was similarly disturbed and triggered seeing pregnant women. I thought this would be temporary because of grief and trauma, and that I would somehow find myself “fixed” and “back in the in-crowd” once I was pregnant again. I’ve been waiting for this moment, but it hasn’t happened and now I’m not sure if it ever will.

Whenever I think I’m in the clear and I’m feeling more part of the club again, I get shoved back into my place by random seemingly-innocuous conversations. Since I’m in my mid-30’s, of course more and more of my friends are expecting (living) babies. Therefore, many conversations revolve around upcoming births. I was feeling so much better about these conversations. After all, I have one coming up, too (hopefully). But recently, I realized my worries and complaints are just SO DIFFERENT from other expectant mothers.

Once you have a kid, if you have living parents or in-laws, you also make them grandparents. What a gift! I know my mom is dying to be a grandma with a new tiny baby to hold. I also know that some people have overbearing parents and grandparents. Recently, some friends were talking about their parents/in-laws and their involvement in their kids and lives, and I again realized how different my guilt and struggles were. Don’t get me wrong, everyone complains about their parents and in-laws, and I don’t want to minimize any of their struggles, but in 2022, I promised my parents they’d become grandparents and then I gave them a dead grandkid. Instead of visiting their new grandkid in the hospital, they came to visit me, babyless, hooked up to an EKG and 4 IVs. That’s not what I promised, and my extreme feelings of guilt for letting their grandparent dreams down by giving them a dead grandkid, they just don’t compare to all of the “regular mom” guilt.

Now, two years later, I am once again promising my parents another grandkid. Hopefully this one will be alive. My friends complain about how involved their parents are, imagine how uninvolved they’d be if your kid was dead? Imagine how hesitant they’d be to show their excitement if they weren’t sure if this one would survive? Or if they weren’t sure how you’d react to the excitement because you were so terrified yourself? My parents are scared to even ask about my pregnancy unless I bring it up. We have been very clear about not accepting gifts yet because of our extreme caution. I wish more than anything that I could be a “regular” mom getting gifts from excited grandparents-to-be, but instead, we just skirt the subject and wait with baited breath.

The subject of me feeling so incredibly “different” came up recently when I was talking with my husband. He asked who I told about the pregnancy, and I told him that all of my close friends and immediate family knew. He asked what they thought about it, and what they said. I said, “well, they said congratulations, but I don’t really talk to them about it. Who wants to know about my hundreds of appointments and blood draws?” He was pretty surprised to hear I don’t discuss my pregnancy with my friends, since I am so open and outgoing and extroverted usually.

For weeks, I thought about why I don’t feel comfortable talking about it, especially now that many of my friends have kids of their own. I think that is actually why. There are two groups of friends, the people who have babies now (many of whom I was SUPPOSED to have a baby before), and the people who don’t have babies. My friends who have never been pregnant don’t really understand, and those who have been pregnant but haven’t gone through an extremely traumatic loss, I feel like they can’t relate. Sure, I could talk about the scans or the tests to my friends with kids, and they would be able to speak knowledgably about them because they had the same ones. But I doubt they had panic attacks in the waiting room every time. I doubt they didn’t sleep for weeks as they waited for their metabolic blood panel to come back. I doubt they broke out in a cold sweat in the Uber on the way to the hospital. I doubt they literally sob EVERY time they have an ultrasound. I doubt their charts say “SIGNIFICANT ANXIETY” in all caps in the notes section.

I could share more with friends, but I don’t feel like anyone would get it. I’m not a regular mom, I’m a loss mom. Some of this could be in my head, and I like to think all of my friends are sympathetic people, so even if they couldn’t have empathy I think they would feel bad. But I don’t want my friends to feel bad, I want them to understand and it feels like no one can. That’s what the internet is for, I guess, to find other PAL moms who similarly have panic attacks in waiting rooms, and can suggest their favorite progressive muscle relaxation techniques when they feel the cold sweats coming.

My regular mom friends with living kids talk about picking baby names. One mentioned how they settled on a name months before the birth, but they wanted to reserve the right to change it if the baby didn’t seem to match the name. For me, I have a list of names, but then a backup list of names for if the baby is dead. I have my top favorite names, and then I think, “if this baby dies too, would I want to save that name for a living baby? Would I ‘waste’ it on another dead one? What is the meaning of the name, and would it be awkward as a memorial name instead of on a breathing kid? Like if it means energetic or ‘full of life’ isn’t that weird for a dead child? Does the name go with Maliyah’s name? How would it look on a memorial necklace next to hers?”

Regular moms don’t think about those things when they’re deciding names. Regular moms think, “Is this a pretty name? Do we like it? Are we naming them after someone? Does it go with the last name?”

Loss moms have a list of names that go with their last name, and a list of names that don’t, because last names don’t really matter when the baby never gets a birth certificate. Every single decision is made differently.

I’ve talked before about how my excitement is different than other moms-to-be because mine is complicated and tinged by 100 other emotions, and I had a perfect example of this a few weeks ago.

I mentioned to a friend when I announced my pregnancy to her, that I think my body looked at 12 weeks the way that it did at 24 weeks with Maliyah. When she heard that, she told me it made her want to see bump pics. I have a complicated relationship with bump photos to begin with, since I’m not 100% comfortable with my body changing outside of my control, so even with Maliyah, I didn’t take many photos of my changing body, and I certainly did not share them publicly.

When my friend asked me for a bump pic, I told her I didn’t have any. But then I remembered, I did. The morning of my doctor’s appointment at 10 weeks, I took photos in the mirror. I had completely convinced myself that I was going to find out that day that my baby was dead. I was sure. I told myself, “I better take a photo of myself so I have something to commemorate this baby.” I took a couple photos before I put on an outfit and headed to the doctor, where I found out that everything was perfectly fine.

I had actually forgotten about those pictures. I didn’t take them to flaunt or show anyone. I took them for future memories when I figured I’d be left with nothing else. Empty womb, empty arms, yet again. I needed something to put in the memory box.

Regular moms don’t do that or have those thought processes. Regular moms take photos for Instagram or to send to friends and family. Regular moms hold up avocadoes to compare their baby to an inanimate object. Loss moms think about putting photos and memories inside an inanimate object since that’s all they are left with.

I will admit, it made me really sad to realize that the only reason I was taking pictures was because I thought they’d be the only ones I’d have. I realized I had been doing that with other things too. For this pregnancy, I saved the pregnancy test (in a ziplock bag because ew), and I saved my wristband from the hospital from my 12-week scan. I worry that these are the only items I’ll have to remember this baby.

I have tried to think differently and get excited about this new baby, but as you read, it’s been difficult. I get very sad when I see happy and naïve people post pregnancy things because I’m jealous. I wish I had that excitement. I wish I could excitedly receive gifts. I wish I could confidently schedule a baby shower. I want to be a regular mom. But I’m not, I’m forever and for always a loss mom.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 0 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Comparison is the Creator of Joy

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two people holding pineapple fruit on their palm

“Comparison is the Thief of Joy.” This is a phrase that is thrown around a lot, and usually attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt, although that is likely a misattribution according to the internet. The point of the phrase is, if you compare yourself to others, you will likely be disappointed and it will make you feel like shit.

Going through baby loss, I can say 100% yes, this can be true. I spent a lot of my time in 2023 comparing myself to everyone else, and feeling like a complete failure, that the world was sh*t, that I couldn’t get myself the literal one thing I’ve always wanted in my entire life, and that everyone else just seemed to have it better. Then, I realized I was doing this toxic comparison stuff, and I felt like sh*t even more because, as the saying goes, I was “robbing myself” of joy. Comparison, however, is an extremely normal thing for humans to do. In fact, according to research in Psychology Today, more than 10% of daily thoughts involve making a comparison of some kind.

Recently, I’ve found myself comparing me to ME, though, and I have to tell you, it’s the opposite of a thief of joy, it’s almost the only thing that can CREATE joy for me now.

You may remember a few days ago, I talked about how my only experience with pregnancy resulted in horrific trauma and loss. Therefore, it’s only natural that I compare my current pregnancy with my previous one, since it’s my only point of reference. But every time something goes well that did NOT go well last time, I feel extreme joy and relief. Comparing my own personal past experiences to my present ones is the only thing that seems to bring this reaction.

In November 2022, I had an appointment for a 12-week scan. This is the first scan where they do an abdominal ultrasound, so they advise you to have a full bladder. What they did NOT advise me, was that they were running 2.5 hours late. Without going into the details, I will just say, it did not end well. Holding my bladder eventually shifted my organs so that I could no longer go to the bathroom. I ended up leaving the hospital without the scan because they closed for the evening, and then I ended up back in the hospital on the emergency triage labor and delivery floor later that night to try and empty and re-shift my organs back into place. It was traumatic, to say the least. The next morning, I was BACK at the hospital to try to have them perform the scan again. Again, I was greeted by a new receptionist who told me to have a full bladder, to which I just laughed, then I eventually did get the scan by an ultrasound tech I had never seen, in a dark room where she did not speak. I was terrified the whole time that the events from the night before had killed my baby, and I just waited and waited while she didn’t say anything to me until I finally asked, “is everything ok?” And it was. Then the attending doctor, who I had also never seen, came in and said “everything looks good” with no acknowledgement of the previous day and night, and they sent me on my way.

Four weeks later, I was scheduled for another scan. This time, I had to go to a different ultrasound facility I had never been to, again with strangers, for an early anatomy scan. I was told an early anatomy scan was necessary because I was ANCIENT, aka 35 years old. Again, I was laid down on a bed in a dark, silent room with an ultrasound technician, and this time, she was having trouble getting the pictures she needed. She kept shifting the bed up, down, angle up, angle down, asking me to shift to one side, lift my legs, do all sorts of things. Eventually, she told me to get up and walk around. This was also when she scolded me for not eating enough breakfast, which you may remember from my post about body image. I was terrified. What was she trying to see that she couldn’t see? I thought some crucial part of my baby was MIA. Again, it turned out everything was fine. But since this scan was done at a different facility, those scan images weren’t in my chart online. When, two weeks later, I had an additional scare that my baby might have spina bifida (she didn’t), my doctor wanted to see the photos from the scan, but didn’t have them. All I could say was that the tech had told me, “everything looked normal.”

When I think about my pregnancy with Maliyah, I usually say it was, “uneventful… until it was NOT.” But then I think about those two scans and I realize, it was kind of eventful. Those stories are just background to say, even before Maliyah died, things were not smooth sailing.

While of course, I wish my pregnancy with Maliyah had been nothing but great memories with rainbows and unicorns, it isn’t true. That also means that every single time something goes smoothly or easily with pregnancy #2, I am floored, and I am overjoyed.  

Last week, I had my 12-week nuchal translucency scan for pregnancy #2, the same infamous bladder-uterus-shifting scan from 2022. I was terrified, but I was mentally prepared. To make matters even more complicated, it was the very first time I was to go back to the hospital where Maliyah died. The last time I checked myself in on those screens, I was pregnant. Then, six days later, I left very NOT pregnant. I was nervous about entering the hospital and having this scan for weeks.

I arrived, and the receptionist confirmed if I had a full bladder. I didn’t of course, because ONLY FOOLS MAKE THAT MISTAKE TWICE. But I lied, and kind of chuckled, and I said, sort of. She said, “ok good, because they’re about to call you.” Now, in my previous pregnancy, I had 4 scans on that same floor and they had NEVER been less than an hour behind, so that comment actually elicited a true laugh from me. I said, “oh yea? What does ‘about to’ mean?” And she said, “you’re next, maybe five minutes?” I went to find a seat with Chris, away from all of the other visibly pregnant people, and I said to Chris, “do you think five minutes means like 30 minutes? Or two hours?” We didn’t believe it for a second. Chris took out his iPad, and I took out my Kindle, ready for the inevitable long wait.

The second nurse who came out to call someone said “Emily!” I didn’t even believe it at first, I actually said it back to her to double check. Sure enough, it was me. We walked back to the room, one I had never been in before and had no traumatic experiences in, and she started the scan. Immediately she found our baby, she talked out loud the whole time to us. “There’s your baby! See baby dancing around?” Immediately she shifted to show us the tiny heart beating away. She took all of the necessary photos, while explaining aloud the whole time what she was doing, she even answered a question of mine. Then, she said everything looked good, but my doctor was going to come in and confirm. Within five minutes, my actual doctor walked in (a familiar face! Gasp!) and she knew my name, she knew I had seen my other doctor the week prior, she answered my questions, and she even knew the next time I was going to see her. We left the appointment feeling happy and relieved, and we were HOME within one hour and fifteen minutes of our appointment time, even taking the cross-town bus.

Later that night, Chris asked me how I felt. He was there with me at the scan, so of course he knew we had gotten good news, but he wasn’t just asking about the baby, he was asking about ME. It was only then that I reflected on why I felt so great. It wasn’t just the baby, it was the experience. It was a full 180 from our last experience at that same scan. There was no wait. There were no unanswered questions. The tech was kind and immediately showed us our baby and heartbeat without prompting. She was friendly. Then we got to have face time with our actual doctor. I must admit that it was just a happy coincidence that my doctor was on call there that day, but it made a world of difference. Dealing with a brand-new person every appointment who doesn’t understand the baggage and trauma I am carrying to every appointment is emotionally taxing. To see a familiar face, for the doctor to know the next time I would see her, it felt like I was actually being cared for. It felt like, if I had concerns, I had someone I could call. It felt so much less lonely than last time, when I had checked myself into the triage unit later that night without ever talking to my doctor.

When I reflected this back to Chris, I said how I wouldn’t even have known how amazing that experience was, if I hadn’t seen the polar opposite in my previous pregnancy. While comparison is sometimes the thief of joy, this time, a regular old scan, in comparison to the experience I had last time, was the creator of such an abundance of joy. I left feeling supported, feeling like I had a team, and feeling like maybe, just MAYBE things would go differently this time around.

While I think it’s still unhealthy to compare myself to others regularly, comparing myself to my own experiences can sometimes be a good thing. It’s not just about the results of a test or scan (although those matter a heck of a lot, too), it’s also about how I feel, who is around me, and those pieces of mental health are sometimes just as important. While I don’t love thinking about my previous pregnancy as “bad” and comparing it to the one now as “good,” sometimes when I look objectively, I can see major differences and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean Maliyah means less to me, it doesn’t mean I love her less, it just means I now have a great care team, and that gives me reassurance and an inkling of hope.

(Written at: 12 weeks, 6 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

My First Pregnancy Was a Dead Baby

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Last week, I wrote about how difficult it is to be excited about my new pregnancy. That’s because it seems impossible to believe that things will end well.

Before this new pregnancy, I used to say, “100% of my babies are dead.” That was true. That was also why I was terrified to consider another pregnancy. Based on the only evidence I had, when I got pregnant, I almost died, and my baby died. That was the only example I had.

I am a very realistic and logical person. If X, then Y. If not Y, then not X. It’s basic algebra. The contrapositive. When I got pregnant, my baby died. Therefore, in order for my baby not to die, the only way to ensure that, was to not get pregnant.

I may catch some serious hate here, but I’m saying it anyway: losing your first pregnancy is worse than losing a later one after having a living child. I know, this is extremely controversial, but hear me out. When your first pregnancy is successful (as in, it results in a living child), you had one glorious naïve experience. You not only had the absolute freedom of joy in a pregnancy, but you had unadulterated excitement in a birth. Also, you have at least one example of how things can go right.

Once a dead kid comes out of you, you have lost naivety forever. Every single bit of the journey is tinged and you know every little thing that could go wrong. This is true for every stillbirth, no matter the birth order. But when it’s your first, it is impossible to consider something breathing leaving your body. You have no reason to believe things can go well, because they quite literally never have.

When Chris and I talked about possibly growing our family, it meant completely suspending my sense of reality. My reality was: get pregnant, nearly die, baby dies, birth a dead baby. Don’t get me wrong, I know for other people, pregnancy, labor and delivery don’t end that way. But for me, with my body, it does. And it did. I have the evidence. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying misattributed to Albert Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.” To me, when I thought about considering another pregnancy after loss it was exactly that: insanity. Entering the space of considering a different outcome felt entirely unrealistic and plain stupid to me.

I remember when Maliyah died, people called me strong a lot. People don’t say that to me as often anymore. The irony is, the true strength is happening right now. The idea that I would consider entering this beast of pregnancy again, knowing what I know, with the evidence I have… THAT is strength. That is bravery. And that deserves recognition. I always think about other types of trauma, and how most people would never consider willingly and knowingly putting themselves in similar situations again, making themselves vulnerable to the exact same type of repeat trauma. If you were bitten by a shark, would you willingly and excitedly open-water swim ever again?? But for PAL (pregnancy after loss) moms, we do it time and time again.

Last week, I promised the story about my breakup with my therapist. Our conscious uncoupling was about this very issue. I could tell immediately from her reaction to my pregnancy announcement that we were operating on different emotional planes. Despite my months of prepping her for my storm of emotions that I knew would come with a next pregnancy, she didn’t seem to understand. Week after week, things came to a head because she was so extremely excited for me, and I was… confused and scared.

Eventually, after weeks of her excitement and my hesitancy, I received a test result that had me terrified. It was the exact same elevated liver enzyme that went haywire last time, which was the second indicator that my body was going to shut down from my pregnancy. Staring at the test result, seeing that exact same elevation AGAIN, was even more evidence to prove my theory that being pregnant would cause both my death and my baby’s death.

We got into a huge fight. Raised voices and all. She kept saying “what if everything is fine and you have a healthy baby?” For me, that was an absolute impossibility. The conversation was not productive, and I did not think we could ever be on the same page. She didn’t understand my fear, even when faced with scientific indisputable (later disputed due to lab error) evidence. I knew we needed to separate.

Later the next week, I repeated our conversation to my other therapist. We usually focused on EMDR, but I felt like I needed to disclose that I had parted ways with my other therapist. Also, I wanted her opinion on the conversation. I wasn’t necessarily seeking validation on my “side” of the fight, but I was looking to see if I was unfixable by therapy. I wasn’t sure if my “inability to be optimistic” (quote from ex-therapist) disqualified me from therapy. I figured I would check before throwing more money down the drain. (Thank you, American healthcare system.)

We spoke for a while about affirmations. Specifically, she talked about phrases people write on their mirrors and repeat to themselves every morning until they believe them. Sometimes they work. But sometimes, the phrases are so incredibly outlandish, that they are impossible to imprint in one’s thoughts. They are just too far-fetched to become reality. She used a simple example: the difference between saying, “my body is beautiful and I like myself,” versus, “I am as beautiful as Beyonce.” The first one is more likely to “take,” because it’s easier to believe, and closer to a person’s current truth.

For me, the idea that “everything is going to be completely fine and I’ll have a healthy, full-term baby” seems like an insane thought that is so far from my current truth. There are hundreds of hurdles to get over and past before we get to that point. I cannot possibly wrap my mind around it. My EMDR therapist said, “that makes sense. It’s hard to believe because it’s never happened before. So, what can you believe?”

Since then, that has been my motto. What can I believe to get me through each day? Can I believe that I’m doing my best? Can I believe that I’m taking my meds and monitoring my health, and going to all of my appointments, and that’s all I can do? Can I believe that it’s only 4 more days until I can get visual confirmation that my baby is still alive? And can I believe I will get through those days, one way or another? Can I wait 24 more hours to take my blood pressure again, and feel peace that it’s exactly the same as it was the day before? Then, can I maybe believe that it will also be the same the next day? I may not be able to fast-forward 5 months and believe that it will stay steady 180 more days, but I can maybe allow myself a couple days of peace at a time. For now, while it doesn’t seem like a lot, it will have to be enough.

I can no longer say 100% of my babies are dead, because I have an alive one right now. I think. And I’ll get confirmation of that again next week. And maybe… just maybe… my second pregnancy will not be a dead baby. I am not sure I can believe that yet, but hopefully, someday, I’ll have evidence. In my arms.

(Written at: 12 weeks, 0 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

Invisible Grief

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lonely woman walking up a road filled with shadows of people

Maliyah’s birthday is coming up, which means I’ve been living in the grief and loss community for almost a year. It seems crazy to think how long it’s been, and it’s been a blur.

There are so many terms I’ve learned in the past 11 months. A lot of them are medical, like Diluted Russell Viper Venom Time (not related to a snake), but some are death and grief-related. Something that comes up time and time again in this community is the concept of  “disenfranchised grief.” According to WebMD, the Wikipedia of medical issues, disenfranchised grief is when a person’s grieving doesn’t fit in with the larger society’s attitude about dealing with death and loss. There are a lot of examples of this, like when a person’s pet dies, and society thinks it isn’t a “bad enough” loss. Or when someone dies from suicide or addiction and society says that it’s the person’s “fault.” Other examples include loss of something that isn’t a death, like divorce or loss of a job. Society tends to think these things aren’t “as bad” so you don’t have the “right” to grieve them in the same way.

Most people agree that losing a child is REALLY bad. But what if the child is someone who never lived outside your body? Then it doesn’t count.

I sometimes think of late term pregnancy loss as disenfranchised grief, but more often, I think of it as invisible grief. It’s something that no one else sees, both literally and figuratively.

I feel like the one good thing about typical grief is that it brings people together. There’s a whole concept in Judaism called shiva where people come together for seven days to discuss their loss and accept the comfort of others who maybe knew the person who died. But in the case of late-term pregnancy loss, no one knew the person who died. No one met her. No one saw her, not even in photos. Some people may share photos of their uterus but that’s not really my style. In a lot of cases, people didn’t even know Maliyah existed!

I recently went to a work conference that was full of land mines. I work for a membership organization with more than 1500 members. I never announced my pregnancy to the members, and there was no live birth, so most of them had no idea. The last time I saw most of them, I was pregnant, but in secret. There were so many conversations that began, “how was your past year?” Or “it’s been so long! What’s new?” Or my favorite, a person who called across the hall to me, “everything good, though, right?” NO. Everything is NOT good. Everything is shit, actually. But you can’t say that to tangential colleagues, especially because nobody knew what happened, nobody knew the person who died, and some people wouldn’t even have considered her a person.

It’s less hurtful to have people ignore or not see your grief when those people are minor characters in your life. It’s a lot worse when it’s close friends or family. The hard part is, I know it’s not intentional, but it’s hurtful nonetheless. And since the grief is invisible, the hurt is, too.

I had an example of this at Christmas. I brought Maliyah’s ornaments with me to Texas, where I was celebrating Christmas with my in-laws. We celebrated Christmas with them last year when I was 4 months pregnant with Maliyah. Everyone in 2022 knew I was pregnant. Everyone talked about it a LOT.

When I arrived in Texas this year, I told my sister-in-law that I brought ornaments to hang, and she instructed her son, my 15-year-old nephew, to hang them. He took one look at her name and said, “who’s Maliyah?”

Here’s the thing, I know he’s a kid. I also know that it’s quite possible her name was never spoken in their house. But if she was alive, he’d know who she was. They’d be first cousins! They are first cousins. And yes, it’s very possible he never even knew she was born. I know people are weird around death, dying, grief, and kids. Some people think they can’t handle it. And I get that he never met Maliyah, but he knew all about her the year prior when she was in my body, and the next year… POOF. No recollection.  When he asked who she was, I just said simply, “remember how I was pregnant? She was my daughter who died.” End of conversation. I could have ignored it, but he asked a direct question and I wanted him to know the answer. For me, the hole in the family is gaping. For others, it’s not even visible.

I held off on publishing this post until I broke the news about my new pregnancy because now, Maliyah and my grief about her death is even more invisible. I follow enough loss accounts on social media to know that this is common. I know that most people believe a new pregnancy “fixes” the previous loss. This seems absurd if you think about your baby as a person. No other humans are just replaceable or interchangeable.

I saw a post on Instagram that said, “this is how it would sound if we responded to every loss the same way we respond to baby loss.” There were six slides after that, where they went through different scenarios, like if someone’s father died, and someone said, “it’s ok, you can always find another dad,” the way people say, “you can always have another baby.” Or if someone says their sibling died, and someone answered, “at least you know you can have siblings” the way people say “at least you know you can get pregnant.” There were 4 more examples, equally as disturbing, but equally as true. I heard all of those things.

It was less than one month from Maliyah’s death when people started asking if we had considered “trying again” or if we were allowed yet to “try again.” The “again” word, as if we could just replace Baby 1 with Baby Version 2.0.

My grief has become more invisible as people now think of Maliyah as a stepping stone on the way to our happy eventual family. I heard concrete examples of this in the reactions I heard from people after announcing our new pregnancy.

There is an added wrinkle here, which is that to others, there is an extreme sense of déjà vu. My new pregnancy is less than two months off from the previous one, so when we told family before Christmas last year, then this year we were at Christmas again, announcing a pregnancy again, it seemed like Groundhog’s Day. I understand that it seems repetitive to others, and that it seems like the same thing.

To me it’s not. It’s a new pregnancy. A different baby. I repeat a mantra to myself every single day, “different pregnancy, different baby, different placenta, different outcome.” But to outsiders? It’s the same.

When we started to share the news of this new pregnancy, we received messages and phone calls, people saying they were praying for us, that they can’t wait to celebrate with all of us together next year, including the new addition. But, they said the exact same thing last year. Same prayers. Same hopes for a Christmas with a new addition. And then there was no new addition. And no mention of her whatsoever. Nothing. All I saw in church at Christmas was the baby in the row ahead of me, and the baby missing in our row. But to everyone else, they saw the same old Emily and Chris, with no living child and the same possibility of one growing.

People like to look forward, especially when the present is uncomfortable. People like to have hope and belief that things will improve. But for me, I need to hold both. I have the loss of Maliyah in my mind still, and I always will. Of course, I hope for a different-looking holiday season next year, but I also hoped for that last year, and I didn’t get that, and no one acknowledged that. I didn’t forget last year, it was only a year ago! The “yes, and” is STRONG in my head, like the dialectical thinking I mentioned last week. Yes, I’m pregnant. Yes, I may have a baby next year. AND, I still have a dead one. Forever. And I remember what everyone said last year. The hopes and the excitement that people seem to have forgotten. I haven’t forgotten.

I had a full breakdown on Christmas Eve. I explained to Chris how I know people don’t think they have memories with Maliyah because she was never outside of me, but I think of all of the times I had with friends and family when she was with me as memories I have with her.

I have 150 days of memories with her. 150 days of memories of her. I have 150 days that I still think about. But no one else does. It’s strange to feel that those memories are completely invisible to others. It makes ME feel invisible. I’m working on this feeling, trying to feel less invisible, or make my feelings more visible so it’s less lonely. This blog is part of that. I’ll take you with me, whether you like it or not.

(Written at: 11 weeks, 3 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

I’m So Excited! … I’m So SCARED

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I have some news…

That’s always how these things start. They’re usually followed by uterus photos (if the “news” is delivered by text) or high-pitched squealing from the receiver (if the “news” is delivered in person).

It’s true, I am pregnant. Notice, I didn’t use an exclamation mark. That’s because I’m not exclaiming it, I’m not necessarily excited either. When Chris and I started sharing the news, we mostly said we were “cautiously optimistic,” because my main doctor said exactly that, she’s “optimistic.” But if we’re being completely honest, “cautious” is operating a hell of a lot stronger than “optimistic.”

When Chris and I decided we were going to attempt to have a living baby, I tried hard to prepare and pump myself up. I talked to all of my therapists about how I wanted to be excited. I wanted to be less nervous this time. I wanted to “cherish every moment.” I wanted to be grateful for every day I had with my new baby. I thought I could think these things into being. I thought I could just erase a year + of trauma. It’s not that easy. I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m trying, but I’m failing.

I was explaining recently to my one remaining therapist (other-therapist-breakup-story coming later) how I felt like such a failure not being able to get excited. I’m in this infertility/loss community now where I know many women would be so grateful and excited to be in the spot I am in, but all I can do is be scared. My remaining therapist said, “maybe being ‘excited’ is too much to ask of yourself.”

Right now, it’s true, excitement is too much to ask. My real feelings are: I’m scared, I’m anxious, I’m worried, and I’m nervous. If you didn’t catch the reference in the blog title, it’s from Jessie Spano’s popular caffeine-pill-induced breakdown on Saved by the Bell from November 3, 1990.

While I have consumed zero caffeine pills, I definitely feel the same. I can tell myself a million times that I’m excited, but right now, I’m really just scared. I am also happy. For now. Every time I say I’m happy, I get the nagging feeling like someone is tapping on the back of my brain, and saying, “but for how long?”

At one of my doctor’s appointments, Chris was out of town and couldn’t come. I knew myself, though, and I needed a chaperone, so I brought a friend. As I casually had a borderline panic attack in the waiting room and my Fitbit logged 33 “activity zone minutes,” my friend tried to distract me. When we went into the exam room, and everything looked great with the baby, I was crying, as usual. The doctors said, “it’s ok, everything looks great!” I couldn’t speak because of the tears and the snot and such. My friend said, “it’s just… she’s been here before.” She took the words right out of my mute mouth.

In recounting this story to my therapist (can you tell we talk a lot?), I said, “sure they say everything looks great… for now!! Meanwhile I was just thinking, ‘yea well everything looked fine last time… until it didn’t. So, when is sh*t going to hit the fan this time around?’”

She reminded me about dialectical thinking, which I struggle to use as a default, but I’m trying to train myself to think more consciously about it. I try to shift my thoughts from “yeah but…” to “yes and.” Instead of, “yea everything looks great now, BUT when won’t it?” I try to make a minor shift to “everything looks great now AND someday it might not. For now, though, it does look good.” The minor shift from “but” to “and” helps me think a little less negatively. Yes, things may go south. AND for now, they are looking good.

There have already been many comedies of errors. First, a 2.5 hour wait at the doctor that led to me almost missing a flight. Then, a pharmacy called to say they didn’t carry my meds and hung up on me. Then, there was a lab error on one of my blood tests which led me to believe I was heading into liver failure AGAIN. Then, the lab where they sent the replacement test lost the vial of my blood. Then, I had an ultrasound where they couldn’t see anything and I thought the baby was gone, but eventually with an internal ultrasound everything looked completely fine. It’s been a roller coaster and I’m barely in the second trimester.* After the initial lab error, I said to Chris, “I had tricked myself into thinking that I deserved a pregnancy that was smooth sailing, but I guess that was too much to ask.” He agreed, we were not likely to have an uneventful time.

When I broke my pregnancy news to a friend recently, she asked me when I was due and I wasn’t even sure. My doctor has never mentioned my due date to me, I had to look in my chart to find it. Thinking to the future to a full-term baby, that’s way too far away. “Full term” is not the goal. “As far as I can get,” is the goal. “Staying alive” is the goal. “A living baby” is the goal. I remember last pregnancy, I hoped I wouldn’t share a birthday week with my baby. This time around, I just hope our baby gets a birth day that isn’t the same week as a death day. To say my expectations are different with my second pregnancy is a gross understatement.

The best thing people have said to me when I share the news is just, “congratulations,” because then I can simply say, “thank you.” Some people have asked me how I am feeling, which is a very difficult question to answer. Physically, pretty good. But mentally? I’m a wreck. I’d need a novel (or a blog) to explain that, so I usually just say, “so far so good,” which is definitely a lie. According to the notes in my chart from my doctor, I have “significant anxiety.” I wonder why…

Despite my millions of doctor appointments and the ever-present sharps container on the table and ultrasound photos on the fridge, it’s still difficult to believe. Will I get what I want? Do I deserve it? Does anyone NOT deserve it? Who even am I to get what I want? These are all existential questions and I have no answers.  

I am taking things one day at a time. Sometimes I’m at the hospital three times in a week. But everything will be worth it if it is worth it. And I can’t tell the future, so I will just operate in the present. Feel free to extend your congratulations, but don’t ask me how I feel, because I honestly don’t know and it will probably be different tomorrow.

* Writer’s Note: I wrote this blog when I was heading into my 2nd trimester. Despite what I thought I would do, mentally I couldn’t bring myself to share about this new pregnancy until I made it through Maliyah’s first birthday. I’ve pre-written many, many blogs about this pregnancy as I felt the urge to get my thoughts on “paper,” and I will be sharing them in the coming weeks, even if the language and my thoughts no longer align with the timing completely. Therefore, at the end of each blog, I will share the gestational age of baby #2 when I wrote the post.

(Written at: 11 weeks, 6 days)

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