Angst for you? I can do.

[bouldersandbrews]

I'm not pregnant.

I am reminded of this every day, when I look at myself in the mirror. Before, looking in the mirror was a fun event - am I showing yet? Is that a tiny baby bump? Hey hon, check it out, I think I have a bump.

Now, it's more like, hey, look at my ridiculously flat stomach. Guess I'll be looking like this for a while.

I'm avoiding my camera. I wonder if it's noticed that I'm avoiding it, if it thinks something's wrong. Ha, ha, ha. I don't want to look at it, because I don't want to look at the pictures of my stomach and my hopeful, happy face. I don't want to go through and delete all those stupid pictures.

I want to hold on to having a baby for as long as I can.

I want to forget this ever happened.

I guess what it comes down to is, I wish I knew why this happened. Why this was necessary on a cosmic scale.

Irony, thy name is bitch.

When I first suspected that I was pregnant, I wasn't happy. I didn't want a baby, didn't want to be pregnant, didn't want my life to change so drastically. Didn't want, didn't want, what a selfish phrase.

But then once I found out that I was pregnant, I got into it. I immediately ceased doing things and drinking/eating things that might be bad for the baby, and started watching the nutritional value of what I was eating (oh, awesome, this has folic acid in it *munch*). I dove right in, researched ad infinitum, learned about what was going on inside me. I would get this email every week that would tell me what was going on with the Raisin that week, and it was all just so cool. I'd talk to the Raisin, tell him what I was doing, try to make him feel included in our lives even though he was just a tiny baby and quite probably couldn't hear me anyway. I'd sing to it, I went through my MP3 player and removed all the songs that might have a bad influence on him, but before I did that, I'd skip the songs and say things to the baby like, "Linkin Park is cool but I don't want you turning into an emo kid before you're even born" or "This is an awesome song that you aren't allowed to hear yet".

I was so excited. So excited.

I was going to teach it sign language. I was going to have Christina talk to it on the phone after it was born and teach it Greek. I was going to have David teach it music. I was going to tell it funny stories about its Aunt Jessie and Grandma Mary and Auntie Kim, watch it play basketball with Dave, explain video games to it, watch Hayden and Lindsay play with it, hold it and rock it to sleep and watch it be alive...

This is utterly ridiculous. I can only get like four sentences out at a time and then I start crying and have to stop.

Now I just feel so empty. And alone. That's not what I mean, but at the same time it is. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it always felt like I wasn't alone, because I had a baby with me. Now it's gone, and I... just feel empty. Gah. I can't explain this. Why am I even trying?

If I don't think about it, I'm okay. If I think about it in purely clinical, objective terms, I'm okay. If I think about it like it happened to someone else, some parallel-universe Christina, then I'm okay.

If I get out of the shower and stare at my stupid flat stomach in the mirror for too long, I am not okay.

I used to be absurdly proud of my flat stomach. Now I just wish it were poking out, just a little bit.

I should be fourteen weeks pregnant. I should have a tiny bump. Should, should, should. Now I understand why my therapist said that I should never say "should" to myself. Ha, ha, ha.

Good thing I'm not bitter or anything.

I can see why they advise women who've had miscarriages to not try to conceive again for a few months. I'm not thinking rationally. All I want is to have a baby.

And not just any baby. My baby.

(I just started a sentence with "and". Is it okay because there's context in front of it?)

I'm so freaking ridiculous. I feel bad about drinking coffee. Coffee! The caffeinated kind! Because it's not good for the baby I don't even freaking have anymore!

Thinking rationally, I know that we're not at a place where we can have a baby, financially or emotionally. But we were going to make it work before. Thinking rationally, I know that it's best to not try again for a while. Thinking rationally, I know that this is just the pain talking, the pain of losing something I loved... that this is a rebound-baby-desire.

But who ever accused me of being a rational being?

Dave has been great, but I know that this doesn't affect him the same way. He's sad by it, he was looking forward to having the Raisin around, but he's already had two kids. It's not the same kind of tragedy for him that it is for me... because I know perfectly well that the chances are that we won't try again.

This makes me sad because I'm afflicted with rebound-baby-desire. If I were thinking rationally and not inundated with all these astoundingly annoying emotions, it might not bother me so much.

I DIDN'T EVEN WANT A BABY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

That's what's so funny. I haven't wanted a baby since I was, what, fifteen. Part of it was spite against my father. Part of it was fear. Part of it was rational thinking.

All of that flew out the window on November 11th. Once I knew, I had a choice to make. I could either be happy about it, or I could bitch about it. I chose option A.

And now I know that none of my reasons for not getting pregnant matter in the slightest bit. That it really is different when it's your own kid. That all of my fears were irrational, as most fears are. The Raisin, while not really a baby, proved to me that I am capable of being a mother.

Here's my question, though: if I'm not going to be a mother now, what the hell was the point in all of this? I truly, honestly don't see how anything at all was accomplished in this.

I have been frustrated with God for a while now. Not angry, just frustrated. Because I know that He wants me to do something, that there's some specific purpose for my life, and I don't know what it is. So I asked Him to just show me, and I'd quit fighting Him about it and just go with it.

Two days later, the pregnancy test came back positive. I thought this was it. That God was in essence saying, "Okay, you asked for it, here it is." And I was like, well, okay. I can do this. Like God was answering me. And then two months later... what? I was proven wrong?

I don't get it. What was this, a great cosmic "Neener"?

I know that most of my readers have different thoughts on God than I do, and I'm not trying to shove mine down your throat. I'm just trying to explain why this is so damn frustrating.

Blah.

I'm getting so damn tired of listening to myself whine. Like I should just be this emotionless amazon, just get over it and move on. But I'm not. I know I'm just being too hard on myself for being so emotional about this. Rationally.

Irrationally, though, if I were another person, I'd bitchslap myself.

Comments

[arkblast.livejournal.com]

[I'm really tired right now btw so apologies if this comes out wrong or I've put words in the wrong place etc -__-;]

I thought I was having a miscarriage several weeks back. My friend said to me on the phone that 'what was meant to be, will be'. And I said absolutely fucking not. NO. I don't believe there is a 'divine' reason behind losing your child before you've even had it. But then, I've always seen God as being around only in times of complete and utter desperate urgency, and even then not all the time. I've sorta always thought that He gave humans willpower so that we could control our own lives, and that He doesn't let divine intervention take place in every little part of our lives. To put a different spin on it, you could say that God is teaching you how to be strong, or telling you that you are ready to have a child - just not yet. I'm really not sure. I do know, however, that if you want a child then don't give up on that. This was in no way your fault, I know you already know the stats but this is a horrible thing that happens to about 1 in 4 or 5 women =[ I really do urge you to contact someone to talk to about this - not friends or family, but an organisation, or even just people on a message board who have been through similar things. I can direct you to some, if you'd like ♥ I don't think you should keep this bottled up though, I really think you should try and talk to people that have been through this. There's that word 'should' again. I'm sorry for using it, you don't have to do anything, but I do think you're being too hard on yourself. I mean, you're entitled to be emotional, and you're entitled to not have to put this under a cut! If anyone can't deal with reading this, they can skip over it or whatever - this is YOUR journal and if you want to cut your entries you can, but please don't do it for the sake of your friends. I'm sure they want to know what you're going through, they want to be there for you, they're just not sure how. Like Dave ... I don't think it's just because he's already got two kids, but men don't always seem to be as attatched until the baby is born ... they can't feel the things that are going on in your body, all the physical and emotional changes. They can't quite understand what we're going through. Sympathise yes, empathise no.

I don't want to be negative, but I don't think you'll ever be completely over this. As they said, time heals all wounds - well yes, time makes us forget and makes the pain less, but it doesn't always go away. November 11th will probably always be a special date to you.

I don't want you to give up on the hope of having children. You're right in saying that it's best to wait a few months, because your mind isn't in the right place right now but it seems that you're also worried that Dave won't want any, ever. Is it something you two have discussed before then? I presume because you also didn't want children, this never factored into anything but you may find that you've changed your mind about this now ... in which case you two will have to discuss what direction you want your lives together to head in. I think that you would've made a good mother, and still can.

[dauthi.livejournal.com]

I'm always too hard on myself. I have been ever since I can remember. I have these absurdly high expectations of myself (that no one could ever hope to live up to, least of all me), and I get mad at myself when I don't live up to them. I guess I just think that I should be, I dunno, more emotionally in control than I am. And sometimes I am.

Like I said, I know Dave's affected by this, but not as much as I am (for a multitude of reasons). I can't blame him for not, well, being a girl about it - he's a man, and men feel emotions way differently than women do. And I know that if I decided that I really really wanted a baby, that I wanted to try again, Dave wouldn't mind at all. In fact, since he was so excited about the Raisin, I imagine he'd be happy to have another baby. It's just not a good idea right now for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I'm in rebound-baby mode.