Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Mommy's Little Monster

It is 4 in the morning, and I have my prenatal appointment in 8 hours but I cannot sleep. I've been so worried and scared that I'm going to get there and we're going to find out that there isn't a living child anymore. I don't even have a reason to fear this, and I know I just need to calm my titties down, but I can't stop it. I've been having nightmares, mostly about the pictures on facebook.

I have a friend that I used to work with, W. He and his girlfriend were expecting a baby, and I think about five weeks ahead of me. A couple of weeks ago, she went into preterm labor and the baby didn't make it. They were so excited to be parents and it's so heartbreaking on it's own. I had inferred that there was something wrong with the pregnancy from a status that W had put up in the evening, and had kept them in my thoughts all day. Of course because of my worry for my friend, I was anxious and worried about my own pregnancy.

I opened up facebook and found that W and his girlfriend had posted up a ton of pictures of them holding their baby, who did not survive. So my screen is flooded with pictures of a 19 week old child, dead. It was completely surreal, and some of the pictures were of them holding the baby with one arm and holding out the camera phone with the other, myspace profile pic style. I completely could not even cope with this, and it left me very upset and so worried. I decided not to say anything, and just hid the news story so that the pictures wouldn't come up on my feed.

I completely understand that my friend needs to grieve, and that having pictures of the daughter they didn't get to take home is part of that process. But did it need to be put on facebook, especially the closeups of a child that is very obviously not fully formed, not alive, and a reminder that even past the "danger zone" of the first trimester, no pregnancy is completely safe? It was upsetting, and I feel guilty for feeling upset, because I feel like my inability to handle seeing that is judgmental of my friend who is going through one of the toughest times of his life. I'm really not trying to be like that.

Either way, I've been reluctant to purchase anything for the baby that can't be used or easily gifted in case the unthinkable should happen. We bought swaddling blankets, and I told myself that if we lost the baby, I could cut them up into rags and use them to dust. We bought a couple of stuffed animals, and I told myself that if we lost the baby, we could easily give them to children of most any age. I've been reluctant to buy any clothes because what if? How could I give away a onesie or a shirt without seeking out a friend or family member who is holding a newborn that I will not get to hold and say, "I have some clothes, they're gender neutral and they've never been worn." I couldn't.

Well, this week we took that step and bought clothes. I feel like for most people this wouldn't be a big deal, but for me, being able to pick out clothes and purchase them is a big step as far as my anxiety goes. In fact, until just now, at four in the morning when the world is quiet and I am awake with my thoughts, I didn't even worry about never getting to put these clothes on a child. The first thing we bought was a onesie set of three pieces. A light yellow one, one that is white with yellow stars all over it, and one that is white with yellow rubber duckies all over it. We bought it in 0-3 month size and told Matt that if the baby ends up being big, then I want them to wear the stars one home from the hospital. If the baby is smaller than 8 lbs as my due date comes up, we should buy newborn size white onesies.

Today I heard that Old Navy had a sale going on maternity clothes but when we got there we found out that they only sold maternity online. Oh well. On the way out the door, we saw a cute onesie with an orange monster on it and it said, "Mom's Little Monster." It reminded me of the Social Distortion song so we got it, and when we swung by my in-laws house, I showed them. No hesitation, no thoughts of what if I don't get to put this on a baby of my own?

I just bought it because in the moment my mind was completely at ease with the idea that Baby Blastocyst is going to be joining us in March, and that's that.

No comments:

Post a Comment