WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Wow! So we are pregnant again. The four month anniversary of our boys' birth and death is this Sunday, and here I am harboring new life. I am excited, and feeling blessed, and at the same time feeling guilty and feeling very very suspicious. I feel guilty because I am afraid it is disrespectful to Pedro and Archer to be excited about this new life. I had a dream about being in a hotel room after I'd checked out, and the new inhabitant of the room was there and trying to unpack her bags, and I wouldn't leave and kept telling her that all the bags in the room were my bags not hers. I'm assuming the room is a metaphor for my womb, and I am refusing to let go of what already "checked out" in order to let the new inhabitant in. It's also possible that the room is the hospital room in Portland. I've often thought about someone new being in that room, our doctors and nurses working on new cases, and I hated the idea, mostly because I wanted to still be there, still be going strong, protecting Pedro and Archer and making everyone laugh. Gotta love pregnancy dreams.

I feel guilty because I worry it is too soon to be having another child. Guilty because I am afraid people will want to forgot Pedro and Archer, will want to stop saying their names, stop mourning their loss, will want to hurry us past all that as if they were a bad dream instead of our first children. That they will find it distasteful for us to continue to talk about them, to continue to count them as members of our family. That they will see it as morbid or obsessed. I know I need to not worry about anyone else, but it never quite works out that way, does it. Life doesn't compartmentalize like that.

I feel suspicious because I no longer believe that I can count on anything. When Bruno got his job offer, we didn't tell anyone until he stepped into the office for the first day of work; we were so afraid the opportunity might get taken away at the last second. And now, I am afraid to get excited, afraid to let myself talk about the future. I can't believe the waves of fear I've felt in only this first week of knowing. From the very beginning, I have been afraid I will miscarry. I have viewed every single thing as proof that this gift will be taken away from us. I read into every communication I have with the doctor, I spend way too much time on the internet googling symptoms. I am shocked at how my normally optimistic outlook has been taken over by this obsessive fear monger.

I will fight this OFM. I will not let it ruin this experience. If I have learned nothing else from losing my sons, it is that knowing it might happen, preparing for it to happen did nothing to mitigate the pain of their loss. So why waste time anticipating the worst. I will fight for the freedom of hope.