Thursday, April 9, 2015

All I Can Do is Hope {The Final Weeks of Pregnancy after Loss}

33 weeks at our maternity photo session with MDK Photography

Sometimes I wonder if I should hold myself back, if I should stop expecting so much.

After all, with our daughter, I expected life, and we got death. 

But then, with our first son, I braced for death and found my arms filled with the sweetest, squirming life.

And anyway, I can't help it.  In these moments when doubt arises, I just can't.  I can't let myself go there.  I can't/won't/can't let fear rob me of this sacred time of waiting and hoping and growing.

Things are challenging enough without dipping into that fear.  Because this pregnancy has been the most physically difficult and uncomfortable of the three.  Nothing bad or unhealthy, no problematic diagnoses, just feeling painfully huge and kind of awful.  This third trimester has crawled by as I struggle with this reality and try to reconcile it with the beautiful gift that I know pregnancy to be, all while taking care of one amazing little boy who doesn't understand why his mama has slowed down so much.

This last trimester is crawling by . . . and yet, I'm so close to the end, to the end that is the beginning, that I feel like I'm on a roller coaster, on that last screaming, exhilarating, terrifying, embodying plummet toward the finish.

And I can't help it.  I'm so excited.

Nesting instincts are beginning to creep in, and I want to get everything ready, to make a place for this new little boy to join us, and I think a lot about birthing him, and how I cannot wait to see his little face for the first time, to see if he has hair like mine or eyes like his daddy, to see if he looks like his siblings or has gone his own way, to feed him from my body and introduce him to his brother and watch his daddy holding him close and inhale his precious baby scent.

Just weeks away now.  Sometimes I am afraid, but mostly I am humming with anticipation.  I hope and I hope and I hope -- against the worst, of course, but also because mostly, it's all that I can do.  All that this soul and brain are capable of.

How different from those last terrified weeks of his brother's pregnancy.  Even with all the physical discomfort, my heart beats a steady mantra -- what a gift, what a gift, what a gift.

7 comments:

  1. This 😍❤️

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  2. You look beautiful Beth! Saying a prayer for a healthy and safe delivery!

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    ,,,,

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  4. This whole post (which feels so like the wrong term--diary entry is more fitting) is so, so beautiful. I might be crying just a little right now at those words about humming with anticipation.


    Saying a prayer for you & keeping my fingers crossed.

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"I am glad you are here with me."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King