Trying Again After Loss

Before we had Hailey, my husband and I dreamed of having a family. We hoped to be 'young' parents. We hoped that we would be able to have 2 or 3 of our own children. When I found out we were pregnant with Hailey when we were 24 years old, we thought the timing was perfect in light of our hopes and dreams for our family.

As I've written about before, the experience of my labor, Hailey's birth, the issues surrounding her life, and ultimately her death, was quite traumatic for both my husband and me. In the immediate time frame following Hailey's birth, we were both traumatized so much so that we seriously talked (although out of fear) of never having a baby again, which of course was devastating to our dreams of having a family.

However, after raising Hailey for the short time that we could, it became clear to us that God had kept our desires for wanting a family in our hearts. Everything that was happening and happened with Hailey in the end didn't change our hearts' desires to have children. I can't say exactly when, but within a couple of months of losing Hailey we began to talk more and more about the possibilities of continuing our family, or how all the grief books coin it, about "trying again after loss."

To be honest, my husband was in a different place than I was for a long time. He seemed ready right away to have another baby. While I knew I would eventually want to have more children, I didn't know when that time would come for me. We talked and prayed for months and months and months about having another baby, and at times they were difficult discussions because we were in vastly different places. Not many people can understand why the idea of trying to have another baby after losing Hailey would be such a hard decision, but I hope this post can enlighten you about this.

One of the most common comments bereaved parents like myself get after they lose their babies is a statements similar to this one: "Don't worry, you can always have another one." I don't think the people saying these types of comments are meaning to be insensitive, but they are, and those comments are painful. For me, one of the most dreaded questions that I hated being asked after losing Hailey was about if and when we were going to have another baby... You see, some people seem to think that when someone loses a baby having another baby will somehow solve the problem - almost like one baby will replace the other. Everything will be all better once they have another baby. It will take care of their grief. And so on... But those things are just not true.

Those types of thoughts and comments are really painful for bereaved parents like myself. The attitude that comes along with those statements is one that minimizes the significance of the life of the child we lost.  I wish everyone could understand that nothing and no one will ever replace the child we buried. Having another baby will not replace the baby we lost. Having another baby will not make our grief go away. Having another baby will not solve our problems.

In fact, making the decision to try again after loss is extremely hard because a subsequent pregnancy no longer has its innocence, and I speak from experience. It took me, like I said, months and months and months to get to a place where I felt like I was ready to try again. What people don't necessarily understand is that I know that not every pregnancy ends well. I know that not every mother meets her baby. I know that not every mother gets to hold her baby or come home from the hospital. I know that not every mother will have a chance to see her baby grow into a child. I know the worst case scenario. I do not know what it's like to have a healthy baby. I know a healthy pregnancy, but that did not lead to a healthy baby. All I know is what it's like to have the worst thing you ever imagined happening. All I know is what it's like to have a sick baby. All I know is what it's like to have my baby die. Therefore, the idea of a second pregnancy and a second baby for me is one that doesn't have that naive joy and innocence attached to it that came with the first. For me, a subsequent pregnancy is full of fears, worries, anxieties, doubts, what ifs and so on.

But like I said, not too long after having Hailey, I knew in my heart I wanted more children and that I wanted to try to have more children. However, the hard part was trying to figure out when I was ready. And like I said, after months and months and months of conversations with my husband and with God, I felt God was telling me it was time, and I was the one holding us back out of fear. I wasn't trusting God. I was hesitant to give him the controls in this area of my life. A part of me was saying things like, "No God. I can't let you give me another baby. I don't trust you. Look what happened to Hailey. My baby can't be sick. My baby can't die. I can't go through that again." And so it became clearer and clearer to me that my hesitancy to continue our family was due to me not trusting God because I really felt in my heart a desire from God to have more children, and I knew the only thing holding me back was fear.

Thankfully, I gave it all - my fears, worries, anxieties, etc. - over to God. I relinquished control (and boy was it hard). I stepped out of the boat to join Jesus on the water (Matthew 14:22-33). I took a leap of faith to decide to have another baby and to trust God with it. And so, early this fall, my husband and I started trying to have another baby. I was finally in a place where I felt my grief journey was in a good place and where I was feeling at peace with our decision to continue our family. I have to say, after several months passed, I began to have doubts again about whether our desire to have more children was really from God or just from ourselves. If I wasn't getting pregnant, maybe God really didn't want us to have more children. And so I struggled with that for awhile.

When Hailey's birthday came, December 1st, I can't begin to tell you how emotional I was about Hailey and the idea of us having another baby. I felt like everything, my grief over Hailey and my fears over having another baby, just came crashing down on me. I woke up on Hailey's birthday and literally the first thing that came to my mind was, "Oh my, I'm really really late aren't I? Oh, what if I'm pregnant?"  But I literally had to push the tears down and push it all aside to focus on celebrating Hailey's birthday. I forbid myself from thinking about it on Hailey's birthday. It was too much for me.

However, the day after Hailey's 1st birthday, in a completely different place emotionally. I went out and bought an at home pregnancy test (a 2 pack to be exact) - and I took them both.

Both read that I'm pregnant.(!) (Keep reading please) :)

I don't think I could ever begin to describe the rush of emotions I felt in those moments. But I can tell you in the midst of all the crazy emotions I was feeling, I was full of good anticipation, hope, and joy... and of course I cried... a lot... mostly joyful tears... and because I was just emotionally overwhelmed. Immediately I made an appointment for the next day to have my doctor confirm my at home results, and after a positive urine analysis at the doctor's that Friday, it became official. And so I found out that I'm pregnant again, the day after Hailey's 1st birthday, when I was about 5 weeks pregnant.

Literally, within days of my pregnancy being confirmed, the first symptoms of being pregnant hit and hit hard. With Hailey, I experience a little morning sickness in my first trimester, which was really a lot of nausea and dry heaving in the morning. This time I came prepared to keep myself from that by eating little bits throughout the night, slowly waking up, eating some dry cereal right away, etc., and that it worked for the most part from being sick like I was with Hailey. However, my 'morning sickness' this pregnancy was different and almost worse. It was very hard for me to hide it, but I experienced nausea around the clock for the last 5 weeks. I never actually got sick, but just felt nauseous 100% of the time.  For weeks I couldn't stomach much besides Honey Nut Cheerios and red Gatorade. And to top that off, I also get hit with a severe case of the stomach flu or food poisoning, so much so that my husband was on the phone with the doctors trying to figure out if I needed to go to the hospital. Also, like with my first pregnancy, fatigue has hit me hard. Thankfully, this time I'm in a position where I can sleep as much as I want, and boy do I sleep and nap.

So if you saw me around the holidays, and I didn't seem like the most pleasant person or not like myself... maybe now you know why.

Right after the New Year, we had our first ultrasound and prenatal appointment. I was a little bit of a wreck going in but tried not to show it. All those fears were hitting me. What if there's no heartbeat. What if they can already tell something else is wrong. But thankfully, we went in and were able to see our baby for the first time (looking more like a blob than a baby at that point). The best part for me was the strong heartbeat we saw and heard. Everything looked great. A momentary relief, because, after all, that's what we were told after nearly every single one of our prenatal appointments with Hailey.... But I left feeling very excited and happy and with our baby's first two pictures in hand.

This week, I'm about 11.5 weeks along, almost done with my first trimester. The 'morning' or '24/7' sickness is finally starting to pass this week. I'm feeling almost completely better, but every now and then my stomach just feels a little off. And other than the fatigue, I'm really starting to feel pretty good and ready to start my second trimester.

So far this pregnancy has been a  somewhat difficult one, with the nausea and with all the fears and what not and mixture of emotions, and because of the fears and anxiety, I've prolonged telling people our news.

Even now, I'm a little hesitant to break the news to the 'world.' Mostly because I fear people's responses to learning we're pregnant again. Like I mentioned earlier in this post, I'm afraid of insensitive comments that make me feel like Hailey didn't matter to people and that she'll further 'disappear' or be forgotten about by others and replaced by this new baby. And if I want to be completely honest, I'm afraid of people's excitement because in all honesty I'm not sure if I've let myself be 100% excited yet. Of course I rejoice in our new baby and am excited to be pregnant, but I'm afraid to let myself get to that place ... almost like a defense mechanism in case something happens to this baby... like somehow my mind thinks that if I don't allow myself to be completely excited than somehow if something were to happen it would hurt less, which I know isn't true... But basically, I don't want this baby to overshadow Hailey in people's minds and hearts, and I don't want people to think that this joy overshadows or removes our grief for Hailey...If that makes sense.

So I want the world to know that Hailey will always be our first child. We will always be her parents. We will always love her. Our hearts and lives will always be incomplete without her here with us. There will never be a day that doesn't go by where we don't miss her and think about her. Nothing will ever change those things. Not even another baby. Like I said before, our new baby does not replace Hailey. Our new baby does not 'fix' or heal our grief. Our new baby is not our only child. Our new baby is our second baby and is Hailey's brother or sister.

And so, this new journey that we're on is one of faith and one of learning what it's like to have more children after burying our first. It's another journey of expansion. It's full of joy and hope and a lot of other emotions as well. From now until however long we have our second baby for, we will always think of him/her in light of our experience with Hailey.

So with that all said, first, please before you respond to our wonderful news, please check to see if your response could be in anyway perceived as insensitive by me, a bereaved parent. And most of all, I would just ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ out there to keep our family uplifted and surrounded in prayer. We need continued prayer for our grief and life without Hailey (continued healing, peace, comfort, strength, and so on). We need prayers for this pregnancy - for all of us (baby's health, my health, and for us to be rid of fear, anxiety, worry, stress, and so on and that those would all be replaced with peace and trust in God).

And I just have to say, I find it kind of 'funny' or 'interesting' that we found out we're having another baby the day after Hailey's 1st birthday and that at the end of my first trimester in both pregnancies we're moving to another state!

Oh and right now our baby's due date is August 6th. :)

"...may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation..." 2 Thes. 3:16