Jamie and I decided we would be trying for baby #2 right away. While it is extremely difficult emotionally to even think about being pregnant with another baby, when I still should be pregnant with Matthew for another 10 weeks, I know it's what we need to do. I'm scared to death. I have anxiety attacks sometimes when I think about it. Not because I am scared to have another child, but more at the possibility of losing another precious life.
The road we have traveled together over the last 4 years has been intensely, ridiculously, frighteningly difficult. Countless times I have envied friends around me who have had "easier" lives, and then I realize, I wouldn't be the same person without our trials. To be honest, I don't know how I've made it this far. After 3 1/2 years of desperately trying to get pregnant, then the miscarriage, the out-of-my-mind scariness of finding out about Matthew's heart defect and possible downs, and now losing him to a fluke. There is no time more apt than now for us to say "life is unfair". I used to say that a lot, when I was going through what I thought was hard times. I laugh in irony at those times. How naive we are until we experience life for ourselves.
It's so hard not to let my bitterness grow. I try to keep it at bay, but it's still there. Bitterness towards God for taking him away after we'd been through so much, at the world for continuing on without him, at those around me, family and friends, for having children and healthy pregnancies, and at myself for failing to bring a healthy boy into the world at the proper time.
You can't imagine the thoughts that pass through a grieving mother's mind unbidden. I look at people around me, and wish they would know just a hint of what I have gone through. If only they could understand a little bit. Yet, I don't what them to understand. No one should have to understand this horror.
More than anything, you want to trade for your child's life. Anything you could give, you would. I would have gladly given my life for his. Jamie would have as well.
It is so hard to have an overwhelming need to sacrifice, but not have that choice.
Every day, I dream of a world that I would have had a choice. I've dreamed of time travel, heavenly intervention, just about any fantasy you can think of that would make it possible for him to still be here. But no matter how many times I dream of these possibilities, I wake up to the real world. A world without him.
In the midst of all this, we have the desire for another child. A younger brother or sister for Matthew. Our second, yet they will live as the first because Matthew cannot. I am scared of the pregnancy; of the months in between those 2 pink lines and that first wailing cry. I'm scared I will get attached, and love that baby as much as I loved Matthew when he was growing within me. I know I will, and that scares me the most.
At the same time, I yearn for the day that baby will arrive, healthy, pink, full of life, and ours to keep. I live only for that day. All else is unimportant. It is our main focus, our only life goal, and the desire of our hearts. We are parents without our son, but one day, hopefully soon, we will be parents to another child. One who will stay with us, and that, is the reason we are able to make it through each day.
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