Little Bundles of Someone Else's Joy

Someone very close to us just had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not going to lie to you, it hurt a little.  Wait, sugar-coated.  Okay, it hurt a lot.  Of course I knew it was coming and I thought I had sufficiently prepared myself for this day, put my guard up, practiced my poker face, I was braced for the phone call that I knew would sting.  No matter how much I didn’t want it to.  See this was someone close to us and we were happy for them.  We would have never wanted things to turn out any other way.  However, it had only been about three weeks since our loss and to make matters worse, this is the hospital where we lost Wyatt, this is the hospital where I had to leave my baby behind when I sat in that lobby with my belly still swollen, stunned in disbelief that I was leaving empty-handed as I watched other mothers being rolled out to their cars with their babies in tow.  But alas, the phone call came, and we were off to the hospital to congratulate yet another person with yet another successful pregnancy as I suffered in silence yet again.

This one isn’t so easy for me, I am very conflicted with this emotional response.  You see, I have celebrated children for as long as I can remember.  I always knew I would have a career helping kids in some way.  I have always been drawn to children and any child can make me smile.  I was that annoying person that would try to pat a pregnant woman’s belly.  But with each pregnancy loss, my heart seems to mutate.  My loving heart becomes painfully tainted.  Call it what you will:  resentment, jealousy, envy….but do not call it my choice because it is anything and everything but that.  It is something that most people I know who have dealt with infertility, miscarriage, pregnancy or neonatal loss have voiced experiencing, some very loudly and some much more quietly.  It is something that those who have been fortunate enough not to have had any of these experiences may not have considered or simply may not understand.  It is a demon that I ferociously fought against with our first loss and have been clawing at his eyes this time so he could not find me again.  But no matter how hard I have hidden, that damn beast has found me and I’m still trying to escape.  Every time I see a pregnant woman, a newborn baby, ultrasound pictures on Facebook, you name it, it’s salt in the wound.  It is a harsh, coarse salt in this deep, open wound.  It instantly sends a visceral volt of pure emotion to the core of my gut, and I swallow hard trying to make the pain disappear.  It doesn’t.  It is a constant reminder of everything I have just lost and you still have.  You are realizing the dreams for a future that has just been ripped away from me.  Plans for a future that I have to let go of, no matter how much I do not want to.  Do you get that?  Can you for a moment feel how my resentment towards you is really not about you at all?

Someone else very close to me is expecting a baby.  Oh, this was going to be such an exciting time, we were going to have children so close in age to each other, they were going to be the best of friends.  So exciting until in a moment we had to realize that one of these babies wasn’t going to be there on those play dates.  And it’s hard.  It’s hard once again to see others around you pregnant, having babies, being blissful.  It’s hard, even if those others are people you are close to, even if those others are the people you are closest to, it’s hard, it hurts, it stings.  And it’s not that I am not happy for those others, it’s that I am heartbroken for myself.  I have been robbed of a joyful experience, both this time and the next, because of another baby that has been denied his (or her) right to be a part of our family.  And then I sit back, think and get angry once more.  And this time, it’s even more conflicting.  I realize that these people, these people that I love, even though they still have their baby, have also been robbed.  They have been robbed of the opportunity of having a worry-free pregnancy because they know of my loss(es).  But even more than that, they have been robbed of having the chance of experiencing a carefree pregnancy because they have to be cautious and considerate of me and my pain.  They have to hold back.  They have to contain their excitement.  At least when they are around me.  Which is when they are around most of our family and that seems a bit unfair to me too.  This is their first child, they should be excited, they should be elated, they should be able to celebrate in any and every way that they see fit, without the constraints of my pain standing in their way.  I don’t want to be the person to take that away from them.  I do not want to be the one responsible for stealing anyone’s joy.  I have been robbed, but I do not want to be the one to rob someone else.  Ugh, conflicted.   Horribly, horribly conflicted.  

So, I scramble to find my journal.  What did I write?  Where is that entry?  Ah, here it is, December 16, 2005 (wow, that seems soon), “I will not love less because my heart has been broken”.  It was this day after our first loss that I decided I would not let pain rule my heart and be the primary dictator of my decisions.  I wrote it specifically to this painfully conflicting emotion of resentment.  I realized that although my pain and my reactions were not my choice, I did have choices.  I could choose to love no matter how broken my heart was.  No matter how much it hurt, I could still celebrate life being brought into this world, even if I wasn’t the one bringing it.  So I did it, I made that choice.  I held babies when I didn’t think I could.  I went to baby showers when I didn’t think I should.  I celebrated life entering this world in every way I knew how although I didn’t know if I knew how to bring one into this world on my own.  And, I realized, in some odd way, these things brought me healing and peacefulness alongside their pain.  I realized I could and should love again.  I found hope in these little bundles of someone else’s joy.  This was the moment I knew everything was going to be okay.  That I was going to be okay.  Even though my future was uncertain, even though my heart was still in shatters, as long as I could love again, I knew I would be just fine.  So I sit with this thought in my broken heart once again and I know I will be okay, I know I will hold these babies with all the love that my heart possesses, and I know it will hurt sometimes, but somehow I know I will be just fine. 

Although I know this post is already ridiculously long, there is something that I feel I need to add here.  Something I desperately need you to know.  This will be done on my timeline, not yours.  I will find my hope, my peace, my healing, when I am ready, not when you are.  And even when I was on a course to love again, my heart was still in pieces and I was still in pain.  It was still a process, a long and grueling process.  I don’t expect you to understand the depths of my heartbreak, but I do hold hopes that you will be patient with it.  My timeline is not your timeline.  My pain might make you uncomfortable and it might make you cringe, but it is mine to harbor for as long as I need to, for as long as I want to, for as long as I have to.  Don’t tell me how I should feel, when I should heal, or how quickly my heart is ready to love again.  When you have walked a mile in my shoes, I may give you permission to place judgments on how I have driven the course towards repairing my heart, but until then, I am navigating my own journey and not letting you tell me how or when I will reach my final destination.  It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I own this journey.  Onward.