Scared

Many times I have set down to write this post and the words are hesitant or I am simply interrupted.   I don't have much time now, either so I'm typing this in hopes that I can get a little bit out of what I mean by this post title.  

I have read, with great interest, the posts of many other BLM's regarding their pregnancies of their rainbow babies.  I know there are several others out there that are on this journey and to hear their stories sometimes makes mine a little more understandable or easier to handle.  I am sitting here typing and can hear the three kids playing in their bedrooms laughing and giggling together and there is not a more beautiful noise in this world than this to me.  I love hearing them play together and I think about how lucky I am to have created that and to be able to raise them.  I think I should be grateful and so happy, which I am.  Totally.  Yet there is the whole that Chase left in our hearts.  That great emptiness that we all feel missing him so incredibly deeply, crying over him still to this day almost 21 months later, feeling the pain we felt the day he left us.  And so there is our rainbow baby....growing in my tummy, for all to see and to love and to feel his movements and to talk to.  And we all love him so much and are so excited for his arrival.  

But we are still scared.  Everyone of us.  Some show it more than others, but we all feel it.  Karly asked me last weekend while laying on my bed with me, "mom, what if we don't bring the baby home?"  I didn't know what to say.  Because I feel the same way.  She continued, "because if we don't, all this is a waste," pointing to all the baby clothes and things in the crib and around the room.  Tears spilled out of her eyes.  She looked sad.  Worried.  I said, "We'll deal with it Kar.  Because we have to and because we are strong.  But I know, I know that we will bring this baby home this time."  But I say that for her benefit because I see the pain and the fear in her eyes.  For me, on the other hand, I have a constant battle between my head and my heart.  My heart knows this baby is coming home with us, but my head knows that other things can happen....because they do.  Not always for any reason, sometimes for specific reasons.  This is life.  But as we get closer to this baby's due date, and we plan for his arrival, and we celebrate him....I feel more and more rooted in to the public side of this journey.  The part where others want to share in your happiness, celebrate your pregnancy and provide comfort for the culminating moments of birth.  There is no hiding it....in a small town anyway.  Everywhere I go, my belly precedes me and I don't want to be the woman who lost her baby again.  Some days I still can't believe I'm here.  Wearing the faces of pregnancy in front of the whole wide world.  When I lost Chase, I knew I wanted to get pregnant as soon as it was safe to do so.  But I didn't want to share it with anyone but my family.  I wanted to stay holed up in my house and not come out until I had a baby in my arms....and even then probably not much!  I hated being so broken in front of everyone.  I hated every flower delivery that came to the house...and there were so many.  I hated every card we received in the mail.  At the funeral, I felt so bad for everyone being so sad there and it was all because of us.  I know it is messed up to think this way, but I felt like in some ways, I had to let others grieve in their way so that I could then grieve in my own way...privately.    As far as a pregnancy, though, I just couldn't imagine going through another pregnancy and everyone seeing me progress....thinking the whole time that this was the baby "after the baby".  Not that I cared what anyone thought, just that I wanted to be alone, just us, in case something happened again.....and then there wouldn't be all the pain for everyone again.  

Crazy, I know.  It sounds ludicrous to type it out and I still can't even get it to make much sense to me.  I want this baby so bad....I just want a guarantee that if anyone gets hurt again, it's just me because I didn't share any of it with anyone else.  Because really, everyone just wants the best for you and they are, in at least some sense, putting their heart out there for you, too, to bring this one home.  Anything else would be nothing less than heartbreaking...all over again.  

And then there are the "things".  I didn't get rid of anything when Chase died.  I used the baby lotion I had (still using it actually) received at the shower and I still have all the baby diapers and wipes and even baby wash and of course the clothes. Some are packed away in his box or my shadow box but I knew in my heart that one day, Chase's little sibling would wear them so no way was I going to give them away. These things, though, stare at me every day.  They remind me what it feels like to not get to use them.  I can't do that again.  I can't.  I'm scared to death of that.  And so is Karly.  So I don't really know what to say to her.  Other than whatever lies ahead of us, we will face together....and we will come out of it together.  And in my heart of hearts, I know that we will get love this little one, physically, in our very own arms.  Very soon.