The Dreaded Due Date

Today could have been the happiest of my life. Instead I am drinking my full strength coffee while I pay medical bills, I received that horrible ‘your baby is home’ due date discount email, and received the final autopsy report on our baby. Nothing says ‘No happy ending’ like getting kicked while you’re down. I find myself thinking ‘what if’ kind of scenarios or ‘if only’ thoughts and have to steer away because you can’t change the past. No amount of wishful thinking will make today anything other than what it is. Sad.

I feel like it would help if I knew I was pregnant again. But I don’t. I'm still in the ‘optimum week’ which means no testing till end of May at the earliest and even then no guarantees. The day I get a tiny little plus on that pee-stick is the day I probably have a mini breakdown. As most Moms-without-their-babies know… it will bring up all the insecurities and the terror that it will happen again. I don’t think I could handle losing another child late in the pregnancy. It’s hard to trust in flukes, and only a 1% chance of recurrence when I have been on the losing end of statistics before. It won’t cheer me up to say that 2.03 per 10000 births are affected by ABS (nailed it). Even fewer cases of banding cause death (lucky me). And 1 in 200 women experience a still birth (oh snap). So I seem to have won the crap-lottery and don’t want to hear about slim chances. My entire experience was a slim chance. Not only will low statistics not cheer me up, it will give me something else to worry about. Like I learned that if you have a child with a cleft there is a higher chance of having it happen again. Great. 

Now that I’m starting to get sarcastic, I know it’s time to wrap this misery train up.

I miss you my little man. I looked forward to today for 7 months, but you left early. But I’ll love you forever and ever because you are the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside.

Ps. Ask God to give you a brother or sister soon. But make sure to tell Him that you want your sibling to stay down here with your parents and not up there with you yet. Boy or girl... you pick.  Mom and Dad love you tons. Give Dooley (now your dog) a kiss from me. 

Mom