Philosophical Friday - Alternate Universes

If you happen to be a baby-loss mom reading the blog, please don't read this... I don't want it to be misinterpreted, or misunderstood for something other than gratitude being expressed - but even that will probably leave a sour taste - being grateful that it didn't happen to me...
But I feel like I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I feel a little dramatic and silly about it, but I want to get it out and into ink (a typed screen anyway)...

so.
You've been forewarned, I guess... 



This past spring, I discovered that a mom from my "birth month board" for Ms. Mack (Dec 2015) had delivered her daughter stillborn...

Late last summer and fall, months and weeks before our EDDs, a slew of December moms ooh'd and aah'd over a beautiful nursery she designed for her daughter - custom-made and hand-painted dresser the shining glory that she had spent hours on... we chimed in about matching fabrics and colors.

Yet less than a week after we welcomed Ms. Mack to the world, she was having to push her still daughter out...


I believe there will forever be a divide between baby-loss moms and non... between pregnancy-loss moms and non... I think that there's a divide even between even PG- and baby-loss moms...

I do not know what it's like to deliver a quiet baby... but having been living in the "alternate universe" of "Bad Things That Happen" ever since finding out our first baby's heart beat stopped around 12weeks gestation, I do know that These Bad Things can happen to anyone - that in another alternate universe, I could be planning annual memorials instead of birthdays...

Am I in the blissful alternate universe of Birthday-Planning because - well, not because I went to the doctor anyway despite feeling silly, but because - really, I got lucky?

Not to get all existential, but - well, I know shit happens.

And I can't help but think and realize how easily I could be the one preparing for the second-to-worst 2 months of my life - a round of holidays without a piece of my heart, only to lead up to the one year anniversary...

What separates us, besides a chance wrapping/tangling of an umbilical cord? Besides a freak infection? Besides any of the hundreds of causes of stillbirth??



One thing I've thought about a lot - Button was (double) footling-breach... not life-threatening (not in this day and age) but definitely something that could have become dangerous during a vaginal delivery.  So a c-section was scheduled...
Then, there came a point that I was suspicious of my water leaking.  Dr. Google said that risk of infection becomes very high 24 hours after the amniotic sac breaks... and so I started counting on my hands and calculated - I was about 60 hours from a scheduled c-section...
I felt silly calling the next morning, because then the nurse told me the doctor advised going to L&D to get checked... and the whole time I'm driving to the hospital, I'm thinking of a friend's similar story - after all that, she'd peed herself... They're going to tell me I'm the crazy neurotic first-time mom (maybe more neurotic because  -"First-Time-Mom with Second-Pregnancy")

Yet...

Something made me call... something in my head was saying, it's just not worth it to play that game.  Feel silly... Call the doctor, have them strip you down to a hospital gown and then let you get dressed again and return to work...
((and we all know where this went... a cervical check after a time of regular contractions presented the doctor with "a foot... oh that's a foot, right there!"))

Alternate Universes - I imagine that there's just a thin, not-quite-visible shimmery film that separates parallel stories, branches where life veers off...


Like a Universe where, instead of taking advantage and going in to L&D two days early with Ms. Mack, I went back home and continued experiencing contractions - until a uterine rupture (a risk after prior c-sections, and a fear I had that influenced my decision re: a VBAC.  Yes, it's a teeny chance of happening, less than or around 1%... But I've been there before, falling into the 0.5-1.5% of women who experience a miscarriage after detecting a healthy heartbeat at 8-9 weeks gestation...)

ADDED: oh my GOSH how did I forget about Ms. Mack's bad first APGAR of 5?! and the fact she needed "resuscitation" according to our hospital bill! Another fork into another Universe... 

It's another alternate life that I feel like I can see, a glint & glimmer here and there, especially as I follow the fellow Dec 2015 mom and her mourning...


anyways.  Enough philosophical waxing... that's what I've been thinking about from time to time...

And if you're a BLM that made it this far, I'm sorry if you read the above as, Maybe if you had gone in a day earlier, you could be in The Alternate  Universe too! because I have a feeling you blame yourself enough - even though YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME.

*~*~*~*~*~*

We're on day two (out of four) of E being out of town - got out of the house on time this morning (YAY! It helped that today's PJ day at daycare... Button had to put dry ones one (wet the bed THROUGH his nighttime diaper) but I just kept Ms. Mack in her clean sleeper! WIN!) and we should have a quiet evening tonight - maybe we'll stop by the ice cream parlor right after daycare for a rare treat!

Tomorrow is my TribeTime - a bunch of moms and babies are coming over for a playdate/craft day! We'll be inside due to inclimate weather, let's see how messy we can get the living room and house ;)

(AND OMG today, in my Universe, Ms. Mack is 10 months!! Coming up next a 10-month check-in... for a little smush-ball I'm thankful for every day that I have the chance to post about...)

Good girls finish last...

I was cruising F.acebook today at lunch - dirty soul-sucking site.  UGH

And I spotted the dreaded picture - the coworker (who says she doesn't even WANT to be pregnant!) blasted the shit out of her positive HPTs.  All over Facebook.  At 5weeks pregnant.

And just you watch - it'll be this little twat (again - my blog, my thoughts - no bullshit) who coasts through everything, passing each milestone with ease.  And never has to go back and "un-tell" aaaaall those people she blasted it to the day she got two little pink lines.

WHAT the FUCK universe.

Is it too much to ask for her to get just  a little egg on her face? (no pun intended...)  A little "false alarm?"

And I'm only ok asking for this because she's said a million times how she would dread to be pregnant right now.  Yea yea, maybe that's not really true - and she and her husband are thrilled to be expecting.

Dude - I'm only going by what she tells me.  And she tells me that this was so unplanned and that they'll just have TO DEAL WITH IT.


I know your next question - no, she doesn't know about my loss.  And so all I wanna do is get all in her face, Bad Girls style, and set her straight - you WEREN'T the first pregnancy in this office, you won't be the last, and you sure as hell aren't as special as you think.

I think the worst part - the horrible legacy this stupid miscarriage has left - is that I CANNOT find happiness, anywhere inside of me, for anyone else right now.  I hate that this has been taken from me.  My BFF is pregnant, somewhat safely into the second trimester and all I can think and focus on is what was taken from me.  She is almost exactly three weeks behind where I should be right now.  It is a constant reminder of what I lost.  Instead of finding myself healing, each milestone she passes makes my heart break more and more.  

I get to a point sometimes where I think, ok - this is not the end of the world.  We can try again, and basically do it now!  We could get pregnant again any day, and chances are - everything will fine.

Yea.  Odds were in our favor the first time too.

Fuck the percentages.  Numbers mean nothing to me now.  You tell me that I have 97% chance of having a successful pregnancy, and I tell you:

I can't say if - but WHEN we get pregnant again, and as we follow each vegetable and fruit to the next week, I will freak out and panic every minute of every day of every month.   I have to believe it will happen, and have complete and utter faith.

(Thanks Kristy)

This definitely changes you to where you sometimes can't even recognize yourself.  There's thoughts and emotions you never thought would be yours. You ignore the "rules" and know that ANYTHING can happen, because it already has.  But you keep moving forward.  Because what greater prize is there at the end of this kind of struggle?