Scrambled thoughts-

Three years and two days ago, I started miscarrying our first pregnancy. A flash of pain, a loss of blood, an evening lost in the ER... stuck in limbo, but having the sickening sense of already knowing what no one could say. Three years ago today, we confirmed that the hcg was dropping, and we were definitely miscarrying.

His tree grows taller every year, blossoms more, it even began to bear it's own fruit last year.

The being the tree was planted in memory of, is still nothing but a memory. He will never grow taller, he will never blossom, and he will never bear his own fruit.

And I still miss him, and remember it, even if almost everyone I know has forgotten. Even if only a few of us know just what significance that tree holds for us.
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The little boy who's birthday party we missed that year, that day, because we lost our pregnancy... that boy was turning one that year. This year he turned four, and yet again we missed his party because of a pregnancy.

I can't say that I regret it. The emotions his birthday parties have stirred up in me are hard to deal with.

That first year, we lost our first pregnancy.

That second year, I was working... and couldn't bear the thought of going for emotional reasons. We had just went through the horror of our second miscarriage, and I was still mourning that one, and our first one... emotionally I was a complete wreck.

The third year, we went. We had already suffered three miscarriages at this point, and we still had no children. Last year, SIL1 came in glowing and heavily pregnant. There were screeches from FIL, StepMIL, and A-s grandmother, about how cute she was. How adorable. How exciting. How much longer. Coos and awws. I fought a barrage of tears, and we left abruptly because A- knew I was going to cry, and honestly I don't think he could handle it either.

This year, I'm pregnant again. And so is SIL2, the boy's mother. But our pregnancies are nothing alike. Hers is a given, hers is unexpected (unintentional) and carefree, full of assumptions that this baby is going to be born alive and healthy, and that's just that. The most she has to take every day is a prenatal vitamin. Her fiance and his family are all excited about it, since it's his first baby.

I could never live like that, and my pregnancy has never been a given. This one has taken 4 years now, and three losses along the way. I could go in Monday and find out there is no longer a heartbeat. I could endure any number of complications due to my body, my medications, and the unknown. Nothing is a given. I'm resting, taking pills orally, vaginally, and shooting up. I am doing everything I can, and not taking any chances. My husband is not getting excited, while the heartbeat made it more real to him, we both remain on bated breath waiting to see if the other shoe is going to drop. We are pregnant today (maybe) but that doesn't mean we will be tomorrow, and we know that all too well.

If we had went to that party last weekend, not only would we have the issue of me being on my feet... but we would have to be surrounded by that naivety. While we were waiting for our ultrasound to see if we had lost yet another one, everyone else would be going on about her pregnancy. And even if my pregnancy had been going well, I couldn't have handled that.
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Everything I've been through has changed me. I'm bitter, yes. But that's not it... it's the way those comments burn in my heart, the way I know that will never be me even if we have a living child, that those feelings and experiences were stolen from us with the deaths of all our pregnancies. The way hearing someone admire another's pregnant belly only reminds me of loss. The way new babies send silent pangs to my heart and remind me of them... the ones I will never carry in my arms, but are always tucked in my heart as I go to sleep, that I coo "I miss you so much," to when my grief for them wails within me like a dying beast.
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I'm pregnant now, yes. But I'm still a babylost mamma, and I'm still infertile.
Nothing will ever loosen those experiences and markings from my soul.

And already, having heard the heartbeat, many people in our lives have begun to assume we can relax now. That we're better.

Well, we're not. I'm still broken, I've still lost so much in the last 4 years. That will never change. And everything with this pregnancy is still uncertain.

I still miss my lost ones.

And I still worry everyday that this one is already dead.
And it's that thought that haunts me.

It terrifies me beyond reason.