The Rabbit Hole

Yesterday, I let myself go down the rabbit hole a little further than I would like.  You see... I worry all of the time.  I worry that Aden will die from some random freak disorder or accident or something.  But... I don't actually think about what I will do if he dies.  It may seem insane-  how can I worry about something and not think about what I would do if that thing happens?  I don't know, but I just don't.  Until yesterday.

When I was pregnant with Owen... I lived in this space where I thought of what I would do if he died every day.  I did not have the luxury of thinking or saying "oh my gosh, I don't know what I would do if something happened to him".  I had to know.  I had to have a realistic, real-life plan about what we were specifically going to do if he died.  I knew where we would have the funeral service, where he would be buried, and had the phone numbers ready of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (the photography service that takes family photos of lost infants).  I lived in this space every day, and it was a deep dark hole.  Most people don't understand that I was grieving for him before I lost him.  I'm not saying I was ready to lose him... I always had a small piece of hope... but I have been grieving for what feels like a very long time. 

I have not lived in this place during my pregnancy with Aden.  A worried place?  Yes.  Even a crazy place?  Absolutely.  But I have not let myself make real life plans for what I will do if he dies.  I cannot do that.  Because I know that it would crush every part of me that I have left.  I know that it's possible he won't come home.  There is no karma plan for people who have lost children... that they are somehow owed a healthy child afterwards.  Life isn't fair, and it doesn't work that way.  No one is "safe" from tragedy.  Terrible things happen to great people all of the time.  But I have been able to shut off the plan-making part of my mind to that terrible possibility for this pregnancy. 

Yesterday, Aden just wasn't moving enough for me.  To be fair, I don't know that he could ever move enough to satisfy my worrying.  But in any case, I was deciding whether or not to go to the hospital to be put on the monitors, when my mind went to that place.  In a mixture of flashbacks and new images, I let myself see my life if he dies.  Having two baby headstones at the cemetery and no baby to hold.  Re-living the impossible-ness of surviving this past year and a half.  And so I cried.  and cried.  and cried.  And I couldn't stop because I just can't make those plans.  I love Aden as much as I love Owen.  And I just can't do it.  So thankfully I had to pull myself together and go into work.  I got to pull myself out of that hole before it overtook me completely.  I don't want to go there again.  I want to be a mommy to my rainbow baby and my angel baby, not a mommy to two angel babies.  There is nothing I can do to change the outcome of this pregnancy, and I know that.  If only all it took to get a healthy baby was to take your vitamins and cut out certain foods/drinks, I would be SET.  But that is not the case.  I have 3 months to go... and it feels like the longest three months.  Please keep my rainbow in your thoughts... and maybe my sanity too.

Here's hoping for a healthy rainbow, and staying out of the rabbit hole in the meantime.  <3 to my boys.