For the third time

It's hard to believe that in 11.5 weeks I could have another little one in my arms and it will also mark one year since I delivered Oliver.  Every week that goes by my love for my little guy grows.  Afterall, he is a physical part of me so how can I not feel as though our very beings are intertwined together.   The quick rolls, the flips and the subtle nudges are felt my me and the bond of mother and child grows that much stronger.  As a mother, you watch your body expand and feel the movements and are witness to the beginning of a delicate life.  You are connected to that little person their entire life.  No matter how long or short it may be.

Sometimes it seems like I was never pregnant with Oliver.  I never got to experience the full kicks, I only ever thought I maybe felt a couple flutters once. I barely showed with that pregnancy therefore not a lot of people saw me as pregnant. Most people now never mention that pregnancy.  And I understand because it is the one that went wrong.  Why bring it up when I'm happily pregnant and don't want to worry more about something happening this time around? I don't blame people for never talking about that pregnancy or about Oliver.  It is awkward and really it comes down to there isn't much to say.  I think that is always what is so difficult.  There are no long conversations you can have about a child you never met. Few photos, mementos, to even showed that they existed.  But for 19 weeks I was pregnant.  I went through the highs and lows of pregnancy and even delivered my child at the end.  Therefore, why doesn't that pregnancy matter?  Is it only having a live child at the end that validates a pregnancy?

The magnitude of finding out your child has died in the womb and the painful emotions of a delivery ending in a stillborn child are heavy emotions for a mother to carry.  When a child is born living, there are so many people to rejoice in the birth of a child and help nurture and love that child over the years.  While people offer sympathy initially after the loss of a baby, the heavy emotions of missing and longing for the child fall on the mother.  Those 4-40 weeks that a mother may have carried that child are the lifetime of the child.  They mean everything because it was when that child was alive.  Because as a mother you remember the dates, the sickness, the happiness and the body changes, you are the one that fully experiences your child before anyone else can.  So when that child doesn't make it out of the womb, a mother is left with the heaviest heart in always wondering who her child would have been, why her body failed and why that child was taken so soon.

I don't bring this up for the sympathy, but more for understanding.  Understanding that this is my third pregnancy, delivery and baby.  And a reminder to myself that May will be filled with many emotions.  It will have been exactly a year since I last was in a delivery room, a delivery that ended in heartbreak.  While I don't think that I'll dwell on that experience when I am there for the birth of my son, it will be inevitable that those memories will surface.  It was a part of a my life and experience as a mother.  Just as I'll always have those memories, I hope to add to the joyous memories of delivering a healthy baby and becoming a mother again.  For the third time.