I woke up Saturday morning feeling fabulous. I seriously felt better than I had since becoming pregnant. I spent some time in the afternoon sitting outside on a blanket reading, just enjoying the weather. It had been a long winter and having warm dry weather was wonderful.
My upstairs neighbor's mother had come to visit her. Her mother was a labor and delivery nurse, and when I told her that I felt so good she told me she'd expect me to go into labor within the next couple of days. I didn't know if I believed it but she swore up and down that it was common to get a "second wind" right before labor.
A friend of mine had told me that they were having a girly movie get-together at her apartment that afternoon, so when the time came I walked over to her place. The short walk over had brought the shooting pains back and nausea came crashing in on me.
When I arrived at my friend's house, to my surprise it wasn't a girly movie but rather a baby shower. I was touched, really touched. I hadn't expected a baby shower because I had no family nearby, and just a few friends. Well, 4 of those friends decided that 4 was enough and my baby deserved a party to celebrate her. I don't think that they will ever know how much I appreciated it then, and now much I do now. She may not have lived to her birth, but she was loved and celebrated just like any other.
One of them, not sure who, asked me how I was feeling. I answered, "I almost don't care about the baby, I just don't want to be pregnant anymore." No other sentence I've ever said has ever haunted me like that one. 3 days later I wasn't pregnant anymore, but had no baby. I got my wish. As much as I can tell myself that those words had nothing to do with her death, it still hurts to remember them coming from my mouth. I just remind myself that that pregnancy was so difficult and it was the physical hardship speaking those words. Of course I wanted my baby. I would have been pregnant for months longer if it meant I could have taken her home alive.
But it hurts so much that I said that at all.
Oh Britt, I too spoke words like that. It was very difficult for awhile NOT to blame myself for what happened to the boys because of what I said. It just isn't fair we had to go through this. Not at all.
ReplyDeleteLove to you!
*hugs*