To be someone else

There's been so many times over the past 15 months when I wished I could just be someone else.

Someone who's never lost a baby.  Who's never had to go through another 9 months just to have one baby.  Someone who didn't know what it was like to tell people they've lost a child.  Someone who doesn't know what it feels like to literally have a part of you die inside.  To live every day of the rest of life missing that piece of you.

I'm different.  I'm now someone that has survived something that can genuinely fuck. you. up.  for the rest of your life.

I can never have the perspective of a happy first-time Mom.  I won't ever know what it's like to complain about a terribly long labor and have that be the WORST thing that happened to me in childbirth.   This time will be bittersweet.

I've survived the worst, somehow.  I've survived another 9 months of pregnancy while carrying the burden of knowing that everything can come crashing down on you in an instant.

And I'm proud of myself for not hiding Luke.  For being straight with complete strangers who are nosey and well-intentioned, but also oblivious.  I would be lying to them if I'd told them that this was my first pregnancy--the most asked question of any woman who's visibly pregnant.  Why would I lie?  This was not my first pregnancy, nor my first child.  Luke was a full-grown baby when we met him.  I went through an entire 39 weeks carrying him and experiencing all that goes along with that.  He was real.  I have proof.  How could I lie?

A woman last week--an older woman--zoned in on me in a waiting room.  She was clearly obsessed with pregnancy and babies. I thought I would get away from the questioning after she asked if this one was my first and I said no.  But she continued.  And when I told her that we lost our first--Luke--last year, her first question after was "Full term?!" 

When I say yes to questions like that, that's when I want to cry in front of complete strangers.  Yes. That still happens.  It happened to me. 

And there was no reason.  God didn't need another angel.  He's not in a better place.  It doesn't matter how many prayers are said in the world for you.  It just happens. 

She really didn't say much to me after that...And I could tell that she was horrified.  And I bet that she hasn't had to endure such personal, gut-wrenching pain before.  Because if she had, she would probably have learned by now not to ask questions like that to strangers...

That's the thing.  I feel like those who have experienced trauma like this before get it.  They understand that pregnancy is hard.  It's not a given.  Women giving birth is amazing, but there's so much more to it than that.

Life isn't cut and dry.  There are millions of families that can't answer the question "So, how many children do you have?" with a simple number that can be proven with a photograph.

To be someone that is free--To not know this kind of loss?  Sometimes I wish I was them.  I do.  But then other times, I'm thankful to have been given this perspective.  I wish I could have gained it without having to lose Luke, though.