The subject has come up more than once: when do we tell our big secret?
My husband is excited. We got the good genetics result. We had a good NT scan. Nothing bad happened because of the CVS. We have our early anatomy scan on Monday.
So why not spill the beans? Why not tell the world about this healthy baby?
Oh, oh, oh. Why? Why not just have a baby and call everyone up and say "Merry Christmas! By the way, you have a grandson."
The problem I have with telling everyone are the expectations. My fears live in the worry of other people. I have embraced, as much as possible and with some success, the notion of living this pregnancy day by day - never looking back at the what-could-have-beens and never looking forward to the what-might-be. Up until a week or so ago, I lived strictly in the day. No baby names, no nursery wall colors, no maternity clothes. Just sun up to sun down and then repeat.
This practice keeps me focused on this pregnancy, less freaked out by this pregnancy, and overall just less stressed.
But once we tell everyone - even just the close, important someones - that closely guarded wall of trust will crumble. I will live in a place of expectation - people who expect the baby to live and those who may expect the baby to die. I don't expect ANYTHING. I go from day to day, looking on to the next appointment, check-up, procedure or test result. There will soon be the people in my life looking to celebrate little Clark and everything he means to our family. They will want to plan baby showers and help chose linens and call to see how I am feeling.
Then there will be the people who expect a death. They will quietly or loudly question our decision to conceive again naturally. They will not want to talk about Clark in case he dies. They will plan for nothing and ignore me because I am Dead Baby Girl and my bad genetic luck could be contagious.
Both someones are equally bad for my emotional health.
There is no winning this battle, yet I fight it every day. I am in between my regular clothes and maternity clothes. Having this new job meant buying new clothes, so I bought maternity stuff under duress - my first move toward the hope of a healthy baby. I bought Clark a striped baby outfit, but put it away so I can't see it.
But there is a part of me that is so stupidly convinced that we will go in on Monday and find out he died, that the little movements I think I feel were the imagination of an overly hopeful, grieving mother.
As excited as I am about Clark, about the possibility of a healthy baby, my brain cannot make the leap forward.
But I can't keep this up much longer, I know. My belly is getting bigger and bigger and soon it will be obvious that I am pregnant. But I can't help but dread the white noise of everyone else's opinions. I need to transition from my comfort zone to a "what may come" attitude. That's still just a really big leap for me right now.
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