When Will You Be Ready To Try Again?

It seems that there is a point when this question gets put out there.

Evidently we are at that point.

Actually, my husband has had to field this question more often than I have.  I guess most people are too tactful to say it to my face.  Oh, hi.  How's it going?  Sorry about your baby.  So, when do you think you'll start having unprotected sex with your husband?  I guess asking David sounds like the more polite option?  (To clarify:  It's not a polite question and unless you're the kind of friend who wouldn't need to ask that question, you really shouldn't be asking it).  But of course people are wondering.  It's been nearly seven months.  All the tests show that I'm perfectly healthy.  There's no clear reason why we wouldn't try again.  And people would like something to cheer for instead of feel sorry about.  After all, our story is heartbreaking.  Can't we give people a chance to feel happy for us?

We all know a new baby wouldn't--couldn't--replace Eliza.  What's that they say about "rainbow babies"?  (A saccharine term, but somewhat appropriate.) They don't make you forget the darkness and storms, but they certainly bring some sunshine when they arrive.  Of course another baby would bring some much-needed joy and laughter to our lives (after some long months of gestation, anxiety, and freaking all the hell out).

So, Readers, our answer is that we hope to have kids someday. We were thrilled to find out we were going to be parents and we had always hoped to have more than one baby.

There's just a few things we all need to keep in mind:

The date we start "trying" is not likely to be the date we get pregnant.  Although Teen Mom and a couple of people I know in real life would have you believe otherwise.  As many of my friends know very well, the hopes and disappointment of trying to get pregnant are challenging for most couples who don't get pregnant in round 1, regardless of whether they have experienced the loss of a child.  It felt like we had been trying forever before I got pregnant with Eliza.  And that only took a few months.  Are we ready to handle the ups and downs of that process, on top of the daily ebb and flow of grief?

We could be trying for months.  Years, I suppose.  Trying is not the beginning of a happy ending.  It's just an extension of our everyday experience of grief, coupled with an invitation for more stress and uncertainty.

We would desperately like something to look forward to, but we know too well that a pregnancy is no guarantee of a healthy baby.  So even if I got pregnant, the process of "looking forward" would become one of surviving a day at a time, my heart racing every time I imagine the baby's heart not beating.  How do I navigate that for nine months and still function in my daily life?

As my doctor said to me when I discussed with him all my worries about trying to get pregnant again, "Conceiving shouldn't be your problem."  Oh, that's right.  My problem is keeping the baby freaking ALIVE once it's more than a bundle of cells.  Small detail.  Kind of IMPORTANT.  Especially since we have NO IDEA what happened to make Eliza's heart stop beating.

So you see, "trying again" is not an easy fix for our grief.  It's more like an extension of our heartbreak, magnified by cautious hope.  It is emotionally exhausting even as a consideration, let alone a reality.

And as for just waiting to see what happens?  Well, as my old health teacher used to say (or maybe it wasn't really my health teacher, maybe I just saw this on TV and absorbed the lesson, wishing that my health teacher was cool and funny and didn't actually have a poster up in the classroom that said "Pet Your Dog, Not Your Date."  She seriously did.):  If you're not preventing pregnancy, you're trying.  And for the way my crazy brain works, that's absolutely true.  We're in it or we're not.  Pretending that we might just surprise ourselves and I'll be one of those girls who suddenly realizes I'm so late that I'm 14 weeks pregnant?  Not going to happen.

So the short answer is yes, we want to have kids someday.

But no matter when we start trying, we're no longer so certain of what that will look like or when or if that day will come.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not okay with that.  I'm not at peace with where we are.  I'm scared and angry and overwhelmed.  I want to have another baby.  SO MUCH.  I want Eliza back.  I want these things with equal intensity.  I'm not sure how to handle the hope and the sorrow and the fear and the guilt of wanting these things at the same time.

Eliza taught us how it feels to love a baby more than I'd even thought would be possible.  Of course we want the chance to experience that again, to live through everything we were robbed of last time, but all I can think about is how much I want Eliza here, too.  I know that hearts can expand exponentially, and that if we do have another baby, I know it won't mean that I love Eliza less.  I just don't know when that will start to feel true.

And I don't know how I could survive losing another baby.  Perhaps more accurately, I'm afraid I would survive it.  And then what kind of life would that be?


So I have no idea how to answer that question.  When will we be ready to try again?

Honestly, I don't know if we'll ever be ready to try again.  In fact, I figure we'll have to start trying long before we're actually ready, or we might be waiting forever.       

It feels like such a huge a risk, to try again.  To put our hearts on the line, knowing how quickly everything could slip away.

Taking that risk is pretty much the most terrifying thing I can imagine.

Except maybe not taking it.