# Discouraging...



## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

I don't begrudge anyone a pregnancy... PAL or not...

But man, it's discouraging for me to see mamas on the PAL board who lost their babies right around the time I lost William and see they're quite pregnant and expecting the same month (or sooner!) than their loss...

I struggle with "Not fair!" and "Why not me?" I always had such an easy time getting pg, I got spoiled. It's been seven months... seven months!! Two more months of "trying" and I'll have been TTC as long as William was alive.

And I know, I know there are so many mamas here who have gone much, much longer than I... which is discouraging, too...







I wonder if I should just give up and accept? I struggle with the idea that maybe it really wasn't meant to be.

I just hate that my last memory of birth will always be death.


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## expatmommy (Nov 7, 2006)

I was the same as you. I never had to think much about getting pregnant before & then after loosing Max it took 8 long months to get sticky pregnant again. I had one early loss at the 3 month mark that was like a slap in the face.







I was despondant.

My pet theory is that when you've had a lot of kids & breastfed a ton, your body shifts into post-partum mode & its kind of out of your control. I've always been blessed to not have AF return after pregnancy for almost 2 yrs. I always thought that was related to breastfeeding, but now I think for some reason my body takes that length of time to shift back into fertile mode. I believe that is what happened to me this time round too.

I think envy and feelings of injustice are so normal after loss, but it is hard to know what to do with them. I hate that I felt so bad & then layered on that was guilty feelings for being so bitter. It was & is messy.

I'm rambling now. I'm sorry it is so hard.







I hope for you.


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## Peacemamalove (Jun 7, 2006)

s


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## Jules09 (Feb 11, 2009)

I have similar feelings, Dawn, although it hasn't been as long for me. I'm at the tail end of my fourth month of trying now (and I just got another BFN today), and it's just feeling like it's not going to happen! It took me 6 months to get pregnant the first time, but I didn't know all the tricks like charting, pre-seed etc. That pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and so then with charting it only took 2 months to get pregnant again with Lachlan. So I thought that this time it would only take me 2 months. Now I'm wondering if the charting even does anything. Or if I'm broken. Or if this will EVER happen! I wish I was pregnant already. And I really wish that you were too, Dawn.

I also had a dream the other night that I got pregnant, and lost that one too. I'm so scared that even if I do get pregnant, it'll just be another loss. Come on, universe, bring on the babies!!


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## Emerging butterfly (May 7, 2009)

Yes...the image of ending a beautiful birthing life with big happy healthy babies dancing on my knee and nursing to sleep with a trauma story of loss, death, and tears makes me feel completely wilted. I can't bear that it would end like that. I also feel to afraid to even try for something different. I was a different person one year ago. November makes the month I became very unexpectedly pregnant with Simon and Alexander. I remember crying in shock....and trusting that it would be alright...that it was meant to be.

But....now what?

I can never go back...and neither can you.

Praying for baby dust to blow your way....and wondering if I can live without it blowing me way too.


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## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Emerging butterfly* 
I can never go back...and neither can you.

Praying for baby dust to blow your way....and wondering if I can live without it blowing me way too.









That's the part that really REALLY sucks. A part of me wants to go back. Why can't I have my happy ending? And is my longing for another baby just... that? That selfish?

On one hand, I'm grateful my body has forced me to wait. Because I can differentiate much better now, six (seven...) months out, than I could at two, three, four... I can remember William and know that I've spent time grieving HIM. Even while TTC, I haven't had a "new life" to focus on and give all my attention to.

On the other hand, acceptance of William's death was/is inevitable... he's gone and there is nothing I can do about that. Acceptance that he was my last baby, though? That's somehow even harder to deal with. Less clear, at the very least. Less definitive.

But am I trying and longing because I want to fix what went wrong? Or do I really want another, different baby than William? It's such a struggle, and I don't trust my own feelings anymore. Before William, I said, "I feel like there's someone missing in our family." Now, of course, someone really is. Maybe that was it? Maybe it really was...

I really wish I knew. Keep trying or give up? I don't know. I really don't know.


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## hippy mum (Aug 12, 2006)

Oh, I'm so sorry and understand. I often thought before our mc that some one was missing. After, of course, some one was missing, but I started to ask myself if that baby was meant to come for just a short time, for what ever reason. To teach us a lesson, to make us stronger etc. Or is there still some one missing. I catch myself wondering that still, and am starting to think maybe that was it, and the family we have is what we have. We should count our blessings and be happy. I'm very sad at that thought, it down right depresses me at the moment.

Sara







Nov would be my dd, so I'm a partner in sadness here.

Everywhere I turn there is a very preg woman or a woman w/ a nb, and I just can't look. I glance away and keep walking. It pulls at the heart.


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## jess_paez (Jul 5, 2008)

i know how you feel. after we lost joslyn we were getting ready to travel to europe for a job. we were there 7 months (spain) and then we were off to italy for the next one. i didn't get pregnant until august 09 and we lost joslyn in june 08. we weren't trying to get pregnant until july 09. i did have a chemical though in april (i o'd right after my period and didn't plan for a pregnancy). it was tough waiting! people who lost their babies months after i lost joslyn were heavily pregnant/giving birth when i started trying again in july-very hard.







s mama


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## WaitingForKiddos (Nov 30, 2006)

Right there with you.

When we got pregnant the very first month that we weren't actively avoiding I thought it was so meant to be. Then the unthinkable. Now I'm on a wire....did I get pregnant easily as a fluke (easy to think as we have been trying with perfect timing since Aug) or was o just ready so it happened (easy to believe as last month was my first normal cycle).

I feel so unsure about my body's ability to do anything, pregnancy in general, and life/god/universe being after my best interests.

Also..thanks for that pm the other day dawn. It was sucky at first but I grew alot from it.


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## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *WaitingForKiddos* 
Also..thanks for that pm the other day dawn. It was sucky at first but I grew alot from it.


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## Emerging butterfly (May 7, 2009)

Yesterday, when I was sobbing AGAIN in my husbands arms about how sad I was about losing Simon and Alexander....he hinted gently that he wondered if I wanted to try again...that he was willing if I wanted it that badly...that even though he felt that it might be better to NOT go down that road again, he'd be o.k....and even happy if we did in spite of logic.

I found myself sobbing "NO!!! I can't...I am too terrified...I can't...."

He understood. He is too. But he was willing....and it meant the world to me to know that for sure.

But yes....I have the same wonderings...do I want my babies back or do I just want another baby. I can't have my babies back....so that's just a big fat NO...and there are no guarentees that I will or should have another baby. What if this was just a big "YOU ARE DONE" exclamation, so that I'd never wonder....but all it really did....was make me wonder forever.

am I selfish?

Why would anyone in her right mind add more to so much?

Am I greedy?

Am I a baby-holic?

Is there something wrong with me that won't let me get over the deaths of my twins when mamas ALL OVER THE WORLD can't have even ONE, or the ones they do have die of starvation or disease in their laps?

I have five. I lost five. I'm in agony over two.

would having another baby make it all better? would I be CRAZY with worry and anxiety the whole pregnancy making my uterus a toxic environment filled with stress hormones?

Dawn....I love your honesty....thank you for sharing.

It IS so very very hard....so hard.

and so unfair.

No one should have to wonder...no one should lose a baby. ever.

not ever.


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## jess_paez (Jul 5, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Emerging butterfly* 
Yesterday, when I was sobbing AGAIN in my husbands arms about how sad I was about losing Simon and Alexander....he hinted gently that he wondered if I wanted to try again...that he was willing if I wanted it that badly...that even though he felt that it might be better to NOT go down that road again, he'd be o.k....and even happy if we did in spite of logic.

I found myself sobbing "NO!!! I can't...I am too terrified...I can't...."

He understood. He is too. But he was willing....and it meant the world to me to know that for sure.

But yes....I have the same wonderings...do I want my babies back or do I just want another baby. I can't have my babies back....so that's just a big fat NO...and there are no guarentees that I will or should have another baby. What if this was just a big "YOU ARE DONE" exclamation, so that I'd never wonder....but all it really did....was make me wonder forever.

am I selfish?

Why would anyone in her right mind add more to so much?

Am I greedy?

Am I a baby-holic?

Is there something wrong with me that won't let me get over the deaths of my twins when mamas ALL OVER THE WORLD can't have even ONE, or the ones they do have die of starvation or disease in their laps?

I have five. I lost five. I'm in agony over two.

would having another baby make it all better? would I be CRAZY with worry and anxiety the whole pregnancy making my uterus a toxic environment filled with stress hormones?

Dawn....I love your honesty....thank you for sharing.

It IS so very very hard....so hard.

and so unfair.

No one should have to wonder...no one should lose a baby. ever.

not ever.

to answer your questions, no. no. no. no. no. no. no. and the last 1...no, but it won't be a piece of cake either. you will have anxiety, but you're strong. you will find the strength you didn't think you had. so happy your hubby is willing.


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## ladyjools (May 25, 2009)

i can really relate to this, i want to be pregnant so bad that to even think to much about it hurts me to much,
it took me 5 years to concieve Samson and then we lost him so it feels so unfair
god knows how long it will take this time
i feel so discoraged sometimes









Jools


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## Emerging butterfly (May 7, 2009)

jess....


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## ArtsyHeartsy (Nov 11, 2008)

I'm sorry Dawn. I hope you can find some peace no matter what happens, I know 7 months is a long time, but maybe it is your body just helping you take some time. It's all so frustrating. Is it possible to just stop "trying" for a while and just give yourself a break? I know, easier said than done huh? If someone asked me that I would have said no.


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## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

Maybe I'm just fooling myself that it's actually a choice. I'm such a control-freak (go figure...







) and I've wondered (when I can step outside my controlling self







) that maybe all of this maneuvering and twisting and turning and trying and trying is all just my way of trying to control the uncontrollable.

William's death was the ultimate loss of control.

My ego wants to DO something, to FIX it. I can't, of course, as we all know and keep saying. There's no fixing the unfixable. But another baby would be ... a little justice. Not a lot, but a little. It would restore some sense of order. Somehow.

But I think that's a false belief.

And a selfish one.

When I stop thinking about myself and my ego and everything I WANT, when I let go and surrender (in those brief, shining moments that's possible) I feel the weight of my son's death like a drowning stone, and his loss in the world is so profound... I feel my own pain and the pain of everyone who never knew him, who was never touched by his light...

And beyond, above, past, into that... I also feel a longing for a new life, someone here in my arms, in our lives, another light to protect and encourage and watch shine out into the world... not for me, but for you, for everyone, to have a small part in bringing another glorious light to life... what a gift we are...

They are separate things, but emeshed, too, somehow.

And there is nothing I can do about either of them, my pain or my longing. No matter how many sticks I pee on, how many times I take my temperature, how many high-tech monitors I buy, the universe is going to get its way. My son died, and I may or may not be blessed with another child, and there is nothing, nothing I can do to change what will be.

Is that true? I don't know. It feels true. And I hate it.

Quote:

Dawn....I love your honesty....thank you for sharing.
And I love yours, and you.









If we can't be honest with ourselves, now, after what we've been through, we're just...hopeless...


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## bluewatergirl (Jul 26, 2007)

Dawn,







.


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## WaitingForKiddos (Nov 30, 2006)

What is helping me is to tell myself over and over....getting pregnant is just science. Sperm + Egg. That's it. I have 100% of the control to see that they have every oppurtunity to meet and that's all I can do.

Praying won't get me pregnant.
FF won't get me pregnant.
Promising myself and god all sorts of crazy things won't get me pregnant.

This was kinda hard to grasp. It came with seeing that something/one/god/universe/whatever let me feel the joy of pregnancy and then the grief of loss. I have to believe that the scence aspect of it (babies can't grow without amniotic fluid and sacs break because of infections/irritation/weakness and that sex makes babies) or _nothing_ will seem like it wasn't a personal attack towards me. I have to believe that no one is controlling the science that can keep me from getting pregnant, could have corrected the pProm, or can make it either happen all over again, or not, at their whim.


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## hippy mum (Aug 12, 2006)

Dawn









Sarah-that's great your dh is there







I wouldn't try to make a decision on trying or not, just let what happens happen, kwim? I think pregnancy for anyone who's had a loss is a scary thing.


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## Jules09 (Feb 11, 2009)

I'm feeling so discouraged today that I could cry. After a BFN on FMU and SMU (just to be sure







) today, I just feel soooooooo frustrated and upset. Why can't I be pregnant already? Why couldn't I get pregnant the first, or second, or third (or most likely fourth) month trying? Why did I wait three months after the c-section, only to not be able to get pregnant? Why does it have to be so hard to have a baby? It's been almost 2 years since we started trying, and all I've got is a miscarriage and a dead baby. It seems too unfair. Too cruel. Too much for a person to handle. Waaaaaaaaaa!! All this waiting, anticipation, hope and disappointment is driving me crazy!


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## Amy&4girls (Oct 30, 2006)

I'm so sorry..my thoughts are w/each of you.


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## Vespertina (Sep 30, 2006)

Oh, Dawn.







Many, many hugs, mama. I definitely understand. Sending you TTC mamas lots of baby dust.


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## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *WaitingForKiddos* 
I have to believe that the science aspect of it (babies can't grow without amniotic fluid and sacs break because of infections/irritation/weakness and that sex makes babies) or _nothing_ will seem like it wasn't a personal attack towards me.

Yeah, I get that. I've had those thoughts, too. And I can swing from one to the other... I'm all in control... or I'm not. Crazymaking.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Jules09* 
I'm feeling so discouraged today that I could cry. After a BFN on FMU and SMU (just to be sure







) today, I just feel soooooooo frustrated and upset. Why can't I be pregnant already? Why couldn't I get pregnant the first, or second, or third (or most likely fourth) month trying? Why did I wait three months after the c-section, only to not be able to get pregnant? Why does it have to be so hard to have a baby? It's been almost 2 years since we started trying, and all I've got is a miscarriage and a dead baby. It seems too unfair. Too cruel. Too much for a person to handle. Waaaaaaaaaa!! All this waiting, anticipation, hope and disappointment is driving me crazy!

It IS unfair. The injustice... the continuing injustice... astounds me.

I think we all need to go out for margaritas!


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## calmom (Aug 11, 2002)

i get it too. in the beginning, i was so desperate to be pg again but now... i'm not. i can't decide if it is "right" for me to have another baby. do i deserve another baby just because mine died? that's how it feels to me now.

money is tight, 4 kids, homeschooling all of them and running a business at home? what business do i have doing this again? but then i think a new LIFE is ALWAYS good, always a blessing. and then i realize this whole thought process is all about ME!!! i'm so selfish i can barely stand to hear myself think.

and after saying all of this, dh and i haven't done anything to really prevent pg since the second cycle after Matthew died. so despite all these fears, i'm still willing to let the universe decide for me.


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## ~Mamaterra~ (Jul 5, 2006)

I think that is why I keep coming back to this forum, 1 1/2 years after our last loss, I can't let go.

How can someone have 5 back to back m/c? How can someone end their reproductive life with 6 lost babies? How can I let go? I don't want to, I want those babies back....

Time doesn't seem to make it any easier. The ship to crazy sailed a long time ago......

I understand your pain and frustration Dawn and I'm sorry that you understand it too.


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## Emerging butterfly (May 7, 2009)

Here we all are...with our "why's" and "WTF's"....seriously. It is unbelievable!

I was having a memory this morning....of myself teaching a childbirth class years and years ago. Was it another LIFETIME? There is this smiley confident frizzy haired mama, nursing her two year old.....believing that the most common outcome of birth is life. Trusting that babies that are made...will come...and without interventions.

Knowing that miscarriages happen...but...not often, and that dead babies were largely a thing of the PAST.

BUT IT WAS NOT TRUE.

It happens all the time. It happened to all of us...and countless others.

Not only does it happen all the time....but it often happens to the SAME women again and again!! I've lost FIVE babies. FIVE. Granted...I also have five living sons. I used to think that the first three loses must have been girls...for balance sake....but my twins were boys. and there wasn't anything wrong with them. it wasn't "natures way". I hate it when people say that...as if babies with problems are weeded out through miscarriage....what about all the babies born with problems??? If that is natures way......??? No.....it has nothing to do with that. It's just a crap shoot.

at least that's how I feel. Like I got a lousy hand. Like we ALL got lousy hands.

Here we are.....some of the most WONDERFUL women I've ever met....and we are all crying. WHY?

We all have different stories....

and they all suck.

no matter how many blessings and silver linings we get to see along the way, the long and the short of it is that these stories...well....it seems like the SHOULD have been different.

We can make it possible for a decrepit 98 year old man to enjoy an erection with a pill. But we can't stop loving mamas from losing their beautiful babies!?? WTF!!

Not fair.

Not at all.

I am NOT happy with this.

I never will be.

It is NOT fair!!!


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## Sonnet (Mar 4, 2009)

Nothing much to say today. Too raw. Just know that I'm right there with you.


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## ~Mamaterra~ (Jul 5, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Emerging butterfly* 
Here we all are...with our "why's" and "WTF's"....seriously. It is unbelievable!

I was having a memory this morning....of myself teaching a childbirth class years and years ago. Was it another LIFETIME? There is this smiley confident frizzy haired mama, nursing her two year old.....believing that the most common outcome of birth is life. Trusting that babies that are made...will come...and without interventions.

Knowing that miscarriages happen...but...not often, and that dead babies were largely a thing of the PAST.

BUT IT WAS NOT TRUE.

It happens all the time. It happened to all of us...and countless others.

Not only does it happen all the time....but it often happens to the SAME women again and again!! I've lost FIVE babies. FIVE. Granted...I also have five living sons. I used to think that the first three loses must have been girls...for balance sake....but my twins were boys. and there wasn't anything wrong with them. it wasn't "natures way". I hate it when people say that...as if babies with problems are weeded out through miscarriage....what about all the babies born with problems??? If that is natures way......??? No.....it has nothing to do with that. It's just a crap shoot.

at least that's how I feel. Like I got a lousy hand. Like we ALL got lousy hands.

Here we are.....some of the most WONDERFUL women I've ever met....and we are all crying. WHY?

We all have different stories....

and they all suck.

no matter how many blessings and silver linings we get to see along the way, the long and the short of it is that these stories...well....it seems like the SHOULD have been different.

We can make it possible for a decrepit 98 year old man to enjoy an erection with a pill. But we can't stop loving mamas from losing their beautiful babies!?? WTF!!

Not fair.

Not at all.

I am NOT happy with this.

I never will be.

It is NOT fair!!!









I know how you feel. IT JUST ISN'T FAIR TO LOSE A BABY, BUT SIX
that is inconcievable even as a bad nightmare.

What justice is there for women like us, dealing with such an unfathomable enormity of loss?


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## namaste_mom (Oct 21, 2005)

MI (((HUGS))) No words of wisdom just hugs.

My Mom used to say to me quite often "Life is not fair, you've got to live with it" There are rich people, poor people, fertile people, infertile people, people who struggle with depression, those who are enternal optimists....we have to deal with the hand we are deal. It is fair, NO WAY. Absolutely not. Do we have to move forward. Yes, somehow. We all must find our own way.
(((HUGS))) to all.


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## CherryBomb (Feb 13, 2005)

Oh mamas


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## Cuddlebaby (Jan 14, 2003)

hugs hugs hugs sweetie.


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## MI_Dawn (Jun 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *namaste_mom* 
"Life is not fair, you've got to live with it"

Yeah... but I don't have to like it!


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## Emerging butterfly (May 7, 2009)

I know...I always tell my boys that life isn't fair. But....shouldn't it be?

My father, who believes staunchly in karma is apt to think life IS fair, and that we deserve everything we get. Either from past lives, or from this one.

Somehow knowing he believes that makes me want to punch his lights out.

Somehow, the idea that he sits in his chair thinking that I did something to deserve this kind of pain makes me furious.

I deserved to be molested as a child? I deserved negligent, abusive parents? I deserved to come close to starving in New York at 17 while I lived in a terrible neighborhood because my parents couldn't give a damn about me? I deserved to have my brilliant eldest son smashed on the pavement with a brain injury that would alter EVERYTHING in our lives and slap a million bills on us that I will NEVER be able to pay off? I deserved to hold dead babies in my arms?

If that's true. I sincerely give the universe a hearty middle finger because I must have been one serious asshole in my last life!!!

But...

I don't believe that's how it works. Too simplistic. Too easy. Too much evidence to tell me that it's not true. Life isn't fair. The things that happen to us aren't because we were "good or bad" in another life. God isn't an ethereal Santa with a good and naughty list that he checks off twice to make sure we learned our lesson. He doesn't dish out spankings life times later to teach us not to do bad things. bad things happen to good people. all. the. time. for. NO. reason. Great loving mothers lose their children. People with all kinds of promise and spark die or suffer tragic accidents. Children are abused. Neglected. People are killed in their homes. Babies starve. children are sold into prostitution. grandmothers are mugged on the streets. Babies die. Babies die, and take their mothers hearts with them.... for no reason. no reason.

no reason.

Hey dad....would it rock your world to understand that life isn't fair???

it isn't fair. You wonderful women are all PROOF to me that it isn't.

a crap shoot.

I tell my kids life isn't fair.

because it isn't.

They don't like that it isn't fair....

who would?


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## colorclash (Jul 14, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Emerging butterfly* 

My father, who believes staunchly in karma is apt to think life IS fair, and that we deserve everything we get. Either from past lives, or from this one.

Somehow knowing he believes that makes me want to punch his lights out.

Somehow, the idea that he sits in his chair thinking that I did something to deserve this kind of pain makes me furious.


My sister threw this in my face a few weeks back as well. She said I was a horrible person and I deserved the bad things that have happened to me. Her words CUT ME TO THE CORE. I know I'm not a bad person, but for a minute, I questioned myself. Am I am bad person? DO I deserve this? Then I remembered that bad things do happen to good people. Life isn't fair. I haven't done anything to deserve this pain, and I don't think you all have either. Things just happen and it hurts.


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## TTC Catholic (Jul 7, 2008)

Dawn,







I'm so sorry for all you are experiencing. You're right - it doesn't seem fair. It hurts so much knowing that some people can get pregnant so easily and just take their fertility and healthy babies for granted (well, not really take them for granted, but just not be able to appreciate it on a level that any woman who has experienced infertility and/or loss could). My husband and I have been through a very pain-filled journey, and we are still very uncertain as to what our future holds. Growing up, all I ever wanted was to be a mom. Although I am a mom, I never thought by the time I was 32, I would be completely uncertain as to whether or not I would ever have a baby to bring home. We have been TTC for almost two and a half years. After 15 months of trying, I became pregnant with Aiden, and we lost him at eight and a half weeks. And of course, everyone around me was pregnant or had just had a baby. I remember I was in my OB's office for a follow up visit after the miscarriage. I was waiting in an exam room for my doctor, and I could hear through the walls into the next room where a pregnant woman was being examined. I heard her baby's heartbeat on the monitor, and my heart just shattered all over again. I know this is very painful for all of us. I do know that this is in God's hands, and I need to trust in His will, but it's still very difficult. I get really upset when people tell me, "I just know it's going to happen for you". I know they mean well, but they DON'T know that it will happen. I know it's very difficult when you want a baby so much, and it just doesn't seem to be happening. You are in my prayers.

~ Kristin


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