So Joseph's birthday was a while ago now, and this year it seems to have been better for me in terms of not dwelling on the past, and avoiding playing "the game" - this time two years ago.... Last year every day I was plagued by replaying key dates in hospital.
However, at the moment I am plagued by something else, related but not the same. I long to be pregnant again. There, I said it. Even sex seems pointless because I can't get pregnant. And its making me miserable.
We made the decision early on after Joseph's arrival that we wouldn't try for more babies. My husband decided to have a vasectomy, he didn't want me to have to go through any more upheaval in terms of hormones, having had a rough time after Joseph was born.
I've been reminiscing, almost without being conscious of it, about how it felt to pregnant. I felt my first outside movements at 24 weeks, lying on a mattress at my sister in laws house, early one morning, and felt my baby kick my hand. On that same holiday we went swimming at Bali Thermes in Germany, and I could feel the baby swirl and duck and dive as I swum. We called it "the flippy turny thing".
Early in the 26th week I bought a linen maternity dress, I never did find the strength to send it back. It sits in my wardrobe still, virtually unworn. A reminder I guess, that once, briefly, I was pregnant.
I feel guilty because I really hated being pregnant, in a way. I really wanted to enjoy it, but every day I felt frightened. I was sure there was something wrong. It felt perilous, I never felt that the baby was safe. And I so wish I had been wrong, but I was dead on. My baby, and myself, were in danger.
But it wasn't all bad. By around 23 weeks I started to enjoy it a bit more, and we had our two week holiday to Luxemburg and Germany, visiting family, swimming and eating icecream!
Even if we had decided to try again, chances are I would have had pre eclampsia again, and even if not, I would have had very rigorous monitoring, I'd be on methyldopa from the outset of pregnancy, and I would be on aspirin. It wouldn't be enjoyable, and it wouldn't be fair on Joseph, or myself or my poor husband who found the whole thing enormously stressful.
But I long for it, a deep psychological, even physiological longing.
And I can't stop crying. Which feels terribly self indulgent, because I have my baby, I am very very blessed and very lucky, but I still can't help the feelings. And does it feel better having written it down?
No. Not really. I just wish I knew how to feel better. How to stop it.
