My Dark Side

So, I almost feel as though this post will need a disclaimer: Readers be aware, the following includes bleak, hopeless thinking, morbid humour, and too much personal information. 

I reached 20 weeks yesterday and instead of having that function as a milestone achieved, a halfway mark, I feel worse. My mood is lower.. I feel more down than I have in recent days. Getting this far was miracle enough, what are the chances I can really double it? Or more? And on top of that, the chances of two babies coming from this pregnancy seem so low, why have hope for both? Why think about the pregnancy as a 'twin' pregnancy when it is more like a complicated singleton pregnancy? I continue to feel movement (positive) but I am generally unable to tell who is moving. At the last ultrasound we were told the babies were transverse with both of their heads to my left. We also saw Baby B basically kicking Baby A in the head. Jokes about sibling rivalry were made, but it put a lot of doubt in my mind. If Baby B has so much range of motion, then no matter where I feel something, it could simply be Baby B. On top of that, I have been leaking daily. Basically sometime between 06h00 and 09h00 while I am sleeping I lose what I assume to be the amount of fluid accumulated in a 24 hour period. It is so disheartening every time it happens. Little Baby A must have been blocking the major area of the rupture a few weeks ago when I was able to retain just a little bit. But losing it regularly... my poor little Pea is unlikely to have the opportunity to work on those little lungs if the fluid is leaving every 24 hours. Between that - which in my mind is worse lately - and all the other strikes against the baby... it is so hard to have hope for it at all. 

I noticed yesterday that my mood was lower. My sister noticed too. I didn't attribute it to much, but it was upon reflection this morning that I started noticing other changes. For example, about 3 days after I ruptured in August Lee and I talked about taking a trip. I framed/tried to sell it to him in three different ways: 1) I will be turning 30 in November, why wouldn't we go somewhere with our daughter and celebrate the big 3-0? 2) The pregnancy will have ended by then and this can serve as a marker of us moving forward as a family and recognizing that we still have one another or 3) I've lost two children - it's my 'Dead Baby' trip. Who's going to say no to that? Anyways, Lee, the positive man that he is was only swayed by #1 and #2, but I have continued to make reference to my 'Dead Baby' trip nonetheless. In our first days back home and on bed rest I did lots of searching and put together some ideas for an extravagant, EllaGrace-friendly, somewhat affordable trip. I haven't actually looked at trips since then. Until yesterday. Yesterday I looked at time share opportunities (through my in-laws) and resorts... getaways.. ways to forget. The fact that I have restarted thinking about my 'Dead Baby' trip seems to be a clear reflection of how hopeless I am feeling. The statistics and the time we have to go for real viability is daunting, overwhelming and paralyzing. 

In the mean time, I (we) have been wrestling with names. We still have our original short list of names. We now have a list of names which are reflective of the journey of this pregnancy, whether or not the little Peas have long lives outside of the womb. I have a couple of unisex names. But, you know what? I cannot settle on names without knowing the actual sex. I come up with names that I think I like, but then I end up trying to put them into full names and they become gender specific. It seems like giving them names would be helpful to build an identity for each of them, to feel as if I know them.. but then, they just seem like arbitrary names that I might not have chosen had I had more information. Add that to the list of things outside of my control that I torture myself with.

Now that I have written out how I am feeling, I can hear friends and family reminding me that thinking positively is better for both the babies and I. I remind myself of the quote "where there is life, there is hope". I try to balance my thinking... at the very least distract myself... but you know what? That's damn hard. I believe that I have to prepare myself for whatever outcome. I have information in my email about a funeral home that will cremate my children's bodies and I have a friend designing and making an urn. That's a dark email account. My babies still have an awful prognosis. They do not have names. They do not even have an article of clothing or a toy to call their own. I am stalling and slow on all of my decisions - nothing is good enough or easy enough. I do not even get a break in my rest - my dreams are bad dreams, nightmares of having my children die, disappear or, on a good night, just your run-of-the-mill axe murderer dreams. 

So yes, I do need to balance my thinking. But yesterday and today, I have been unable to do so. And that too, is a part of this journey. Acknowledging the possible outcomes, trying to prepare myself for the unimaginable. Better days will come, or it will end. This is where I am at today.

Facebook status of the day: Stuck, powerless, alone... but honest