I remember in nursing school, learning through a textbook about different coping mechanisms. If you’ve ever taken a psychology course, you probably have too. You know, “appraisal focused” where you change your mindset and revise your thoughts, e.g denial. Then, there’s the “problem-focused” where you change your behavior to deal with a problem or challenge. And of course, “emotion-focused” where you change your emotions to tolerate or eliminate the stress. You can get defensive, you can avoid, you can attack, you can adapt. There are stages of grief we’re supposed to go through when faced with something like this.
- Denial : This can’t be happening to us again.
- Anger: I can’t believe this is happening to us again. I hear stories on the news every day of people throwing their babies in the trash. IN THE LITERAL TRASH. I hear stories of babies dying because their parents drugged them, beat them, MURDERED them. We have so much love to give. We have worked hard and we have so much more than most. Why. Why the HELL is this happening to us again?
- Bargaining : Maybe this is happening because of something I did. Maybe if I stop drinking coffee, or I exercise more, maybe it could change or reverse the course of this horrible nightmare we’re in. Maybe it was because of medications I have been taking. I wish I could go back and undo it all. If only I could just go back.
- Depression : Crying every day in the shower and before bed thinking about meeting another beautiful baby that we will have to say goodbye to. Thinking about his perfect little nose, cute toes, and broken little heart.
- Acceptance : Peace. We know what’s going to happen. We have talked through all the scenarios ad nauseam. We have made a decision that we feel is right for our unborn son, for our family. We have been dealt a really shitty hand and it’s our choice how we handle it. There is nothing we can do to change what’s going to happen.
As difficult as these conversations are, and as much as I never ever in a million years thought I’d be having them with my spouse, they have come really easy for us. We have always had great communication and we are able to get on the same page pretty quickly. There have been a few situations where we’ve had to concede and we’ve had to compromise. But at the end of the day, we share the same fundamental beliefs and our decision came fairly easily.
We certainly do differ, though, in how we’re coping. I’m writing a blog. I share our story with everyone we’re close to. And some that we’re not. It helps for me to talk about it, because I cannot keep it all to myself. Barry probably thinks I’m an oversharer. He deals with things more quietly and keeps to himself. He doesn’t want everyone to “know our business”. Maybe because he’s not the pregnant one who has to endure ALLLLL the questions. “Is this your first baby?” “How far along are you?” “Is it a boy or a girl?” “You must be so excited“.
And so, I write. Also, I have discovered I’ve begun to subconsciously detach from the baby and the pregnancy. Man, it sounds awful saying that out loud. Someone asked me how far along I was the other day. I couldn’t actually remember. I think that the clock stopped at 17 weeks and 4 days. Obviously, I know it hasn’t, but in my mind and as some sort of dysfunctional coping mechanism, it has. So I’m writing this particular post at 21 weeks and 4 days. I only know this because I had an ultrasound yesterday.
I had no idea just how much I had detached from the baby until yesterday, when I went to the doctors and had an ultrasound. I began to sob when she took a snapshot of his little profile. “What a cute little kid”. The past four weeks he’s been a diagnosis. A prognosis. The centerpiece of the worst case scenario for any parent. And seeing his perfect little face was just too much at that moment. Because he’s an actual human. A baby boy we created, that we didn’t know we wanted until we found out we wouldn’t be raising him after all.
So many people keep telling me that I’m so strong. I have some work to do, though. I have to cherish the moments that I feel him kick. I need to think of this as my time with him. Where he is safe, not suffering. Where he is still alive. I need to change my mindset and revise my thoughts.