Carrying Love in My Heart and Life in My Womb:Exploring Life and Pregnancy after Stillbirth

Originally Published March 26, 2017

The last time I posted publicly, I wrote an open love letter to my husband Eli. Writing that letter, our love story, was rewarding and humbling. The words begged for release as I rapidly typed the story. The inspiration poured out of me. It was compulsive. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to.

I haven’t felt that urge in a while. I haven’t had the energy or the guts or the inspiration to share.

Feeling disconnected from writing reminds me what a gift my words are. What a blessing it is to write down my thoughts and feelings. My words have never rolled their eyes at me or said the wrong thing in response. They never scoff at me or tell me to get over myself. They linger within me and when they are ready, they come out — jumbled, messy and misspelled or fluid and eloquent. Either way, they never complain and can always be rearranged.

My words are willing to change. Ideas percolate and transform within me. Bubbling from my subconscious to the surface, they gasp for air. My mind is the spring. The water runs clear and pure and refreshing. Drink up. Then it is stagnant and slow. Steer clear, don’t drink that water.

My words keep me up at night and exhaust me with their need to be born. But they ease my mind and nurture my spirit just the same. I wouldn’t have made it this far without them. As my story unfolds and my grief for Poppy’s death turns to something new, I will nurture these words and see what they bring to life.

That brings me to the present moment and something I’m excited to share: I’m pregnant. Eleven weeks today. One night in early February, I took a pregnancy test before Eli and I went out dancing. I wasn’t expecting the double lines, but my intuition knew. I stared in excited disbelief as the second blue line appeared on the stick. We’d done it. We were ready and another spirit had chosen us too.

I called Eli into the bathroom and waived the test strip excitedly before his face. He burst into a grin and we kissed to celebrate our good fortune. I looked at myself in the mirror. Tears welled up and I took a deep breath. Everything was going to change, again. The Universe was giving me another chance to be a mother, and I want it desperately.

We started ‘trying’ back in October after celebrating what would have been our daughter’s first birthday. I put trying in quotes because Poppy was a surprise. We conceived her without the pressure of checking temperatures and evaluating cervical fluid and timing sex and waiting two excruciating weeks only to have another period start again. This new pregnancy required a bit of calculating. It was stressful. It was fun. And fortunately, it didn’t take us too long.

These last two months have been a mix of emotions and mental processing. I’m seeing a perinatologist at a specialty clinic and I’m approaching this pregnancy differently than I did with Poppy. That’s normal after loss. I’m reading “Pregnancy After A Loss: A Guide to Pregnancy after a Miscarriage, Stillbirth or Infant Death” by Carol Cirulli Lanham. I couldn’t be more grateful that Lanham, whose son Patrick was stillborn, dedicated herself to such an empowering project. I’m learning that my fear and anxiety surrounding this second pregnancy is not only common, it is expected. Reading this book is giving me healthy perspective as well as permission to be excited and scared.

Who am I going to be during this pregnancy? I have a choice. I have the power to manifest something beautiful. When I slip into that peaceful place, my brain lurches me back to the reality that I can make every right decision and ultimately I have no control over the fate of this growing child. Just like I had no control over Poppy’s.

I’ve come to believe through meditation and spiritual exploration that Poppy’s spirit received what she needed while she grew inside me for those 279 glorious days before her little heart stopped beating. What will this new spirit need? How long will this heart beat? I don’t have the answers. My heart desperately wants to know. Sometimes I think I’m crazy for trying again.

For those of you who just found me, I’m grateful you’re here. For those of you who have been reading along since the beginning, I am indebted to you. Your energy is palpable and I need you. You see me. Thank you for witnessing my journey.

I’m excited to see where this pregnancy takes me — spiritually, emotionally, and physically. While Poppy lives in my heart, my new baby lives in my womb. I’m protecting myself, for better or worse. My prayer is that my heart will open to this new life and slowly but surely this new life will burst my heart wide open, again.