Hope for life

Am I the only one who walks around wondering what happened to my life?

I often lie awake at night thinking that it shouldn't be like this. What happened?

I was always a firm believer in the saying "the best is yet to come". When I saw the film "As good as it gets" I was very offended by it. The concept that the best is "now" or (even worse) already behind us is terrifying.

But what if that is the case? Does anyone else wonder that?

What if for the rest of my life I will be but a poor reflection of the person I used to be? That person who was full of hope and optimism for the future?

The only hope I have at this moment is my pregnancy … the hope that the outcome of this pregnancy will be a healthy living baby who lives long enough to bury me and my husband. But what if that wish fails to come true? What if this baby doesn't live … what then? Where will my hope go then?

This is what the Cambridge dictionary says about hope:
noun: something good that you want to happen in the future, or a confident feeling about what will happen in the future.
verb: to want something to happen or to be true, and usually have a good reason to think that it might.

I think it's quite safe to say that I'm pinning all my hopes for my future on this pregnancy. I'm hoping that this child will live and give me a chance to be an active parent. That this child will give me a reason for further hope. A hope that I will see a child grow and learn to talk and call me "mum".

Although my heart breaks for all mums who have lost children, my heart breaks much more for mums who lose their chance to actively parent any living child in life. People who choose (after losses) not to have any more pregnancies or people who have that choice taken away from them -- and who do not have ANY living children. I can imagine how they must feel. I'm so scared that I will become one of them. A parent of dead children only …

You see if something happened to this baby, I wouldn't only be saying goodbye to this (my third) child, but also to the chance of ever parenting a living child. I would be saying goodbye to a life … my life as an active parent. My whole future would change forever in an instant. When Freyja died I had hope of another child. Even when Kees died I had hope of another child. But if this child dies … there will be no such hope.

Remember Fiona S from my previous blog? She said goodbye to that future.

Before I lost Freyja and Kees, it never occurred to me that some people are forced into that choice. That some women choose to have further pregnancies because they live in hope that the next one will be THE ONE. That eventually their age is against them, or their marriages can't withstand any further traumas and that they are forced to make different choices.

I would like to think that I could have a fourth pregnancy. In my wildest dreams I hope that this third child will live and that I can follow his birth immediately by a fourth pregnancy will which result in a living healthy sibling. In my wildest dreams.

But I forget. I forget that I am 40. I forget that (if all goes well) I will be 41 when this third child is born. I forget that the anxiety I feel during my pregnancies nearly pushes me over the edge every single time. I forget that I promised Craig: no more pregnancies.