Miscarriages, naming babies and moving on

[lilbit022009]

Hi,

I am so hopeful this month. I am ovulating now. Finally a normal cycle since being off the ring and I'm hopeful. Don't care about gender but I would love a healthy baby.  I'm trying to not look at it as stressing out or being paranoid. But I believe that being paranoid means having total awareness...don't you? Lol, it's hard to not focus on something you want so much.

I have been thinking lately about the babies I have lost and mistakes I have made in my life. I realize we all do this but I think as women we carry a special burden with us because we can bring life, deliver life. I am sure I am not the only woman to also carry the guilt that goes with the choice to have an abortion at a time in my life when there was no way I could have supported myself, let alone another life and the guilt I felt when I had miscarriages. I wondered if God wasn't punishing me in some way, that I had done something wrong where my babies would be taken from me. I don't think men understand that hollow feeling of loss the way we do.

I still remember the ultrasound picture from my last miscarriage (June 07) when the tech told me my uterus was "mishapen and unnatural". I also lost a baby in 2002 on a flight back to the United States from England. I spent over 10 hours in the bathroom "passing" what I thought was my cycle until I looked down and saw everything was black. I just cried and cried. People were knocking on the door to use the restroom but I was hurting so bad I had trouble standing.

I make it a point to think about those times in my life. I am not the type of person to bury my head in the sand and forget about it. My Mom says you shouldn't dwell on the past but if I don't remember the times that were important to me, I think that means that those babies meant nothing and that's not true. I need to talk about it, even as my life has evolved now, I'm a different person than the girl I was then, but I still need to know that I haven't forgotten about them. I don't know if they were all boys, girls, or both. I would lose them so early on that it would have been too hard to detect gender. But I still see them as my babies.

Is it wrong to give a baby now a name you would have given a child before had that child survived? I feel so horrible for even asking that.

My girlfriends, have suffered similar fates wanting babies, trying for babies, get pregnant and then lose baby, after baby, after baby until fertility specialists advise that the endometriosis has enveloped to the point that a hysterectomy is the only option but you consider yourself a lucky mama to have adopted twin boys even if you couldn't carry your own. But you look at the twin that survived and wonder if his brother would have shared your son's shy personality and sweet smile or would he have been outgoing? Or another girlfriend that's babies to the point that you're financially strapped and will never be able to move out of the tiny 2 bedroom apartment but you're the happiest girl in the world, kissing your kid's foreheads as they fall asleep, you close the door and finish laundry before it's your bedtime.

We as women are the most amazing creatures. We can give life, sustain life, deliver life, be a surrogate for life and no matter what's happened to us we refuse to fail, fall behind or admit defeat. We struggle, laugh, pray, love, nuture, exist, conquer, teach, mother, cleanse and we do so because it's who we are.

I am very glad that I joined this website. It's great to know I'm not alone and can ask questions, vent and celebrate with all of you...

~Heather