I was trying to explain that I need help paying more attention to the child I'm carrying now, and somehow the person seemed to take it that I'm feeling like ignoring the one I'm carrying is a better idea. It's not! I understand that I do have to do things to take care of this baby, I'm doing them. Do you think I like taking three different types of folic acid along with my regular medications? Do you think I like (stupid, but yes, it happens) panicking every time I go to the bathroom? Do you think I like my family panicking every time I start to get up out of a chair or something? NO! I wish I had the words adequate to sink this fact into this person's head - I AM DOING WHAT I MUST TO DO EVERYTHING I CAN FOR THIS BABY, BUT I STILL WANT TO GO AHEAD AND BURY MY CHILD'S ASHES AND I DEFINITELY WANT THEM TO DO A TUBAL LIGATION AFTER THIS NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS! IF - and I do mean IF - this child lives, it doesn't mean that everything will be fine and I will have tons of kids in future! Yes, the living do have to take precedence over the dead - but that doesn't mean that the dead cease to exist or that someone asking for help to balance acknowledging a death while facing new life possibly coming through is focused on death. My mother even occasionally calls a cousin my child's name without realizing it because she's about the same age, makes me laugh and cry at the same time just about because if she'd lived then they would have had name mix-ups too, that's one thing she has that she would have had if she'd lived so I don't point it out to her.

Agh, sorry people, I just couldn't take this reaction to what I was trying to say and perhaps it is just that when I speak in actuality I can't make myself very clear. Maybe if I get the guts up to ask for help again I should write it out first and read my statement off the page like most politicians do.

I do mostly ignore this child I'm carrying. I think I'll have to put myself out there at some point, if we get that far together, let myself consider attaching and think about names and count kicks and all those things you do, but right now? I take my vitamins, I don't drink or smoke or eat sushi, I arrange for prenatal care, but that's pretty much it. My life right now is about my two sons - my living son and my dead son and sometimes I stop to hope that this life will join us someday (maybe even in the living category) but otherwise, I ignore it. I don't know if that's where you are - but I think we have to find a perspective we can cope with to get through this.

with my 2nd pregnancy I was the same... but I set myself a limit - if all was fine at the 12 week check up I'd have to suck it up and open my heart to this child. All was fine... I didn't yet open my heart. I wasn't ready. Eventually, there came a day when I was ready. I sorted through all the baby things and divided them into what was special and to be kept aside in remembrance of Sophia, what was not sentimental and would be practically useful for 2nd baby and what was just butt ugly and would be given to charity :)

There was healing in this sorting process. I ripped tags off and washed clothes - no returns, no turning back. Time to let myself believe that this was it.