Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Incomplete

Before, way before, when my life was moving along according to 'plan', I used to walk by the extra room in our house and wonder if someday, maybe, I'd get that last baby. We never decorated the room, when we bought the house we moved each of the kids into their own rooms, put ourselves in the Master and then sort of left the definition for the last room up in the air. It became a junk room with a desk and a computer and all the crap I didn't know what to do with or didn't want to deal with, ever. Occasionally it became a guest room, for the husband...not for couples counseling but for sleep deprivation issues(mine not his) related to his snooooring. It was never painted and the wallpaper was half way torn down by me in a late night I'm not sleeping so I might as well get something done stupor(obviously before the idea occurred to me to throw the husband out when the snooooring was bad). I always had it in my head that maybe, eventually, it would be a room for another baby. I was waiting for the green light from the master snorer. Which came some 4 years later. Yeah, we move quick, don't we.

I've had three pregnancies since then, one miscarriage, a stillborn son and Cason. I guess in the card game of pregnancy you could say I have a Full House. In total, I've been pregnant six times, My two other C's and another miscarriage. Maybe that makes a Royal Flush? The room has been successfully converted into a nursery for Cason although he only ever spends time on the changing table, not sure when I'll let him sleep that far away from me, but that's a post for another day.

Back then, before, I thought once I had that third baby I would feel it. "It" being the knowing feeling that would come telling me we were done with babymaking. I expected a comfortable peace, a settled in sense of a job well done and maybe even some nostalgia for the end of my fertile self. I thought the third would finish the sentence, put an ending to the story, that the extra room would get an identity and I would feel complete.
Maybe that would have been the case if things had gone according to plan. I never got there so I will never know.
My third child is dead. My fourth child is here with me and still I feel the ache from within calling for another child. And it seems I will never really be able to finish the sentence. In the beginning, in the days right after Cason was born I thought I really wanted another child, to get pregnant right away and have one more, one whose existence wasn't wrapped in all things dead baby. Never mind how unbelievably terrifying the mere idea of being pregnant again was (and is) to me, I just wanted that other baby. Now, while I still like the idea of Cason having a sibling that is closer to his age (all this loss has created a pretty decent gap between him and his sister and more so his brother) I realize that the real longing is for the one who got away. I won't ever get to be finished because one will always be missing. There is no sense of peace, no feeling of that job well done and certainly no nostalgia about the state of my fertility. Instead there is a feeling that I escaped something, that I got away with something, that I am where I wanted to be but I don't belong there. My outsides don't match my insides anymore. I am a misfit. I am and will always be incomplete.

11 comments:

Shannon Ryan said...

I wish I didn't understand. I think I will have more children after this one .. at least one more.. unless the unspeakable happens again.. I try not to think about that.. but I think we will always yearn for that one thing missing from our lives.. a void that no amount of other babies will ever be able to fill.

Sarah said...

It's totally messed up, isn't it? I have 2 but I have 3 but I don't really have 3...sigh. I'm afraid to have another, but it's hard to imagine not having more, like I originally planned. But the plans are all out the window and nothing feels safe.

Get that baby out of your room K - it only gets harder. I spent 2 solid nights watching Sadie on a video monitor, and I still wake up periodically and listen until I hear her breathe. Will it ever feel safe? I don't know...

G$ said...

I haven't even gotten there yet and I still feel like I know what you mean. I told M recently that if we end up with a bunch of leftover embryos from this IVF, I may just end up having babies year after year until I am 40 something.

But you're right. We will never fill that gap. That incompleteness. But I expect we learn to live with it, when common sense and our bodies say there are no more babies to be born.

janis said...

Sigh*
((hugs))
I know what you mean, except I don't know what to say.

Michele said...

Like Shannon, I wish I didnt understand. No matter how many more children we have, three will always be missing.... If I really think about it (and I try not to most times because it hurts too bad), it's more like 8 will always be missing... It's an emptiness that nothing fills... That nothing can ever fill.

Sending you hugs.... and the feeling that you aren't alone...

Cara said...

I hear you. The numbers just don't add up, and - they never will. This is just another of those wonderful party favors we are left with after loss - unequatable math.

((hugs))

Ashleigh said...

Exactly kalakly- you have said it exactly. I have been writing this same post in my head for weeks- I'm realizing that the completion that most women seem to feel when their childbearing days are over will likely never be mine- my family will never feel complete because Owen will always be missing.

Hope's Mama said...

i'm back, i'm here, i'm reading and i'm so sorry you're feeling like this. i sort of wish i knew how this felt, but i do imagine i will feel like it at some point in my future. there will always be one missing.

CLC said...

I think I get it. I think that's what I can't wrap my mind around, that I will be a mom to two soon, yet most people will only see one. And the really f-ed up thing is that being pregnant again has been sheer hell in that it is so terrifying, but I have already started thinking about when I can "try" again because I feel like I am running out of time to have the family we envisioned ourselves with. But we will never really get there, because our first will always be missing.

Heather said...

I like how you put this-

"I thought I really wanted another child, to get pregnant right away and have one more, one whose existence wasn't wrapped in all things dead baby."

That sounds rather lovely to me- a baby without the shadows of being a post-deadbaby baby. Of course, like you said, there will always be a missing one.

It's so unfair that everything has to be so complicated.

Aunt Becky said...

My heart is heavy for you. So very heavy.