Bittersweet Moments

This past week has been hard on us.

Thursday, March 12, is the day that we would have been due with Sparkie. I spent most of last summer thinking about what it would be like to have another March baby, how excited I was for the potential of another Pi Day birthday, and how wonderful it would be to have the rest of the year off after my due date.

So in the lead-up to March 12, I struggled. A lot. It doesn't help that this is a rough time of year at work. So every time I have a stressful moment during the workday, I cannot help but instantly think, "I should be on maternity leave right now." Which then brings stinging tears to my eyes.

For the last several days, I've been having flashbacks to the last days before Greta's birth. Wondering what it would have been like to be preparing for Sparkie's arrival. Remembering what I was doing the day before Greta's due date. The day of Greta's due date. Wondering if things will go the same with Piccola. Knowing that by this point we'd know if Sparkie's birth timeline would have been the same or different.

The weather also perfectly warmed up this week. I feel simultaneously ecstatically happy at the sudden onset of spring, and deeply depressed that I can't be bringing a new life into this world amidst all the freshness of the season. As I start putting away my maternity sweaters and digging around for t-shirts, I remember that if things had gone "as they should have" then I wouldn't have to worry about a change of maternity wardrobe at all. I would have given birth the same week as the onset of spring. I wouldn't have to buy maternity tank tops and shorts and prepare to be 9 months pregnant in the heat and humidity of June and July. At this very moment, I'd be wearing whatever postpartum nursing and loungewear I could dig up, hanging out with a newborn and enjoying a breeze through the open window.

I know that there are no guarantees in life. I know that I should be so grateful and happy for the all-signs-point-to-healthy baby that we are having, and that I should stop fretting over what "might have been." But it's hard. Unbelievably hard. Much harder than I had ever expected. It doesn't help that this is the most emotional part of pregnancy for me. At the beginning of pregnancy I am grumpy and perhaps a bit irrational, but it's the second half of pregnancy when I cry at everything.

Last Wednesday, I turned 24 weeks pregnant. This is a milestone that, if I'm remembering correctly, marks the start of when doctors would make every attempt to save the baby's life if she were born prematurely. This is a big milestone in my mind, and one that I'm grateful to have achieved. But at the same time, it has made all my "I should be going into labor right now" feelings even harder to deal with. I don't want to go into labor over three months early. I want this baby to be healthy and full-term. So to have these conflicting thoughts of "I wish I were going into labor right now" and "I don't want to give birth until June 10 at the earliest" is kind of a head trip.

At this point, I'm just really hoping that these strong emotions will pass. Ben said yesterday that he feels like part of the joy we've been feeling at the onset of spring is due to the fact that it makes Piccola feel that much closer to us. As long as we were in winter hibernation misery, Piccola's summer arrival was still "two seasons away."Now that spring is here, it feels like the 16 weeks until her expected arrival aren't such a drudgery to endure. We'll get there. One day at a time.