Complexity of human emotion

Looking back on both pregnancies, what sticks out was the emotional similarity to that of my pregnancy with Maggie and Patrick. When I was on bed rest I spent my days swinging between hope and fear, joy and grief. Each day brought me closer to viability and babies surviving, but I also knew I was a time bomb, sitting and waiting. Although the details are different, the experience was the same this time, with a couple complicating factors: work and C.

While on bed rest, my life was the twins, and my job to help them to live. Nothing more was needed of me. I lived - we all lived - day to day. But, this time I had a job. My co-workers and clients were not going to pause life while I swayed between hope and fear. It was terrifying to consider that the babies might survive; it seemed like I might jinx things by assuming as much. Yet, my belly grew, as did C's. Clients asked me who would replace me and work requested I begin planning for my maternity/parental leave. Real life required that I plan for living babies, while the part of me filled with fear screamed to avoid it. 

But, to be fair, I am not always so self-aware that I think like that every moment of the day. I went about my daily tasks and began planning how to transfer clients and wrap-up paperwork. I sometimes felt excited to be planning for the arrival of the babies. I felt normal. It was usually in those moments that fear would surface, popping up forcefully, pulling me back from the danger of 'normal'. I would remind myself that anything could happen, even if it was not PPROM, it could even be worse.

The other factor was C. She is hope, yet I did not feel so safe as to walk around arrogantly assuming that she/we were immune from disaster. Throughout my pregnancy I spoke with 'ifs' and knocked on wood; people do not like that. I did not fill the 'glowing expectant woman' profile. People corrected me, rolled their eyes, reassured me... and C's existence gave them more reason to challenge my habits. I am not suggesting that my anxious thinking did not need to be challenged; it did. However, it was my experience that having a surrogate meant to others that my thinking/behaviours were some how less valid. 

Fear, doubt, grief - none of these are how I wished to approach my pregnancies. It meant that I delayed planning for anything; no nursery, no clothes or hospital bag, no van... when I did allow little moments of this I hid them in drawers or would need weeks worth of recovery time. It meant that I avoided pre-natal yoga until my third trimester even though I wanted to start earlier, and inquired about the cancellation policy before paying - just in case. 

Negative or not, functional or not, that is me, I guess.

xx