Even though we're not currently expecting, Bunny and I have been slowly coming into a collection of baby stuff. As it happens the collection actually started just after the miscarriage (as in, the day after the ultrasound confirming things) and started very awkwardly. Slowly since then Momma Bunny's garage has been filling up with things that as yet we have no use for.
Right after we got a positive result on a pee stick some friends of ours texted to say they wanted to get rid of some baby things, and would we be interested? That day it was an easy answer. Yes! We need baby things! We will happily take your baby toys and fancy, convertible stroller and bouncy chairs. When the miscarriage happened it became very odd and uncomfortable, because seeing and thinking about all the baby stuff kind of just tore the hole in my heart even farther open. I felt guilty taking the these things when just looking at them made me want to cry. Luckily Bunny's was a little more together and he handled dealing with all the stuff (except for the massive stuffed tiger I cried into on the drive home) and hopefully his good graces made up to some extent for my lackthereof. Yet another apology for my behaviour just after the miscarriage needs to be made to these lovely friends.
As it happened, that pile of baby stuff ended up not so much being a straight on gift as a trade. Our friends wanted space and to give the things to people who might someday use them. We happened to have a well taken care of antique wooden toboggan of just the sort that our friends had been hunting for (and finding that wooden toboggans, even used ones, were going for ridiculous prices) that we were looking to unload. So we swapped.
This week, Bunny brought home a crib. It's actually a really beautiful crib, and while when the time comes to use the crib I will have to do some research and safety vetting to do, again that's one less thing we will eventually have to purchase.
It's all a little awkward and uncomfortable though. The baby stuff not only reminds me of how much we want babies, but how clearly they are not happening right now. Getting pregnant is not something that you can control. I mean, you can do all the right things, and plan on pregnancy, and time certain bedroom activities even when you're not in the mood. At the end of the day though nothing that we do can guarantee anything. Sperm and egg will collide when they want, not when we want them to. Implantation may not always occur, and chromosomal abnormalities happen, ectopic pregnancies happen. And there's just no guarantee. Maybe we just can't have children in an unassisted biological manner.
Right now that's not something we really know. The doctor said that having had a miscarriage is a good sign, because it means that neither of us is sterile (I hate that word), but at the same time, maybe there's some sort of inhospitable environment or something going on there. It's a fear I can't quite shake, and I'm trying not to worry about it too much right now. We're letting life happen, and while we're trying to make a baby we're honestly not trying that hard. I'm not ready for ovulation kits or talking to doctors about fertility tests and drugs and all that jazz. Maybe down the road we'll have to look at that, but I hope not.
All that baby stuff sitting the garage feels like tempting fate. I'm still a little bit emotionally tender and the idea of wanting something so badly and knowing that there's always a possibility that things won't happen the way I want them to makes me anxious. If I let myself want something so badly and it doesn't work out the way I want it to I know I'll be devasted. I don't want to be devastated, again, by baby making issues. Wanting something so badly feels like inviting disaster. Planning and acquiring for things I can't control feels like inviting it not to happen. The idea of never being able to use that baby stuff is a little painful. I'm trying not to borrow trouble, though. Life's going to happen the way it happens, and there's only so much I can do to affect that outcome.
That pile of baby stuff in the back of the garage and my mind still has a little niggling worry though.
" Getting pregnant is not something that you can control."... If there is something I have learnt in this 2 years of marriage that would be it. I really thought that *knowing* stuff would help, that it would led us there, and fast, when we started with this... But no, like you said, life will happen when and how it will.
ReplyDeleteWe do not own baby stuff, but we do have a spare room that we painted in a light yellow hue...hoping we would eventually set a nursery there, and for some time I have been avoiding to even enter it (since it -s empty) cause it only reminds me of how hard this is.
Anyhow, I just wanted to send you hugs... and support, and just let you know that you are not alone in all these feelings. I think letting it go a bit (in the sense of just accepting things while you still try) is the key... Though it-s a lot easier said than done.
Really accepting how little agency I actually have in getting pregnant has been one of the biggest things for me in dealing with everything.
DeleteI think I'd have a much harder time with a room. At least with the baby stuff it's all out in a garage and I don't have to look at it if I don't want to - and I also have easy options for unloading it if it ever starts to get too painful.