Hope

Hope is different for me now than it once was. I remember when I was eighteen my idea of hope was hoping to fall in love with a perfect guy and maybe get married. I was so sure I was going to end up alone. Well, that dream came true and I am so thankful for that every single day. I'm so lucky to be married to such a loving husband. Now my hope has changed again. My hope today is to have a living baby that can be a little sister or brother to Alexandra. I'm hoping to take care of a baby and watch him or her grow up. I want to do everything that I won't be able to do with Alexandra.

Yesterday I went to see a maternal fetal specialist (or high risk doctor). This was the appointment that I had such a hard time getting, remember? I cried, some bitch yelled. Yeah, it was great. Good times. Well, after two whole hours, two...120 minutes of sitting in a lovely waiting area just full of heavily pregnant women, I finally went in! After a little while I began to feel stupid. Here I am sitting there, not pregnant. What's the point? I felt like I was wasting this busy doctor's time. It was a parade of pregnant women every few minutes. It was like they knew I was going to be there that day. Oh Maggie is going? Well, hurry up, I gotta get there! They were all sitting there plump, full of baby, taunting me, complaining about having to go to the bathroom every few minutes, wanting their pregnancies to be over, blah, blah, blah. Shut up! Although at the same time, this was a high risk specialist's office. Who knows. Maybe some of those women were having complicated pregnancies or were on their subsequent pregnancy after a stillbirth. But they sure didn't act like it. So there, I don't feel as bad. I'm a little aggravated nobody seems to be considerate enough to review my file and sit me in say, some other room. Whatever, I'm not bitter. Once we got in I met the doctor. I was very pleased. He seemed interested in our case and we weren't rushed. I was a little worried we would be, seeing how 100 pregnant women were sitting out there waiting. Anyway, the first thing he told me was I am 5-16 times more likely to have another stillbirth in a subsequent pregnancy! I kind of knew that already after reading tons of books on the subject, but it still scares me! What if my next baby is stillborn? Fuck!! But that was the only bad thing. The bad thing is...your baby could die again. Good news is, go ahead and get pregnant. He said I've been tested for clotting disorders and those were fine. All my chromosomal tests came back normal and there was never a cause to why Alexandra died, so in some way that is good news. We basically just went over her autopsy results. I'm not sure what is more thrilling than reading your daughter's autopsy. But all in all I felt good after seeing him. He gave me some hope, which is all I can have right now. I hope I can get pregnant again and I hope my next baby is born screaming. Please, please, please don't let me be the mother of two children who have died. I think pregnancy should be based on some kind of merit. If you are ready, willing and able to be a good parent, then you are hereby granted a safe, healthy, pregnancy! Congratulations! However, if you are an unfit parent like the lady I saw this past weekend scream out, "What the fuuuuck!!!!!" in front of her two-year olds, then NO. You're not allowed to be procreate! If life were only this fair...