birth after loss--how to protect

annie,
the phrase 'cautiously optimistic' comes to mind. but so does 'complete denial'.

i think its different for everyone going thru this.
some women have very pragmatic views upon having a miscarriage. and some are incredibly attached to a pregnancy from the first cell splitting.

personally, i learned about myself that i would be upset, very upset, if i lost a pregnancy. i had 2 m/c's and 2 s/b's, and obviously they all hurt in their own unique way. i had hope for each pregnancy, so, when the worst happened, it was going to hurt. the higher your hopes get, the harder and longer the fall. but at the same time, while i was very cautious and did not want to get attached to the baby, underneath that coping method was the fact that i was very attached to them, no matter how hard i tried to stay aloof and unattached until they were born healthy. so, for me, it hurt the same whether i prepared or expected the worst, or if i had gone about the pregnancy making myself believe that nothing could go wrong this time. the hurt was the same.

when we got a good u/s, or a good dr.visit, i left thinking, 'well good enough for today'. it was a one-day-at-a-time thing. but i never let my gaurd down, because i learned from my losses that there was never a time to be able to do so. when we had a bad u/s or some worrisome news, that was when it was the most difficult. i bargained and pleaded with the universe/god/anyone who was listening out there in the spiritual realm. for the most part, i understood that there was not a whole lot i could do to change the enevitable outcome, good or bad. i had to throw my hands up and accept that i, and the baby, were at the willy-nilly whims of nature. we said a lot of 'if things go well in december...' or 'if things work out this time...'. but even though we never said 'when...' and only said 'if...', i always was hoping so hard underneath my expressionless exterior that things would work out in our favor.

we wouldn't have gone ahead and continued trying if i really felt that there was not some chance for each baby we became pregnant with. i always had hope, and yet i always knew that there was a chance that we would lose the baby. so, it was a delicate balancing act. we had infertility too, so the mere act of having a conception was a huge hurdle onto itself.

i tried so hard not to dwell on any of it while i was pregnant, mostly a losing battle, but i tried to stay on an even keel and think about other things. i used distraction as a coping method, it helped me to forget that i had no control over the outcome. i watched a lot of tv about real estate and food and wedding dresses (anything except baby stuff), and i read a lot of books about sports and travel. when there did come an opportunity to connect with the pregnancy, i did my best to be fully present, to fill up my hope-cup, and then would crawl back to my safe hole of wait-and-see. when i felt particularly optimistic, i stared at u/s photos and marvelled at the baby's movement during a scan. we found out genders and named the baby asap. each day i tried to check-in with the pregnancy, to calm my mind and body with the goal being that i would connect with the baby for a few minutes, send him/her my undivided love, and then would go back to reading about the tour de france.

so, to sum up, i don't think it will hurt less if you expect the worst. and i don't think it is unreasonable for you to maintain a lot of hope for a future pregnancy. you just have to find the right balance, and check-in with yourself a lot, to figure out what you need for support while you are going thru it. it may help to journal, to blog, to see a therapist, to choose a confidant, to do whatever ti takes to help you get thru a subsequent pregnancy. and in the worst case, all of those things will also help to support you in a subsequent loss, as well.

lastly, i found that i didnt want to have any regrets, nothing to look back upon in the case of another loss... so if there was something i could do to help sustain the pregnancy, i did it. if my dr. mentioned a drug or a supplement or a technique that had shown some results, i asked to have it (only if there was no adverse risk involved). i erred on the side of extreme caution, and treated my body as if it were a fabrege egg, all with the intentions that i would never again have to wonder 'what if i had eaten better?' or 'would things have been different if i treated with baby aspirin', or whatever the case may have been. so, regret management is something you can do to protect. because having regrets and guilt is such a terrible addition to have to carry alongside of the grief of loss.