Never Complete.

I have spent the past 10 months in a reality that I never asked for.

I went from being probably the happiest I have ever been in my whole life to completely gutted in a matter of seconds. That’s all it takes. Life is that fragile. Living with the reality that my life will never look like I imagined has been a tough pill to swallow. I know I’ve written before about primary and secondary loss, but the secondary loss of a life for myself, for my family, that will never be has been shattering.

Every day I wake up, I face the reality that my family will never be whole.

I now live in a world where my daughter doesn’t. We won’t watch her grow up and be a part of our family in the way we planned. It’s something that some days, I feel at peace with, and other days, I’m so destroyed by it that I can barely function. We have carefully and deliberately spent time incorporating Evelyn into our every day lives so that she will always be as visible a part of our family as she can possibly be.

Yet, it’s clearly not the same.

If we manage to have healthy, living children that get to stay with us, I will never be able to look at a family picture and see all of my babies. I will never live in a reality where all of my children can exist together with us. Of course, we believe that Evelyn is always spiritually here with us, but never again holding her physically in my arms is the reality I contend with. I feel so incredibly grateful for this current pregnancy with Evelyn’s baby sister, but I can’t ignore the fact that that I wouldn’t have this baby if Evelyn was here. The closer we get to having her here, the more I think of all the milestones we never made it to with Evelyn.

I read somewhere recently that it hurts to want things that can’t coexist in the same life. I would go a step further to say that it’s been devastating to try to accept this reality: If Evelyn had lived, had been born when she should have and been a healthy baby, I would not be pregnant right now. I was almost 7 weeks pregnant by Evelyn’s due date. The mental toll that this reality has taken on me has been exhausting. I could not have both of my girls.

As I get further along and the reality of hopefully bringing this baby home healthy becomes more of something I actually believe, I’m realizing that so many conflicting emotions are coexisting within me, and I can never just feel one thing anymore. Every moment I allow myself to feel excited or joyful about the thought of bringing this baby home, I also simultaneously feel overwhelmed with grief that Evelyn never physically made it home with us.

Joy and sadness just coexist in my life now.

For every happy moment, there’s a sad one. For every moment of excitement, there’s also fear. And for every time I feel grateful for what I’ve been given, I also feel rage for what’s been taken from me.

And I’m learning to let that all be as okay as it can be.

These past 10 months have changed me in ways I never asked for and never wanted. The toll that baby loss and pregnancy after loss has taken on me has been the most mentally and physically intense journey I have ever been on. Most days now, I can function and present myself in a way that society deems acceptable. I have days where I don’t cry at all. I take care of myself and go to work and talk to other people. I laugh and make jokes. When people ask how I am, I say I’m okay. And truthfully, sometimes I am okay. But the heaviness of my reality is always there. The conflicting emotions are always there.

If I dwell on the unfairness of it all, I would be absolutely swallowed up by it. So while I’m bitter when I see others having uncomplicated pregnancies, ignorant to the reality that so many of us face, I also try to allow for grace. Why am I bitter? Because I can never go back to a time where my baby didn’t die. I can never go back to a time where I thought getting and staying pregnant would be easy. And I can never go back to a time where I thought all my future children would grow up together. That reality no longer exists for me, so I have to find a way to function in my new reality.

As much as I try to reject what feels like a cruel hand that I’ve been dealt, I also know that the more I fight it, the more bitter I become. Rejecting my currently reality doesn’t bring Evelyn back to us. It doesn’t make my trauma go away. So I’m leaning into living with a reality that is conflicting. It’s hard to wrap my mind around.

It’s not easy.

But it’s mine.