This pregnancy has been so vastly different than the other three before it.? The first time I was pregnant, I was still pretty ignorant of everything.? I just skipped through the months, buying maternity clothes before it was prudent and reveling in my state of uber-fertility.? I joined an online group of women who were expecting during the same month I was and printed out a pregnancy calendar that told me each day just what was being grown or developed.? The second time, I was a bit more cautious, but not much.? I don’t recall if I printed out the calendar, but I anxiously ticked down the days, purchased maternity clothes before it was prudent and after I hit 12 weeks, felt pretty secure.? The third time, I thought I was as cautious as cautious could get.? But I still ticked down the days, bought books on pregnancy, bought maternity clothes (again, before it was prudent) and generally angsted over the pregnancy from day one.

This time, there’s been a lot less of all of that.? I have bought two maternity items.? But my motivation behind that isn’t to be as maternity clothes, simply because they didn’t LOOK like maternity clothes and I knew I would wear them regardless (one was a layered sweater and the other a camisole).? But to actually be serious about buying maternity clothes is laughable to me right now.? Let’s not even talk about buying baby things.? That probably won’t happen until the lastl month of pregnancy and even then, I’ll white knuckle it all the way through.? (if if if….)

See, the problem is the ifs.? I can’t say “when the baby is born”, it’s “if the baby is born.”? I can’t for a moment entertain the notion that there will actually be a baby at the end of all of this.? Logic be damned, my heart is wary.? And I’m not the only one.? Since my son learned of the pregnancy at last week’s appointment, he’s been talking a lot about the baby.? And every now and then he’ll say something like, “I think this baby is going to die too.”? On the one hand, that scares the pants off me because he’s vocalizing my deepest, most darkest fear.? On the other, it breaks my heart because he too is skeptical of any sort of good outcome.? It’s easy to forget that all we’ve been through in the last several years has had an effect on him too.? He’s wanted a sibling so badly, but he’s been so patient about it.? I want him to be able to look at this pregnancy and find the joy, even if we can’t.? But maybe he can’t because we can’t??? Now that’s depressing.

For now, I’ve told him to keep his fingers crossed, to which he diligently crosses the fingers on both of his hands; extra tight, he says, to make sure the wish comes true.? This is why, if this go-round isn’t sucessful, that we won’t be trying again.? I can’t keep doing this to my son.? I do hope fate is kinder to us this time.? Not just for me or because we despertely want a baby.? But because I don’t want to have to break my son’s heart yet again.