By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.
Work has started on Baby Bean’s nursery, we’ve stripped woodchip wallpaper, we’ve filled and sanded down all the cracks and holes in the walls and now we’re preparing to paint. It all feels very surreal to me that we are doing this.
When I found out I was expecting again I didn’t know how to deal with it. The news, although exciting, was filled with dread and an expectation that this pregnancy is going to end in the same way. Coming home with empty arms. I hate that i’m so negative but when that’s all you know surely it makes sense that you are preempting the same outcome. I’m sure all the other Mummies and Daddies of Angels know exactly what I mean by this. I’ve never been particularly optimistic at the best of times but each day is filled with worry that we’re another day closer to meeting and potentially saying goodbye to our second child. Myself and my OH decided that we weren’t going to prepare for this baby in the same way as we did with Jason. There was no need to buy anything as we already have everything we need from Jason’s pregnancy and we’d have reused his things regardless. We weren’t going to put up any furniture as we are constantly reminded of having to take it all down once we were home. Jason wasn’t even gone 48 hours before we realised his nursery was too painful to look at and needed to go…quickly! I’m envious of those who have kept their angel’s rooms the same as I couldn’t even live in the same house he was born in. We had to move. As much as I love our new home, I regret leaving the place that Jason was born, the only place where he was alive and breathing. I wish I could go back and look at the rooms again in the same way.
Fast forward 16 months later and we’re decorating the spare room for when Bean arrives. Something we said we wouldn’t do until she was here and safe, yet something that feels so natural. I’m torn, as much as I want to paint and make the room ready for her, I’m scared that we are building ourselves up for yet another fall. Does anyone else get that? No matter how positive I feel that Bean is healthy and growing and happy I know that things can change so quickly and within a flash I’m holding a baby who should be crying but instead is lifeless.
The quote I have used above sums up how I’m trying to think of the upcoming weeks where I’ll have to prepare for anything and everything. The third trimester is no longer the excitement of packing hospital bags and washing newborn clothes, it’s having to do all this and still think about what you’ll need if things go wrong again. So many things weren’t thought about when I lost Jason that I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.
The next 14 weeks can’t come quick enough so I can finally relax with my screaming, wriggly baby in my arms.
A x
Mothering A Rainbow 