Now I'm Really Feeling Sorry For Myself, And I Don't Care

I've been having kind of a hard time lately, and I'm not sure quite why. Specifically, I am having a hard time seeing other people's healthy kids. The theory I have is that when babies are 3 months old, there isn't much that any of them can do, so my daughter didn't seem a whole lot different other than the way her legs looked. But now, at almost 9 months, it is very apparent how far behind she is from other kids. The women I am closest to in my mother/baby group happen to have rather precocious babies--they've been pulling up and even cruising for a month or so. They've all moved on to bigger carseats, and are talking about babyproofing. My daughter still can't roll from her tummy to her back, cannot sit unsupported, and will not be walking until next summer at the earliest. I love my daughter beyond words, and I wouldn't trade her for any other. But it is getting so hard, so very hard.

I've been reading Julie's blog and she's talking about how she went through so much just to get pregnant, and now she can't even have a normal pregnancy. I think that is part of my problem too. It is this resentment that things just couldn't, for once in my life, be normal. I had a lot of health problems when I was younger, and wasn't able to graduate from high school, much less college. I missed Homecoming, the class picture. I failed out of one junior college and two regular ones because of my health. Didn't dare apply for a decent job because I was afraid I couldn't physically handle normal work. I started getting better, and dared think we could have a baby. Then I spent years off birth control, wondering what the hell was wrong now. I finally got pregnant, and instead of going for daily walks, doing yoga and eating broccoli, I was so tired I couldn't stay awake more than three hours at a stretch, and got gestational diabetes, and finally pre-eclampsia, necessitating bedrest. I didn't get to get those glowing pregnancy photos everyone else had, or get to put together my baby's nursery, or even a normal baby shower. We got a final ultrasound not of her face, but of "abnormalities" that they said meant she wasn't going to live. And I had a c-section, with the baby whisked off to the NICU after I only got a glimpse of her. I didn't get to hold her until the next day, after they'd already given her a bottle of formula. I have been trying so hard not to feel sorry for myself because at least she was alive, which was more than we were hoping for at that point, but dammit, this all sucked. It sucked really really hard. And it still sucks for my daughter, who will not have a *normal* life as most people define it. She will never move quite the way other kids will; will always have scars to explain, and will probably not like to have her picture taken. Whenever I would whine to my mother, "why me?", she would always answer, "why not you?" and it drove me nuts even though I knew she was right.

I don't care if I don't *deserve* things to go right. I want them to. I want Peanut to have a normal childhood with both her eyes and her knees moving in all the directions they should. I want me to be able to have another pregnancy that is healthy and glowing and full of yoga and spinach salads, where I feel the baby kick non-stop for months. I want T. to be able not to cry from fear when thinking about the pregnancy and delivery. I feel cheated. I also feel guilty for feeling cheated, as if to say so means that Peanut isn't good enough, that I am not grateful I have her. But that isn't what I mean at all. I am lucky to have her, to have a baby that makes total strangers smile when they look at her because she just radiates joy even at her most serious. Frankly, she is the only reason I have not become a completely bitter hag. We all have these expectations. I have said we're lucky, in a way, that we have thrown off a lot of expectations for our child early on because it will mean a lot less pressure for her. But that doesn't mean we can't grieve when we lose the dream we always had of what our lives would be like. So apparently right now I am in the anger stage of the grief process. I went a little out of order, with the bargaining phase happening the week before she was born, promising God everything in my soul for her to be ok, for it all to be a nightmare I was going to wake up from soon.

People have been telling me since the ultrasound how strong I was, what a good attitude I had about everything. I wasn't lying, or putting on a brave face. I meant it when I said I just wanted her alive, and I still do. I know rationally that things really could be worse. And it isn't as if I am not happy for my friends and their beautiful children. I guess sometimes I wish I could stop being so strong, and just rail at the world and feel better afterward. Or something like that.

We've been talking about when we want to try for another baby. I am both excited and terrified by the idea. What if Peanut's problem was actually genetic, and the next baby is even worse? What if the pre-eclampsia returns, earlier this time, and we lose the baby? What if we go months and years again with negative pregnancy tests? Can we handle these things? Why can't we just be happy and giggly and completely ignorant of these worries like most people? Why do they have to be considerations for us? I will never, ever be able to be pregnant without worrying about these things. I will never be able to blissfully assume that all is well and that all will be well. I know there is always adoption, but I don't want to adopt yet. I want to have a normal healthy pregnancy and delivery and a healthy baby, just once. Is that too much to ask?