it can happen

It's amazing how much my attitude has changed this time around. As I've said in an earlier post, I'm a lot less worried than I thought I would be. I do what I can to protect the babies and I like the reassurance each week that they are alive, but I'm not a total nervous mess.

More than ever I'm aware of how real and possible fetal death is but I think because it has happened to me, the idea of it has less of a punch or is less shocking.

When I used to read on baby center about miscarriages or stillbirths, my heart would race, I would cry and then I'd be super anxious. Now I can read about it and just feel like "yup, it can happen."

I think most of what used to make me cry was the fear of it happening to me. I can remember when I was pregnant with Corynn and I was watching a video on youtube of an 18 week baby because I was 18 weeks pregnant and wanted to visualize how big she was. I was hysterically bawling and immediately turned it off and thought "why did I watch that?".

But now I can watch that and only maybe tear up a little bit, but it's a different kind of sadness. It's a calm sadness I have for that mom. It's true empathy for her and not about me.

Before I had experienced it, the idea was just so shocking and horrifying and I think that's what made me upset. That's also a lot of the emotion I felt when I lost Brynn; shock! I couldn't believe this could happen to me.

Now that I've been through it and I've met and heard from sooooo many people who have experienced something similar, I've learned that it's just another horrible thing that can happen in life. I'm not saying I wouldn't be devastated if it happened again, I'm just saying that I'm not surprised by the idea.

I still hold my breath at every ultrasound and frantically search with my eyes focused on the screen for those flickering heartbeats and if I don't see them right away, I get a little nervous.

I just know that all I can do is pray, think positive and hope for the best.