Fearful

I am like a walking encyclopedia of ways a baby can die before birth. I find danger in every week of pregnancy, something to be fearful of, something I am convinced may happen to me.
I have been told that lightning doesn't strike twice, I am assured that "it will be OK this time". Except I know that there are lots of chances that it won't be. And I know lightning can and will strike again, right into the already shattered hearts of grieving parents. But if I want to be a mother then this is something I must go through, and the risks I must take each time.
I am frightened of losing this baby,  I hate the utter helplessness I feel - there is nothing I can do to alter the course this pregnancy will take. I am scared by my consultants decision to deliver at 35 weeks, scared because my poor little baby will not be quite ready, so I am worried about complications. And scared as he was so adament that I could not go past this gestation that it makes me realise he seriously thinks that the same problem with the placenta could reoccur, and so it could fail at any time towards the end of my pregnancy. And there is nothing I can do to help, no pill I can take to make my placenta work or grow properly. So I am all the time wondering if I have this ticking timb bomb, if the thing that is supposed to nourish and support my baby will end up being the villain of the piece again.

In two weeks time I will know what I am having, pink or blue. People ask me what I would like and of course the initial, honest answer is a baby that is alive, irrespective of sex. But then deep down, deep, deep down in my psyche I of course am longing for a girl. Because I should have a pink bundle in my arms already, a bonny 8 month old who would maybe be crawling and happily babbling away, enchanted by her own voice.

But then I think that perhaps a blue bundle would enable me to seperate the 2 pregnancies in my mind a little more, treat this baby as the second child. It's not that I am not thinking like that already, but sometimes the edges are blurred and I wonder if I am imagining Lucy is coming back to me. It is hard to explain. I have only known the pregnancy with Lucy and so it is hard to imagine another little person - their own entity with their own personality, growing inside me.

Feelings of the week are: sad, scared and apprehensive. I can't stop thinking about what we lost. I can't stop wondering about the whys and hows and just being utterly disbelieving that I have already in effect buried a child. A child I never even got to know other than her personality whilst I carried her. My heart aches so much when I think back to the scan at 20 weeks, the sonographer got a perfect view of her face and although it wasn't a 3D scan it was as close as, and for a while we watched Lucy yawn and root and stick her tongue out. The one and only time I actually saw my little girls face alive and moving. It captivated us at the time and now it is a very treasured memory, but so, so tinged with sadness. My beautiful little girl, why were you with us for such a short time?
I don't want to be an 'angel' mummy, I don't want this heavy heart. I want the confidence I had when I carried you, the concrete belief that I would hold you in my arms and spend a wonderful Christmas together. I want that feeling for this baby, instead of the dread each day brings.