Lost several babies, missing emotions.

[easyjump]

I lost my first child in 2015, it was a premature birth and lived for 5 days, in 2017 I had a stillbirth and in 2019 the second living child which died as a premature birth after a few days. In between, I had 3 miscarriages, but I can't remember the date. 

It was about 5 very difficult years, a lot of hope, a lot of disappointment, a lot of crying, a lot of worries, several operations, including two caesarean sections and 2x blood poisoning which scared me a lot. 

After the birth in 2019, I had finally had enough and although it took me a few months to say goodbye to my desire to have children, it happened pretty quickly. Since then, “unintentionally childless” has turned into “child-free”. Today, I wouldn't even want to have children with 100% certainty that it would work out.

Perhaps I'm lucky in that I've always wanted to make the best of every situation, but to this day I'm still regularly preoccupied with how I'm dealing with it all. Despite a few tears, I never mourned for long in the way you would imagine mourning. With the first child it was a few weeks of crying, with the stillbirth it was more anger, with the miscarriages it was disappointment and with the second premature birth it was a feeling of resignation and while still in the hospital bed I made plans for how to continue without the desire to have children and a life that was finally no longer just about this one issue. I was so afraid for myself because of the blood poisoning that I was absolutely sure that I didn't want it anymore. 

I was very aware of this “me, me, me”, it felt right and wrong at the same time, and the fact that I was okay afterwards worried me so much that I went to see a psychologist for the first time in my life. After 3 appointments, he found me okay, I was reassured and went on my way. 

The situation hasn't changed much. I think about it sometimes. But I've never been interested in celebrating birth or death anniversaries of my babies, no balloons, no rummaging through photos, I usually remember some time after one of these dates that it was so and so many years ago. 

Sometimes I think about my dog dying at some point, or about my cat that was run over a few years ago. I burst into tears and can hardly calm down. But when I think about the babies, there are simply no emotions except that it was a difficult time and feels very far away.  

I don't even know what's bothering me so much right now that I'm writing this down. I'm still not sure if I just don't care (which I find horrifying), or if this is a way that's okay. 

[KayC]

It's a hard thing to experience...I lost three I had tried so hard for, went to fertility specialist for years.  I remember going to a baby shower for someone after I'd lost a baby, people didn't know...two friends announced their pregnancies (What?!  They'd just gotten married!) Everyone was teasing me "maybe you should find out how THEY did it!"  I managed to hold it together until I got home and as soon as I saw my husband's face at the patio door, I burst into tears!

Years later when we divorced, I asked him when he felt the closest to me...that was the time.  And we both felt it.  We gave it a good shot, 23 years.  I finished raising our two kids on my own.

Now I'm growing old alone.  Weird how life goes by so quickly.  But I never forgot that young girl that went through so much to have kids.

Maybe writing here is your way of processing it.