can't decide to have another child after loss

[emilygrace]

Last year I lost my daughter Emily a day after she was born. I have suffered tremendous grief and have changed my life (moved to a new city, quit job) since then. I have been through counseling and EMDR for PTSD (I had a severely traumatic birth as well) all year and I am feeling lighter finally. I suffer little to no panic attacks now and only see my counselor every two weeks.

 

I have 2 existing children, 3 and 5 years old, who were somewhat affected by the loss and change as well. My husband is still in need of help, he has not had any counseling yet, but is determined to start soon.

 

We still go back and forth about having another child. We agreed that we would wait a year, until the clouds cleared, to discuss it. And its been a year and a month. We see so many pros and cons, and it is sometimes a discussion that brings me to tears with frustration.

 

Many people say insensitive things to me, such as, "you already have 2 beautiful children, you should be happy with what you have" I hate hearing that, because that is invalidating my grief and invalidating my desires.

 

I am afraid my strong desire for another child may be my unconscious attempt at filling the hole in my heart, in my life. I intensely crave holding a baby, smelling their head, breastfeeding, singing lullabye, all that stuff that I didn't get to do with Emily. I babysat my 9 month old niece for a week, and that put me over the edge as far as desire to have another child goes. It gave me a window to what my life would have been. It was torture as well.

 

The cons are that we have moved on and are ready to move forward with our growing children, and focus on them more. They have been left out and behind during my low periods. Also that my birth was so traumatic, I worry about stress and PTSD being pregnant again. Fears of losing another baby. I have been cleared by a neonatoligist to proceed with another pregnancy if I want to, but would be "high risk" and closely monitored the whole time. My husband needs to get better, he needs to get help and sort everything out. He isn't ready for another baby unless he can cope himself.

 

I can't ask any of you to decide for me, I know this. I am just curious if anybody has gone through this and has any advice or feedback to help me weigh out my decision better.

[Bella's mommy]

Hello,

 

I'm new to this forum, too. I also lost my precious daughter and only child last October at 5 months old. Immediately, my husband and I have tried to conceive again although with no success yet.

I totally understand how much you crave to hold, smell a baby and just have that experience all over again so I never had second thoughts of having another bundle of joy the soonest despite having a traumatic birth experice, too. We know for sure that we are to love both angel baby and baby to come equally but realized that we can only do so much planning but God decides when to give His little blessing. At first I thought it would be easy to fall pregnant again as we had our first without even trying. But now I am so close to getting frustrated with all these months of trying with no resluts. I have friends that tell me that maybe I'm just not ready yet or is my body and these comments doesn't really help and I'd rather have them not say anything at all. I know my reply doesn't help you solve anything but I'll be praying for you.