Baby Grover 4.0, week 31

I have been plugging along this entire pregnancy, going through the motions but feeling completely unable to focus on this baby's birth or anything that will happen afterwards. My brain and my heart don't even let me imagine these things. 

But here I am, two months from delivery, and I can't push it away any further. There is a real live, moving baby inside of me that will need to come before I know it. And I need to get ready. 

We need to prepare her space, think about what to name this little girl, pack our bags for the hospital, consider how to prepare ourselves for this birth, which will be a very emotionally exhausting and terrifying experience for Lane and me both. 

It's just so hard because we did all these things so recently, so joyously, and starting again means getting closer to reliving the moments leading up to and during Simone's birth. It means inviting all those emotions back, at a time when I desperately need some separation. But how is that even possible? Last time we had the cosleeper set up, the car seat installed, a whole wardrobe of darling baby girl clothes ready, a complete stash of cloth diapers, slings and carriers ready, a name, no anxiety about birthing, just pure excitement. It's difficult to look back at that time and realize we had no idea what was about to hit us. That our whole world would come crashing down around us. How could we not have seen this coming?

I want to be prepared to birth this baby, to give her (and us) a positive birthing experience, to be ready to care for her after she's born, to care for myself before and after, while at the same time continuing to give my attention to my other living children and Lane. I don't want to feel like I am casting aside, trying to forget, or moving away from my experience with birthing Simone. But in order to survive this, I need to compartmentalize somehow. To make room for the new stuff, to give this baby her own story. 

So, scary as it is, I'm starting to decide what to include in my hospital bag. I'm going to schedule a private walk through of the delivery floor so I can react however I need to when I'm not trying to birth a baby. I found a pregnancy after loss support group that I'm going to join soon. I need to decide how to make our hospital birthing experience nurturing and full of good energy.  We need to get out our cosleeper, organize all those wonderful cloth diapering supplies again, pull out all those same goodies and just hope it will go the way it's supposed to this time.