36 weeks

I am now in my 36th week of pregnancy. Everything is normal but that doesn't mean I'm not scared. I'm still scared that anything might happen. I can still lose my baby. I can't handle that fear. I'm aware that I'm having a normal baby and a normal pregnancy but it still scares me. The last time with Nathan, we didn't go into the hospital scared because poor naive me didn't think anything bad could happen even with the CDH and everything. I just thought we would go through the operation and bring the baby home after a few days. It's not being prepared that kills you. So now that we know the harsh realities of life, it's scaring the hell out of me. I hate preparing for the hospital because I'm afraid I will jinx it. I'm afraid that if I pack my hospital bag and have the baby stuff prepared, I will lose my baby. I know I'm not being logical about this. I'm fine, Tristan's fine and everything will be ok. I just wish that I can skip the next few weeks and go directly to when I can hold him in my arms and then I'll know that everything is really ok.

The hardest question

The hardest question that I've been asked now that I'm in my 9th month: "Is this your first baby?" The first few months that I was pregnant, Neal and I talked about this question a lot. Mostly because of the awkwardness. We used to say "No" at first. But then people ask a lot of follow up questions like, "Boy or Girl?", "How old is he?" and "Do you have pictures?" Which then leads us to explain what happened. We hate the aftermath of explaining to people we hardly know that our first baby dies, why he died and most of all, I hate their reactions. Neal and I shared experiences and we kind of weighed the consequences of our answers. We decided that saying "yes" to the first question would just stop all the rest and everyone will be happy. It was not as if we were denying Nathan's existence. We just didn't want to get hurt anymore. So now, I just lie whenever I get asked that question. I just hope Nathan understands.