pregnancy

Learning Not to Turn Away

/ annabyang

learning not to turn away

Turn turn away
From the weight of your own past
It’s magic for the devil
And betray the lack of change
Once you have spoken
Turn away
-Beck

It has become an almost automatic reaction.  See a pregnancy announcement – usually accompanied by photos – flinch, hide the announcement.  If the parents-to-be start to inundate my feed with cutesy photos, or complaints about the discomforts of pregnancy, then I am done.  I remove it from my sight until I am sure the baby is born.  I’ll provide the requisite “Congratulations” and then whether I bring that baby back into my feed depends on whether or not there are any other triggers. Continue reading →

Triggers, Loud and Soft

/ annabyang

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Last week, I attended a Share meeting.  I found myself the “furthest out” in the room: the most time had passed since my loss.  Now heading toward three years ago this September since Nelle was born.  I was that voice from the “other side”: somehow survived.  The days are not awful.  The moments come and go, but are not constant. Continue reading →

Rebirth

/ annabyang

And just like that, she was born. Autumn Nadine Taws. It was the moment I hardly dared to picture. 

Someone I love wrote to me earlier this week: “When your new one is safely in your arms, you will know that you have been on a hero’s journey and have touched shore.”  And what a long journey it has been.

After two losses, it agonizing to decide whether or not to continue along the path to a third child, but we did, and now she’s here, nearly two years after we were forced down a route that we could not imagine. She is my “chance” baby, taking a chance, a third chance at a third child. Baby Three.

Her middle name, Nadine, means “hope.” It was that hope that got us to this place. Holding our baby. 

Hope in Becoming

/ annabyang

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I don’t have much to say, on the eve of my c-section.  I heard Quentin yell from his room this morning “ONE MORE DAY!”  One more day of kick counts. One more day of injections. One more night of anxiety-related non-sleep.  By this time tomorrow, we will already be at the hospital. Continue reading →