Therapy.

My therapist was really helpful today. I went in with jumbled thoughts.  Pregnant women surrounding me.  Baby showers.  Newborn cousins.  Triggers everywhere.

I have been afraid the last few weeks, very afraid.

Afraid of waking up one day and finding myself pregnant.  And then afraid that I will dare to dream that I can actually carry a pregnancy to term, and end 40 weeks or so later, with a healthy baby in my arms.

I recently found a photo album in a photo account that I hadn't seen in years.  An album titled, "35 Weeks Pregnant."

The pictures brought tears to my eyes.  First of all, I was hot.  No seriously, I am not one to think highly of my looks (most of the time I will grant that I am cute and I clean up well).  But whoa, I was one gorgeous pregnant woman.

There aren't enough words to express how lucky I am to trudge this road with a miracle child at my side.  With that, I will confess that mourning my babies has been deeply connected to mourning my pregnancies.  Never making it to that big, beautiful 35 weeks that I carried once.  After all, since Niblet, I have never made it past 14 weeks.

And the joy I associate with my one successful pregnancy, well, this is a feeling that I will never experience again.  Because even if the stars align and the one in a million lottery winner for an AMA "habitual aborter" like myself strikes the jackpot, pregnancy can NEVER be beautiful.  Pregnancy is now sheer terror. I have to reconcile myself to that fact.  If I find myself with child, I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I am entering into a state of being that is my personal definition of hell.  Anxiety.  Fear.  And please trust me on this, it's not irrational fear.  With the number of D&Cs and surgeries I have had, even if I made through a clear genetic screen and past random birth defects, I am a prime candidate for Incompetent Cervix.

"Am I crazy?" I asked my therapist?  Am I quite literally insane to dream of myself at 35 weeks, imagining myself beautiful and glowing and ready to mother an infant again?

No, she said.  She went on to explain that my active imagination is my brain's connecting line to hope.  And maintaining hope isn't unhealthy.  Hope sustains us.

Hope gives us the ability to face another day.