I'm not supposed to say this, but *looks around at who might be listening/reading* I want another baby. I want another baby with an all-consuming desire that I can't ignore.
This is a discussion that is simply not being had with my husband right now. We have agreed to just stop talking about a plan for another baby, until we can figure some things out. And it maddens me a point where I want to explode. "Love is not selfish," the Bible explains, and so if I love my husband I must not bring up a subject that he is not ready for. Of course, I sefishly think that HE is selfish, for refusing to talk about something that means so much to me.
There is even a term for babies born after infant and pregnancy loss. Rainbow babies. What a beautiful name, right? They are so called because like a rainbow, they do not take away the pain of the storm. They do not mean the storm never occurred. In fact, they are the product of a storm, valued and cherished and especially beautiful because of what it took to get to the rainbow. I have been waiting for my rainbow since before Gabriel was even born, though I love Gabriel wih all of my heart. Actually, I believe Ben was dreaming about our rainbow, literally, while I was pregnant with Gabriel. He and my mom both dreamed of a baby girl, though I was sure that Gabriel was a boy. I suspect this was the baby-to-be, the rainbow, showing herself in their dreams so that we might believe that we would survive losing Gabriel and that there would be something to look forward to.
But I am restless, waiting for this rainbow. I guess I feel that until I have that rainbow, the storm is just raging on destructively, tearing me apart. I don't think it's fair that I have to wait, I truly don't. Ben told me that this Thanksgiving was the first time he didn't cook something. He said that he didn't feel like himself, that cooking is such a part of him that he didn't know what to do or how to celebrate if he was not cooking. All I could think is that I am a mom, and for the last six months I have been a mom with no baby to hold or care for. Being a mom is so much a part of me that I don't really know what to do with myself. I feel lost. And I don't know how to find myself. And I don't know what to do if we are not moving towards building what is so much a part of me. And I don't know how much longer I can keep this subject out of my home and out of my relationship with my husband. How long do I have to pretend like avoiding the conversation of a rainbow baby isn't eating a hollow in my heart?
Two four-legged creatures, Gideon and Noelle, absorb the love and nurturing that I would pour upon a child here on earth. Today Ben told me that he would like them to start spending more time outside, coming inside mostly just to sleep. It was like a punch in the chest. The only babies I have here, two dogs, are slowly being banished and removed from my life. But love is patient, love does not make demands, love shuts the hell up even when it is being tested and trampled on and denied.
Where does love go when it's not being received? Love is not finite, love is not tangible and allegedly we have an endless supply of it. But how long can love just pour into a void before the person pouring out her love simply falls in and drowns? How much longer do I have before I drown?
I think your DH should be open to your feelings about it. You may be on opposite spectrums about the subject of a rainbow baby but your feelings can't simply be ignored. I know how a mother yearns to have another baby in your arms and that just doesn't go away no matter how much you don't talk about it.
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