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Keeping A Journal Helped Me Cope With My Rainbow Pregnancy
Before I could bring myself to talk about it, my journal was there to listen
4 weeks, 6 days. And so it begins.
Early pregnancy is so damn unfair. The days drag on as if their sole purpose is to drive me mad. Every time I use the bathroom, I check the toilet paper for blood. Every time something brushes up against my breast, I wonder why it’s not more tender. I wake up after a full night’s sleep and wonder why I haven’t yet had to wake up and use the bathroom. When I smell, or hear, or see, something gross, I wonder why my stomach isn’t turning.
It would be another ten weeks before anyone knew I was pregnant.
After two miscarriages, I’d vowed never to try for a baby again. When I missed my period, and then had a positive pregnancy test, my first reaction was denial—because I hadn’t been intending to get pregnant, but also because denial was useful. If I refused to believe it was true, maybe it wouldn’t be as painful when I eventually lost this pregnancy, too.
I would be sticking hard to the first-trimester rule this time. I didn’t want to relive the trauma I’d had to go through a year before, un-telling people after each loss. I told my husband and a trusted friend or two, and nobody else. And…
