You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) at how many people say "at least you can still have more children."

This generally just appalls me. First of all, and most importantly, children are not dispensable and replaceable. My surviving son, or my ability to gestate more children does not in any way, shape or form mitigate or ease the loss of Max.

Secondly, how do YOU know I can have more children? How do you know we didn't conceive the children we have via expensive, invasive IVF? How do you know I didn't have complications and now suffer from secondary infertility? How do you know we weren't completely cocksure of our family size and decided to snip some reproductive organs here or there?

(if you ever find yourself conversing with someone who has buried a child, I will tell you now - there is no "at least." There is only "I'm sorry." Leave it at that, I promise it'll be appreciated.)

At any rate, I bring this up only to say that I almost forced my husband to get a vasectomy shortly after Max's birth. Not forced, really. We were both pretty sure we were done having children. We were so profoundly in love with both our boys and they seemed perfect for each other, and perfectly enough. Coming off another terrible pregnancy, I was fairly certain that I never, ever wanted to do this again.

And then, as it so often does (yet hopefully not this extent for most people), my whole life changed. Max was gone. And this next part...well this next part is so hard to articulate that it might sound like I'm contradicting myself and saying that indeed, my second child is replaceable.

In fact, we learned from Max that we function best together as a multi-child family. That is in no way to say that our oldest isn't so awesome all on his own - just that we all function better as a slightly larger family somehow.

I think we would have figured this out eventually anyway, even if we'd been lucky enough to keep Max. He would have grown a little older and we would have realized that we really, REALLY enjoyed the baby years. We really enjoy raising children. I think, had we continued to put off the big snip, we would have gotten to a point where we were trying for a 3rd child anyway.

So after Max's death, when I very unexpectedly got pregnant (on the pill...again) we were...cautiously excited. It was May - still so, so soon after Max's death, and we were due on his birthday. It seemed so scary, but almost fated. Except then I miscarried before my 6th week.

And looking back, it still seems kind of fated. It hadn't occured to us yet that we might grow our family again some day. At that point it was still just too goddamn hard to see that we'd ever survive this, that we'd ever smile again. It was impossible to look and feel past the grief to know that we were someday going to want to live again, together, as a family. I think, at least for me, that sometimes I felt bad even imaging that it would be possible to be a family without Max.

But what happened, happened, and it opened up the discussion of whether we really wanted more kids, and whether we wanted them sooner than later. We hemmed and hawwed...being semi careful about protection along the way. We said September of 2011, then May. Then September of 10. And by June, we were actively trying to get pregnant. Less than 5 months into this pregnancy, we are tentatively picking months to start trying for the next one.

Max, even at 13 months, was so much his own little person. Just as Donovan is at 7 years old. Both my children are absolutely, diametrically different from each and I have no doubt that our future children will seem so, as well. We're not having more children to replace Max, or to somehow add to Donovan. We're doing it because the children we have/had taught us about boundless love and the ability of the heart to grow, and we know that whoever we end up meeting next will fit right in.

Comments

[BeerAndPie]

Here's my "I'm sorry."

I feel like everyone wants to say something that's not just the same platitude that everyone says in times of tragedy. But, well, there's a reason that everyone says the same thing. Because the potential fallout if you say the wrong thing is just so great. Which is why I tend to stick to "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

[Kate]

Thanks, Hope, for both the condolences and the congratulations.

It's so true. I used to get so angry at the need for people to shove platitudes that meant nothing to me in my face. It took a long time to see that most of these people are well-intentioned, but simply just at a loss for the right thing to say. In my experience though, everyone who has been through something similar knows that "I'm sorry" goes a long way, and is heartfelt enough.

[BeerAndPie]

I learned, from a friend who went through a terrible loss, that the important thing is to just say *something.* Some people don't know what to say, so they say "I'm so sorry for your loss." Some people doing know what to say, so they say nothing. Which she told me was incredibly hurtful and painful.

So, even if I don't have the words to say it, please know that my heart is in the right place.

I understand the conflicted emotions that you feel in getting pregnant after losing a child, but I don't think that anyone sees it as "replacing" Max. At least not anyone with an ounce of compassion. What if you'd always planned to have 18 kids so you could field two baseball teams? Life can't stop after tragedy, even if we sometimes wished that it did. I think that there is something poignant but beautiful about having a baby after experiencing death and loss. It reminds us that there is still love and joy in the world. The new baby won't take any of Max's heart space. It will just expand to carve out its own.