My "urban legend"

Mike and I were blissfully talking about our little Gummy the other day, wondering all the things most expectant parents ponder, when it occurred to both of us that all of this still feels like a dream and not necessarily something that could come to fruition.

We assume that Gummy will be okay and get to come home with us, but we only know the bad outcomes to our past pregnancies. We only know the things where most people can say, "I knew so-and-so who lost a baby" or "I knew a couple who had multiple losses." We know those people, too, and unfortunately we are those people.

That's all we know. For us, bringing a baby home is our version of an urban legend, since "we know so-and-so who brought a baby girl home," but have no personal knowledge about what it's like to welcome a baby into our home. At times, it almost seems like a fantasy and I feel silly for believing this all could really happen.

We've gone through these motions before, with the anticipation and dreaming and preparing, which is why we're both feeling so guarded and apprehensive at the moment. And neither of us knows how to shake those feelings to truly believe that there will be a healthy, happy baby at the end of this journey. It's really, really hard to have that faith when all you know personally is the bad that supposedly "happens to other people."

We are those other people. We exist. We're real and our baby died.

So, now I'm hoping we can know what's on the other side of the coin and know that there are truly good pregnancy outcomes - not just ones that we hear about happening to someone else.