“I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me if I have any questions when the truth is that nobody has any answers.” Those words stuck in my head for a few days as well as the face of the young mother who said them to me. She is a young, healthy middle class American who had a completely normal pregnancy. And a completely abnormal baby for reasons that even the specialist can’t seem to understand. This young woman and her partner had no thoughts that their pregnancy would end with heartache and a severely disabled child. The truth is that no one thinks that pregnancy will end that way. That happens to “other people” and “special cases” and “people who are older, younger, or don’t take care of themselves.” There is this assumption that everything will be fine if you are young and healthy or if you do the right things. But that just isn’t true.
I am a person who tends to worry a bit. My husband describes me as a pessimist. Which I will sometimes confess to being. I know many women who go through pregnancy without any thought that something could happen to their unborn child. By the time they are eight weeks pregnant they have shared the news with everyone and are planning a nursery. I spent my first trimester wondering if my body would figure out that it was pregnant and needed to hold on to the baby. I have spent the second and third worrying that something will go wrong despite the fact that we have every reassurance that our baby is fine. One day the baby moves too little- perhaps the baby had a stroke in utero. On day the baby seems to move more and sometimes kick me in a slightly rhythmic pattern- perhaps the baby is having seizures. I have seen these things happen many times. Everyone tells you “everything will be fine.” But in my heart of hearts I know differently. Everything isn’t always fine. But I pray that little BJ will be while I brace myself for the fact that he might not be.