Lucid Dreaming Guide

New Voice At Babble

It’s one of those days where the heat is steaming up the windows, the South is calling to me wet and hot to come out and play and I ignore it to sit inside under the air conditioning instead. It’s my first time being this pregnant in the heat of South Carolina, my first time being pregnant in a Southern summer at all.

I’m due with baby #5 in late September when the leaves will just start falling and the nights will have cooled just a little. I spend this pregnancy as an entirely new woman, broken from grief as baby #4 was a stillbirth at almost 19 weeks, renewed now as a fresh new me – the Phoenix who came out of that loss, and excited to share this pregnancy journey here with you all at Babble’s Being Pregnant blog.

This pregnancy has not been an easy road… and although physical complications have been minor to non-existent, it’s the soul complications that keep things a roller coaster. The journey a woman undertakes when becoming pregnant after a loss. The fear that must be bound and sent packing, only to have it return with a new line and new lies. The constant anxiety and wonder and even now, when this baby moves and wiggles all the day long – I still plan how the year will go if I lose this baby too. Just to be practical. Even though I’m the opposite of practical.

I used to be one to always get my hopes up – it was the only way to live, I’d tell people. Enjoy the journey, get those hopes up, be excited for each moment, right? Now I know better (or too much) and have a hard time getting these hopes up. They are up today, but what about tomorrow? I’m nervous even planning a baby shower with my best friend.

But I stand in the face of those fears to catalog my heart, the fluff and the deep in the raw, here for you, for the joy and struggles of pregnancy, and for all of us in this together.

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Arianne has blogged at To Think Is To Create since 2004, curates indie style and homemade epic-ness at The Lovely Guide and can be found on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram (ToThink) and  Pinterest . Nichole Beaudry is author of in these small moments , a blog about finding meaning and beauty in life’s ordinary moments. She’s been accused of being sweet, but beneath that, she’s honest and open, with a hint of snark.