I'm 38years 9 months old...that bio clock is ticking down, [image: a drop of sweat slowly rolling from the nervous, furrowed in concentration brow of a bomb defusal expert, always comes to my mind]..

This month is the first time we have been ready to TTC. I thought I had it all lined up, months of physio and counselling, rubbed the bellies of pregnant friends with no dire emotional reactions, my diet perfect..and even better, my fertile window lined up with a big beautiful full moon for a romantic evening. My darling even bought me red roses and candles.

So, there we are trying to create the mood..when into the room sneaks anger and resentment, grief and terror. I cannot speak, I do not cry, I just leave the room.
I curl up on the lounge room floor, let the wailing begin.. Not so sexy..
He lets me howl for a while before curling up with me. I howl "I don't want to make another baby, I just want Jack back". There is no stopping this flood now. The crying is intermittant all night, and again today. My eyes are swollen, head throbbing, nose red and dripping (all the wrong anatomical areas to be swollen and throbbing for, uh, romance..)

I did not have an 'easy' pregnancy with Jack- I had spd, and was in disabling pain for most of it, and it didn't resolve post-birth (in fact more back/pelvis issues were triggered, 18 months of physio later, pain has lessened but always present, and is expected to be an issue in subsequent pregnancy). I certainly didn't get rosy and find all that earth mama contentment. Although I 'connected' with my baby in-utero, and felt wonderful waves of love, I did a lot of whinging and moaning.

So here I am, ready to try again, and I'm just angry (again, like the initial grief rage). Angry that all that effort, that pain, that hope, 12 hours of unmedicated labour, the stitches, the subsequent 18 months of chronic pain, and yet Jack is not here. 

 Anger and fear that if I want another baby I have to go through it all again, with no guarantees. I don't WANT to go through it all again. I'm scared that I won't 'cope' with the added stress that I hear subsequent pregnancies usually have. Oh the unfairness of it all, I keep wanting to scream, my fist shaking at nature's chaos and cruelty..

Our lives have felt in limbo since Jack died.  

Sometimes we feel we have stumbled into an Alternative Hell Dimension.   

Is there a parallel universe somewhere that consists of me worn out and whinging from changing nappies and trying to get a toddler to sleep?  Instead of this wrong wrong wrong, hellish dimension of me just being worn out and staring at the wall, house too silent, no toddler to chase..just a nothingness.

We were on a path- have a family.  Until we bring a baby home, it feels like we will never get our lives back.   Or, that grief will be all there ever is; no other baby to shine light.  Conflicting uncomfortable feelings emerging; are we having a baby just to try and make the grief go away? How to avoid 'replacement child syndrome'?!

Today, we discussed for the first time the possibility that we may choose to not have another baby. That Jack was it, and he is dead.
We both admitted to each other that during labour with Jack (we knew he was dead from before established labour began), we each had a private sad moment where we thought "well, this is it, we wont be doing this again, this is our only child".  I guess lots of mothers during the transition stage of an un-medicated labour think 'no way am I doing this again..'  But when you don't have that 'reward' (a living baby) at the end of all that sweating and pushing..that moment of thinking 'I won't be doing this again' takes on a power and a sadness.

Grief over losing Jack has collided with emerging grief that we may never have another child, right when we were about to try for another. We have not been able to look at that before, that even if we choose to TTC, we may not succeed, that the life we planned as parents may never come into being. That perhaps we have to go find some other life, choose another adventure..