I’m Finally Pregnant Again, So Why Am I Not Happy?

After three years, multiple IVF cycles, two devastating miscarriages, and countless setbacks … Aela’s road to motherhood has been anything but easy. Follow her story on Babble and don’t miss the latest chapter in her journey below.

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I found out I was pregnant four days after our embryo transfer with a home pregnancy test. The two-week wait was brutal, and I broke: I tested way early. I don’t even know what I expected the test to say. When it read “positive,” I was too untrusting of the results to believe it. I continued to pee on sticks for the next five days. All of them came back positive. And then my blood test ten days after the transfer confirmed it: pregnant.

I should be bouncing with joy, but I’m not. I’m a nervous wreck.

My first pregnancy with my twins was a total dream for the first 17 weeks. No issues at all, smooth as could be. So the sudden breaking of my water and eventual loss of them both was a complete shock, devastating beyond belief. My heart has never been the same.

Then my wife miscarried after getting pregnant on her first try. More heartbreak. It is a whole new kind of pain to witness firsthand the person you love more than anything go through that.

I got pregnant again. We saw a strong heartbeat at six weeks but it was gone at 10 weeks. I lost that baby, too.

And now, I have seven pregnancy tests that all say the same thing — and the results of a blood test to confirm that I am indeed pregnant again. Still, it doesn’t feel right. Is it just me worrying? How can I not, though, after all we’ve been through? Of course, there is a part of me that is happy and excited, looking at an early June due date. I am excited for a summer baby.

But so much of me is holding back. I don’t feel like I’m waiting for the pregnancy milestones: first heartbeat, 2nd trimester, 20-week gender scan, 3rd trimester, birth. I feel like I’m waiting for the bad news: no heartbeat, heartbeat is gone, preterm premature rupture of the membranes.

What I know of pregnancy isn’t good. I had a magical 17 weeks with my twins, and nothing has been the same since. Pregnancy is no longer a joyous time for me, but a time of worry and dread because of my multiple losses — and I hate that. I hate that I can’t let myself go to the joy that this experience should be. I hate that I can’t have a positive attitude. I hate that there are so many women who struggle just to get pregnant, who would give anything to know that they could. And here I am, pregnant and scared, worried, nervous, uncertain. I probably seem so ungrateful to them.

I know that as the pregnancy progresses, I’ll slowly give more of myself to this. But for now, I feel like I need to guard my heart against this pregnancy more than I can give my heart up to it.

I’ve wanted so badly to get pregnant, and now that I am, I’m terrified.

People will say I need to relax. I know I do. They’ll say the stress is bad for me. I know it is. They’ll say this type of thinking is not good for the baby. I KNOW THAT.

And still, here I am.

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