What Next?

It kind of boggles my mind that immediately after having a miscarriage, one of the first questions to come up is "What next?"  Meaning, "are you going to try again?" "do you want to try again?" "when are you trying again?"  After going through a loss of this magnitude, all I can honestly say is that I have no idea where to even start.  Just thinking about it puts me in panic mode.  I still have not processed everything, and I certainly have not dealt with it all in productive ways, either.  Now that some time has passed, things are starting to get better; but certainly not right after this happened could I have even rationally began to consider anything serious involving what next. 

At this point, I ask myself, "What IS next?"  Still, I don't know.  I don't know what I want, I don't know what to think, I don't know how to feel, I don't know what to do.  Just trying to work out all of the options, all of the problems, and all of the considerations seriously seems totally daunting.  My mind may not be ready to deal with this yet.  Maybe it never will, I may just have to force myself through and past it.  To the question, do I want to have another baby or try again, the answer is yes.  The more problematic questions are, can I try again, do I have the strength to be in this position again, am I emotionally ready to deal with this yet?  Well, probably not so much.  That is where I get stumped.  Of course everyone says this wasn't my fault but for one, we don't (and never will) know that for sure, and two, it is still easy to think that maybe it was.  I did the best I could but there is no way to know if maybe, despite caring for my body and this child, something I did or did not do caused this.  Another troublesome factor is maybe something is wrong with us.  Yes, I have had healthy babies, but that doesn't mean I am fine enough to have another.  Maybe something is wrong with me, or Ryan, or both of us, or the combination of us.  When we first got married, there were a couple times where I was sure that if I was going to get pregnant, it would have been then, and then that month I'd have heavy periods and wonder if I had been pregnant and it did not work out.  Now that this has happened, it worries me more than ever that this was not the first baby we lost, just the first we knew about.  It also makes me feel really terrible that I wasn't even more concerned back then when I did wonder.  I always felt let down and worried, of course, when I kind of hoped to be pregnant and wasn't; but if we lost other precious children, I wish we knew for sure, and I wish we knew why.  Another issue is time.  It took FOREVER to get pregnant.  I don't want to wait another 4 years to see if it happens again.  I already felt like we had put too much time between Trent and Taryn and this pregnancy, I don't want to go on hoping and waiting for more YEARS.  I know that the rational answer is to go to the doctor and see what they say.  I do have some concerns with this as well.  For one, if something was wrong with one or both of us, would we want to know and would we be prepared to deal with it?  Secondly, I no longer have a doctor I feel I can trust.  When I had Taryn I LOVED the place I went to; this time, I hated going there and was unimpressed with their practices and their disorganization.  There were concerns and issues that were raised and not properly addressed, there were test results that were interpreted differently by 2 different nurses, there were times I called and was not responded to in a timely fashion, and when I wanted to come in to make sure the baby was ok, I was put off and had to fight for my appointment.  Furthermore, doctors do not always have answers.  We will never know if Taylor was the only baby we lost.  We will never know why Taylor did not live.  Maybe if we do seek out help, there won't be any good answers.  Then what?  Do I have the strength, time, and energy to deal with this?

I hope and pray that we can move forward, and even (someday) find an answer we can deal with to "What next?"