Phantom pregnancy feelings

Four weeks postpartum, I still feel "phantom" pregnancy feelings. Like I'll have gas and think I'm feeling a baby move.

There are so very many bittersweet things about not being pregnant anymore. So many little feelings I'm never going to have again. I've made peace with it, that I'm not planning anymore pregnancies, and "happy accidents" aren't likely with our history. But still, i feel like I've said goodbye to a chapter of my life that was so brief i'm afraid I imagined it. Out of the hell of infertility, I had 9 months of awkward, uncomfortable, anxiety-filled joy.

Now, nothing can compare to the joy I feel when my babies smile their little random smiles at me. Looking down at their sweet sleeping faces fills me with wonder--that my flawed body could have produced such perfection!

My eyes threaten to overflow when I stop to think about where we were a year ago--heading in for the HSG, hoping beyond hope each cycle was going to be "it". I wonder that I will never feel that particular type of hope again. In some ways, that feels safe and wonderfully so--because to not hope that way means I never have to fear having my hopes dashed again. But still, that waiting, hoping, waiting and my pregnancy, together have filled and defined over two years of my life. Now where do we go from here?

Parenthood is full of its own hopes and dreams, and I look forward to exploring those. But I think I will take a while to miss being pregnant, to miss the waddle even. Because it was the culmination of a certain kind of hope I am not likely to feel again.

Now I need to go update the twins' blog with news of their one month appt!
http://thebensontwins.blogspot.com