My rainbow baby is almost one.
She’s happy and she’s calm. She’s obsessed with her big brother and blowing raspberries and with the patterns on our couch. She’s a beautiful, integral, magical part of our little family.
She’s been with us for almost a year and yet, somehow it still hasn’t completely settled within me that she’s here. That it’s okay. That we made it.
That she’s safe. That she’s here to stay.
This isn’t about guarantees. I know that there are none.
This is about trauma. And anxiety.
Every little rash and I’m on edge. And Little A’s got sensitive skin. Literally a few splotches of red and my heart starts thumping and I’m on my way to a full blown panic attack. Waiting for routine blood test results feel like waiting for her to come out of open heart surgery. And don’t even get me started on digestive issues.
I’m not like this with GG. I’m calm and confident in his existence. I trust him to stay.
But with my rainbow baby I’m different, the relationship is different.
Is this what it’s always like with rainbows? Does the trauma of loss ever go away?
Because I really want it to. I don’t want my relationship with her to be tainted like this. I don’t want her to have to wear my pain forever.
I can rationalize it all away, of course. The combination of two pregnancy losses between GG and Little A, holding my breath through half of the pregnancy, some stress around the birth and a rough time with food sensitivities are simply taking their toll. Not to mention natural parenting neuroses coupled with sleep deprivation and a healthy dose of Jewish guilt.
I know it’s okay, that it makes sense to feel this way.
What I don’t know is whether or not it will pass. But I guess everything does, right? And if it doesn’t pass completely, at least it will change.
Or maybe I’m overthinking it, as I am wont to do. Perhaps our relationships with our kids are just different. They push different buttons within us, bring out different parts of us. Maybe the narrative I’ve strung together isn’t necessarily the story.
For now, I guess my only option is acceptance. To love her with all of my heart and surrender to the fear and anxiety that’s mashed up within that love. And to hope that as time goes by, as we wrap up her first year and move into her second, that I’ll feel more secure in her existence. In her solidity.
That in time the story of what came before will just be a blip at the beginning of the epic tale of my beautiful Little A.
Mama in the Moment 