[275 days Postpartum] Why I'm not pregnant.

     Since Leeona passed away, my days were always a struggle to make it to today. This month, this week. At Nine months postpartum, we would be medically cleared to try to conceive another child. This would make for 18 months between deliveries, and leave us with the higher chance of giving birth to a happy healthy baby.
     I have counted down the days. Literally. All I wanted was for this day to be here, I know I can never ( nor would I ever want to ) replace my sweet LeeLee, but I could at least bring back a happiness that we are missing, right? Yes. I could. That was my driving force, if you make it thru this many more days, then we can have another baby. I spent all that time excited for this day, and now that it's here. I realized it hasn't changed anything. It wasn't this magic number, that made everything better. It wasn't this magical day, that I decided it was time for baby #2. I kept Leeona's nursery just the way it was, mostly out of laziness, really. If we were just going to turn around and have another baby in a couple months, then was it really worth the hassel? Do I really wanna pack it all up, and then unpack it? Especially if its a girl? So I decided to just leave it until Baby Warren 2 showed up.
     Grief
     I finally got here. I got to today, and do you know how I spent my day? I went to home depot, bought some vacuum seal bags, and totes, and packed up my little girls entire life, down to a few boxes.

     I'm not ready to have another baby.
     There. I said it.
     I want nothing more in the world to have another baby.
     But we are not ready. Yet.

     I've always been a bit of a grouchy human. Snippy and irritable. More irritable, because I have a difficult time allowing other emotions to show thru. If I'm sad; I'm grumpy. If I'm hurt; instead I project grumpiness, and since the loss of our daughter, there are more of those moments, than there ever were before. I'm working on them, I'm working on not being a total pain in my husbands ass, just because I'm having a moment.
     Matthew is very in-tune with my emotions, he see's them, and knows them, sometimes before I even know I'm feeling them. He know's things that are going to upset me even before I see them. He has been able to do that since we were kids. I sincerely appreciate that quality in him, however, that doesn't make it okay for me to be grumpy with him, due to things out of his control. I don't want to bring another human, into an emotional mess, until I am able to control those emotions. I've dealt with Leeonas loss, with being grouchy, I don't want my next child to be a failed attempt to "fix" that.
     Matthew has run into his own sets of problems, when it comes to the way he grieves, we are both two completely different beings, with different coping skills, and different needs and wants, and YES we are STILL grieving, and figuring out where we go from here.

     Health 
     I had a doctors appointment a couple of weeks before I delivered Leeona. Baby looked perfect and completely healthy, the only thing that my midwives were concerned about was my weight. More pointedly my BMI. Once you get to a certain BMI you are considered high risk. I was already over weight before my pregnancy, and the additional 12 lbs I gained while I was pregnant almost  put me in that special category. When I asked what the high risk was, she told me a list of things, that I cannot remember now, but I do recall her saying "Stillbirth, and a whole bunch of other scary words like that, that you don't want me to list. Let focus on keeping you out of that category" So I did, i stayed my two lbs shy of that BMI.
     I know that the likelihood of another pregnancy ending this way, is slim, however it's still a possibility. If for any reason, this happened again, I need to know I did every single thing in my power to  avoid it. I need to know that I looked at this pregnancy with newly opened eyes about the possibility of stillbirth, and that there is nothing i could have done to stop it, just as I know I couldn't have changed this outcome. That includes keeping myself out of that category, and far from it. So until I'm going to work on making myself healthier, before I am in that situation again.


Fertility 
     I have made most of my journey public knowledge so I may as well throw this in there too.
I am surprised that we ever became pregnant with Leeona with out actively trying, and timing. My cycles have been horrendous and unpredictable my whole life. I had to start taking birth control almost immediatly after getting my first period, because they were so unmanageable. After Leeona's birth, I taking a little more interest in tracking all things relating to fertility, knowing I'd be able to try again soon.
     What I learned from that is; that my body is irregular. My body rarely ovulates, which means I will likely have to try very hard to conceive my next child. Which is another thing I'm not ready for. I'm not ready for the tracking, and the planning, and trying. And worse; I'm not ready to pee on a stick, and then look my husband in the face month after month, and say "I'm sorry". If we do end up having struggles in that department, I'm not ready for it to be my fault, or to take on the emotional toll that I've seen people struggle with.