This is pregnancy after loss. This is parenting after loss. This is life after loss.
I was packing up the newborn and 0-3 month clothes now that Dòmhnall has outgrown them, and I had a thought. I separated out the newborn clothes I had (or I knew someone had for me!) before either Gus or Dòmhnall were born.
Photo 1: newborn size. The vests we got free in the Scottish baby box, one 3 pack of vests, one babygrow and bib set, and the lion set I knew my friend had. This is all I had before Gus was born.
Photo 2: 1 three pack of babygrows in 0-3 size, and one rainbow vest.
Photo 3: newborn size. The only additions were the babygrow set at the front, a few more gifts from the same friend (from when Gus was born) and more baby box clothing.
I see people, fellow infertiles, who go wild with what they buy for their babies before they are born. For me? This was it. I was thoroughly unprepared for Gus in terms of clothing. I didn't want to "tempt fate". There are so many Irish phrases and superstitions, and logically I know that buying something isn't going to have a negative impact on a pregnancy, but emotionally I couldn't do it. I couldn't face the idea that I would have an excess of clothing that if anything went wrong I might need to pack away.
With Gus, I was in hospital for 5 days, and our family (grandparents) bought a lot of 0-3 clothing. I don't have an updated picture of that, because of the sheer amount of clothes I had/needed.
I wish I could have been more prepared. I wouldn't have had to put the baby blue clothes on the babies, because I would have had clothes I liked. (I really dislike the colours assigned to the genders)
Packing them away was hard, it brought back all those nervous emotions, brought back my disappointment in myself for almost being forced to ask grandparents for the early sizes, and them being blue, brought back the pain of packing them away the first time, the nerves pulling them out again, and all the pain of "is it going to happen?" questioning if we will use them again, if we will plan to try. One thing is for sure, if I do have a next time, I'm going to buy something that I love for baby while pregnant.