I took a pregnancy test last week. If you follow me on TikTok, you may have seen the video and know where this is going. The test was very negative, and I am very not pregnant. It was April 7th, the week of my due date and exactly three months since my baby was stillborn at 26 weeks and 5 days. When I woke up that morning, I was very nauseous, which is not out of the ordinary for me. This was enough to convince me I needed to take a pregnancy test. I have been using Natural Cycles along with my Oura ring to obsessively track my ovulation for over a year now, so I knew with certainty that I was only nine days past ovulation. With my first (and only) pregnancy, my positive came ten days after ovulation. I knew the chances of being pregnant were slim, but as my therapist said, I was “grasping at straws.”

The thing is, I’m not even “trying” to get pregnant. I know if the test had been positive I would have put my OB and my therapist on a conference call to talk me down from a complete spiral. I know that seeing any positive pregnancy test in the future will fill me with so much anxiety. I know that I am not physically or emotionally ready to endure another pregnancy yet. So why did I feel sad when a second line never appeared?

Since losing Nathan, many people have asked when or if we planned on getting pregnant again. (Side note: I don’t mind people asking, as long as they accept my answer and don’t try to give me their opinion on how long we should be waiting or if we should wait at all.) My answer is this: I change my mind every single day, multiple times a day. There are a lot of different factors that go into making that decision, and it is a deeply personal journey.

I want another baby. I so desperately want to mother a living child. I want to experience a full term pregnancy. I want to be able to look into my baby’s eyes, hear their cries, and feel their warmth as I hold them after birth. However, I wanted all of those things with Nathan, too. Sometimes it is hard to know if I truly want another baby or if I just want Nathan back. Truthfully, I think it will always be a bit of both.

One of my fears when it comes to getting pregnant again is that it will make other people forget Nathan. I know that to my husband and I, he is irreplaceable and will always be a part of our lives and our family. People who have never experienced this type of loss may look at me having another baby as curing me of my grief over losing Nathan. While a living baby is sure to bring so much joy to our family, the pain we feel from the death of our firstborn will never go away. On the other hand, I worry that if I get pregnant relatively soon, people will judge me for “moving on” too quickly. I know I should not be worrying about other people’s opinions, but it’s just who I am.

Of course, the biggest fear I have with getting pregnant again is going through another loss. We have no answers about why Nathan died, so the thought of getting pregnant and not getting to bring a baby home again fills me with so much anxiety. People have told me that “most” people who have had a stillbirth go on to have healthy pregnancies and living babies. While this is meant to be comforting, I simply do not find peace in statistics anymore because “most” pregnancies do not end in stillbirth. To add to that, there are many parents who have experienced multiple stillbirths. The harsh reality that I am all too familiar with is that a positive pregnancy test does not guarantee a baby.

To be completely transparent, I am hesitant to get pregnant in the near future simply because I am unfortunately not someone who enjoys pregnancy. I carry a lot of guilt over not fully loving every second of my pregnancy with Nathan, but I was exhausted and uncomfortable for the entirety of it. The first trimester was an emotional rollercoaster of finding out I was pregnant, then finding out I was pregnant with twins, then losing twin B, on top of the nausea and exhaustion. I had terrible sciatic pain, massive nosebleeds, and eczema literally head to toe. It was not an enjoyable time for me, but I would do it all again. I will do it all again, someday. However, I find myself questioning whether or not I am ready to go through that again so soon with the addition of a high risk pregnancy AND the anxiety of pregnancy after loss.

With that being said, going through postpartum without having a baby to care for is cruel. My body doesn’t understand, and my brain is dealing with so many emotions I can barely cope. The want for a baby is more than a longing; it is an ache I feel deep in my bones. I have this natural, biological need to love and nurture a baby that I gave birth to but never got to take home.

Conceiving again has been the topic of many, many conversations between my husband and I. I truly believe there is no “best” time to have a baby, but we decided to try to get pregnant the first time because we felt as ready as we possibly could be. With conceiving after loss, we are once again faced with having to decide if we are “ready.” Ready for the fear, ready for the weekly high risk appointments, ready for the possibility of another loss. But, still, we have been ready and even longing for diaper changes, baby coos, and pediatrician appointments.

I am very much the type of person that wants to do things the right way, have the right answers, and make the right choices. However, nothing really feels “right” after stillbirth. While almost everything else is uncertain, I do know that my future children will be Nathan’s siblings, not his replacement. I pray for clarity and strength as we consider trying to conceive and the possibility of a second pregnancy in the future.