Statistics and fear

I have bored myself silly reading statistics about miscarriages and live birth rates.  I really don't know why I bother.  My pregnancy with Adrian went pretty well, had excellent HCG numbers, and I could actually detect a fetal heartbeat with the doppler ultrasound at 8.5 weeks, and yet I lost him, with a 99% chance of live birth.  I was in the other 1% category.  Why do I bother reading statistics?  I should just enjoy my newly unfolding pregnancy and try taking it one day at a time.

And for the most part, I do.  (I have even downloaded a pregnancy countdown box for fun, not because I really believe I will have a baby at some point, but because I have always wanted one).  In reality, occasionally, such as tonight, I freak out in worry.  I had too many liquids during the day because my throat was dry, and when I came home I did my customary pee test, because I cannot live without knowing at least at 12 hour intervals that there is still pregnancy hormone in my body.  The line was, naturally, faint, because the urine was so dilute.  However, all the knowledge in the world could not stop me from worrying that the pregnancy is dying, just like the other two chemical pregnancies did.

I know that in all likelihood tomorrow morning the test will be darker still, just as it has been darkening progressively over the past four mornings.  But tonight no amount of logic can ease off this terror that accompanies me at every step, that I will lose my baby again, just like I did before.  Inside me there is a little scared woman who thinks that she is doomed to lose every baby in her life, to go repeatedly through the same trauma until the hurt of it is more than the pain of stopping.  Hopefully though, there is also a woman who can live in the moment a little, and enjoy the knowledge that every second is shared with a little soul the size of a grain of sand.