Back to work

I've been back to work for a week now. I'm so lucky to have a job I enjoy. I was nervous about coming back because of my anxiety and I didn't see most of my coworkers while I was off. The thing I hate is having people look at you with such a sad face and say they're sorry. I just don't know what to say back to them. Even when we tell people what happened I never know how to react. I try to make them feel better about what happened. Saying thank-you just doesn't seem like the right thing to say because then they just look at you and you know they want to ask more questions. One thing I was looking forward to was going to labs that I didn't work at while I was pregnant and they wouldn't know what happened. My first day back should've been one of those labs. The day started off great and I was so happy to not have to answer "how are you doing?" in relation to Hailey. Then on my break one of my coworkers came in and asked me how much of my personal life everyone knew. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but then I realized she meant about the pregnancy and what happened. I told her I never kept it from anyone and my boss had told all the labs I worked at what happened. She then told me that up until the day before they didn't know what happened, but then one of the other girls who moves around told them everything. She said that she wanted me to know that this girl was gossiping about me. I really appreciated her telling me this. I didn't want to say anything in person and maybe I'm just a chicken but I sent her an e-mail the next day pretty much saying that the reason I've been so open about what happened was to prevent gossip, but I was looking forward to going to the labs that didn't know so I could be "normal" and that I would appreciate it if she would not talk about it. She sent me a reply saying she was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again. I ended up working with her the next day and I wasn't sure if I should mention it or not but then I thought we've dealt with it and saying nothing and changing nothing about my actions around her means that it's in the past and I've moved on and let go of that incident.

I've been thinking a lot today about what I'd be doing if we'd continued with the pregnancy. I'd either be in Vancouver, Edmonton or Toronto waiting to go into labour. These are the only hospitals that do the surgery (Vancouver recruited the surgeon to start in June.) Because of how bad her condition was I needed to be within 45 minutes of the hospital in case I went into labour and delivered quickly. They also needed to monitor her heartbeat very closely. How different our lives would be at the moment if we'd kept going with the pregnancy. I still daydream about what would have happened if she didn't have the defect or we decided to take the chance and continue. I guess it doesn't really matter because we made our decision and can't go back. I don't cry as much anymore but sometimes I think about her and miss her so much. It's incredible how much you can love someone you never got to know.