Blurry Edges II

(I thought this posted May 9 but it was sitting as a draft for the past few months!)

It didn't seem fair that Eve's birth story was relegated to an obscurely titled post that philosophized on how my past has changed me and the probability of future baby loss.

And so...(this part from the end of the original prior post)

Back to the baby loss narrative. I've got my three wonderful babies. I never wanted more than three, before Blue. I'm not even 2 weeks post-partum, so I realize there are still hormones swirling around my body and maybe a little out of control yet. But I want "just one more."

Just one more to fill that void. Just one more extra baby to balance out the missing one.

I think I mentioned before that I live in a pretty Catholic neighborhood and there are large families all around us. I see parents with four or five kids and I want to be like them. Would I then be the envy of other people like me? My birth experience was wonderful, but it would be more wonderful if Mr. E and I had been there together. It would be more wonderful to have one more chance to see in detail the miracle of what was happening, instead of the blurry edges that I remember now. I mean this literally...but I see the metaphor. Metaphors. I live my life like everything is not quite focused, not quite good enough. The experience of grieving a lost baby--the grief itself and the tears through which you see the world while grieving--also makes for blurry edges. There's a blurry edge in that feeling that not everything will ever be quite right again after a baby dies. Could just one more bring me some perspective?

But then the doubt sets in. Do I deserve another baby? Can my career handle it? Can my marriage? What if it takes me another 14 months to get pregnant? Will I still want another baby almost two years from now? What if there's something wrong with baby? Is it greedy to want another one? Will I deserve it if my fourth child has special needs? If we decide to terminate? Is it OK to end on a loss? When I wanted another baby because of how great the immediately prior birth and post-partum/neo natal experience was? And not because I always wanted four. Four sounded like a LOT of kids...until Blue died. Then nothing sounded like a lot of kids. Am I too old? I wish I didn't have to keep rushing to have my kids. Wouldn't it be nice to have some time to think about this? I'm too old, it's too risky, we should quit while we're ahead. Except of course I'm not. I'm behind in the kid count and always will be. Is this a legitimate reason to want another baby?

I finished a song recently and the last pair of lyrics I wrote is:
I can't tell, why things aren't coming into focus
I can't tell, that if they did I'd even notice

As in most other topics in my life, I am not sure where I stand.