Week Nine - Limbo

am i really pregnant?
i'm used to the low-level nausea, the feeling that i just did three shots of Nyquil, the ridiculously sore yet alarmingly plump breasts, the stunning burps that just rip out of me whenever they want...in other words, physically, i'm still pregnant. but if the baby i carry is no longer a living embryo, then who -- or what -- am i pregnant with?
the diagnosis is that Tummymuffin stopped developing some time ago, and that it is only a matter of time before my body figures this out and expels what is left. sorry to be clinical about it, but i think it's easier to put it in these terms; i am still trying to wrap my head around this and it's not simple at all. as i am not willing, at this point, to use medical intervention to hasten this process, i am now in this bizarre limbo, waiting for the end instead of a beginning.
this is very different from when i lost Isabela; she always felt so alive and glowing to me -- i felt her presence inside and when i saw her shape and heartbeat on that first ultrasound, it wasn't really a surprise, as i'd somehow pictured her already. i think that's why choosing a name and personifying her as a real child, and a girl, was easy; she'd been with me for those weeks. her loss was a swift and shocking surprise; totally unexpected -- but i was thankful i'd known her for at least a short time.
but this? this is utterly confusing. i'm already mourning the loss of a baby i never really got to know. i'm around the same number of weeks as i was with our first, but there is a heartbreaking, panicky void as to who this second one was. i constantly wonder when Tummymuffin actually left me. and i constantly try not to think about what that answer could be. it makes me wonder if i ever had a Tummymuffin at all. was our confirmed hope & expectation of a child enough to actually "make" a real one? if the space between pure physicality and metaphysical existence is what we call "life," then it's a bigger, greyer, messier space than i realised.
i think what i'm most pregnant with right now is sadness.