Surprise, Part 2

You know the saying, “When you make plans, God laughs?” That is currently the motto for this season of my life.

The dragon had been sick and I had been having symptoms of fatigue and an overall yucky feeling, so I assumed she had spread her toddler germs in my direction. The symptoms persisted and after doing a quick calendar check, I realized my period was (unusually) five days late.  

I thought for sure I had cancer.  Because this infertile body couldn’t get pregnant in my mind, so cancer was clearly the next feasible solution to a very late period.  It was early in the morning, and before heading downstairs, I dug out a lone pregnancy test I had leftover from our failed IVF cycle in May, with the plan to take it so when I called my doc the next to tell her I had cancer, I could also tell her I ruled out pregnancy (although, again, this was just a silly step that would prove fruitless). I took the test and then decided to clean up my bathroom while waiting for the inevitable blank window to show up as it had every single other time I had taken one in the past.  As I went to sweep it into the trashcan, I realized the window looked different than any times before.  There was a very dark, and stark, and immediate plus sign.  I dug the instruction manual out of the trash to make sure I wasn’t have an early morning hallucination, and swiveled my head between the positive pictures on the brochure and the clearly positive test in my other hand.  I was pregnant.

I ran downstairs shaking and found the Sir at the kitchen table.  In all honesty, he and I had been in a fight the evening before (#marriage) so the morning had up until that point been a bit frosty. As I stood in front of him, I honestly am surprised he understood my unintelligible, run on of a breathless sentence.

“I know that we were in a fight and angry but that was yesterday and I love you so much and that is over and I just took a pregnancy test, because I thought I had cancer, but I don’t have cancer, because it is positive.  The test is positive.”

The poor Sir looked at me blankly.  He later told me he thought I was so panicked and crazed because I had just found the Dragon hurt or dead upstairs…we apparently only come up with cancer or death over the possibility of pregnancy in our lives. I saw that he clearly hadn’t understood my eloquence so I thrust the positive test into his face.

“Babe, we’re pregnant.  We are going to have another baby.”

That next 60 seconds was the most raw joy I have ever felt.  We both just held each other and wept into each other’s shoulders as we faced the miracle before us. It was surreal and absolutely magical.

The next few hours were filled with a run for more pregnancy tests, which also immediately came up pregnant when I took them.  We reached out to a few close family and friends, celebrating and asking for prayer.  I sent a note to my doctor, asking for blood work to be done the next morning. We did a lot of staring at each other asking if this was really happening.

The following week, all three blood work results my elated doctor ordered for me came up positive for pregnancy.  My body started responding  by quickly becoming severely nauseated, 100% of the time (more on that in a future post). We bought the Dragon a  Big Sister book and she informed us the baby would be a girl, we would call that girl “Elsa,” and that Dragon would be the first and only person to hold the baby. We have had the privilege of seeing the baby multiple times on ultrasound, as it grows and changes.

And now we are 48 hours from Thanksgiving and I am 10.5 weeks pregnant, still quite a ways to go from our June due date. And even though I am still sick a good chunk of the day, my body is already changing in ways that I was not quite ready for, and we have a cross country move in between now and my delivery, my heart is so grateful to God that it is about to burst. 

This baby is a gift from God, just as our Dragon was (our first surprise).  And I can have a lifetime of Thanksgivings and never give God the thanks he deserves for each of those blessings.

I ended my last blog post with the idea that we would never be handed another baby…and God laughed and poured an unexpected and undeserved blessing into our lives. I have never naturally become pregnant and have also been doing nothing to stop pregnancy for six years, with no results.  But on October 13^th, God decided our lives would take an unexpected turn.

This June, someone will be handing us another baby.

Hard Pill to Swallow

Four and half months since we learned our family of three wouldn’t be growing any larger.

Four and half months of second guessing, tear filled conversations, trying to process our new reality that would only be changed by a miracle.

And for 48 hours last week, I thought there might be a tiny miracle.  A rare period that was late, nausea that was worsening, a butterfly feeling in my stomach that maybe this was why God told us “no” in May…that this was what we had been waiting for.  I even had enough hope to schedule bloodwork with my doctor, since an at home pregnancy test still gave me PTSD flashbacks. But, with an evening trip to the bathroom, the word “INFERTILITY” got stamped quickly back onto my forehead and I felt foolish for even having the audacity to think that it could ever have been otherwise.

That’s the hidden hard part of this whole journey. The constant, lifelong reminders that having a big family was not in the cards for you.

Infertility doesn’t stop your period coming every 26 days like clockwork, a monthly reminder that you aren’t having a baby again. Do I have to be reminded of that another 200 times? More?

Infertility also doesn’t rub off on the people around you, not that I would ever wish that on any of my friends.  But when you’re 33 and surrounded by people right in the throes of the most fertile period of their lives, there is always a swelling belly, a swaddled newborn, a birth story, to remind me that my body is broken. And time will just exacerbate that, as I watch their families grow with ease, while mine does not.

The reminders are everywhere---the backseat full of car seats, where mine will always have one.  The matching sibling Christmas pajamas where Cora will always have her own unique set.  Stories of sibling rivalries, sibling love, a house full of kid chaos.  Just a text from one of my brothers pangs my heart, knowing that is not a relationship my kiddo will have.

The hardest reality that I have yet to come to terms with this summer? 

This pain is forever.  I can be 33 or 93 and I think this pain to some extent will always be tucked away in my heart.  Dreams that didn’t come to fruition that I had so dearly wanted to come true.  Of a big family, a bunch of kids, pregnancies that took a conversation and wine and not much more than that. I will spend the rest of my life with that ache.

My new reality is that someone will not ever hand me another baby.

Don't Have Time for Grief

How do you process grief when you don’t have time? And how do you heal when that wound is constantly reopened by the every day life events around you?

I continue to search for these answers three weeks after getting the news that our last and much hoped for baby boy embryo did not result in a pregnancy.  Because three weeks later, the wound still feels raw and is far from being healed.

And although I am the first person to give the advice “Don’t stuff those feelings down,” as the mother of a two year old and a full schedule, I don’t really know what else to do in order to successfully get through the day.  Just since sitting down typing out the beginning of this post, I have had to stop to let the dogs out (twice), to turn on a new Sesame Street episode, to change a pair of peed in pajamas (the toddler’s, not mine), and to put that same toddler in a two minute timeout.  Time to ruminant and process is in short supply around here.

When dinner needs to be cooked and groceries need to be ordered and the big dog needs to go to the groomer and the little dog needs new diet dog food and the husband needs a listening ear after another 14 hour work day and the car needs an oil change and floors have week old paw prints that need to be mopped off and the toddler gets a timeout every hour for yelling “NO” at you and the upstairs tub has a stain you can’t scrub out and you realize you have one pair of clean underwear left, where do you fit the grief in?

And when, in the midst of the chaos, you are constantly reminded about your loss, how do you manage that? Because I have discovered that avoiding babies (particularly cuddly little boy ones) is pretty much impossible, particularly when so many of your dear friends happen to have one they bring along whenever you get together.  The grocery store and Target aisles and park benches are swarming with babies.  Facebook seems to be 95% photos of new babies or pregnancy announcements with 2020 due dates.  The Dragon likes to add a cherry on top by regularly stating, “I want a baby in my house!”  And then that grief that I have been stuffing down tries to bubble up and drown me in the King Soopers checkout lane, because that isn’t something that I can give to her.

Then I quickly stuff that grief back down, because I just don’t have time.

But it’s always there and it is always aching.  If I look inward and pay attention for a minute and examine my heart, I realize that grief hasn’t been stuffed down, but is just a thin layer over the busyness of the day. I realize that the cracks in my heart are deep and painful.

I am thankful for a God that is omnipresent and near me in each minute. For the friends and family who have sent cards, texts, emails, made phone calls, given me hugs, to let me know that in the midst of this battle I am not alone.  My community has been a gracious gift God has given me in this season.

So next time you see me, I will probably be my usual cheerful self. I will snuggle your sweet baby, who I truly love, and I will laugh at all the right places. But just know, my heart isn’t healed yet. I am not sure if it ever will be completely.

Because someone won’t be handing me another baby.

Heartache After Heartbreak

I thought for sure I was pregnant.  It was eight days after our embryo transfer and I had all the signs I had had with my last two pregnancies, every one.  I was nauseated and everything smelled really good or really bad or somehow, weirdly enough, both good and bad at the same time. My breasts were tender and so was my lower abdomen, which felt tight and full.  I knew that the medications that I was on to help make this pregnancy viable could have similar side effects, but since I had been on these medications previously and could compare the symptoms to when I had been pregnant, my heart firmly believed that there was a little boy starting to grow inside my womb.

So when the Sir and I decided to do an at home pregnancy test the night before our blood work, I thought for sure we’d be heading for celebratory ice cream and a trip to the Target baby section.

But then no second line showed up.

I leaned my head into the bathroom mirror and kept staring down at the empty test screen, willing even a faint shadow of a line to appear, but nothing did.

I was upset, the Sir was confused, and we both kept a secret hope that the next day’s blood work would show that we somehow had a faulty test that had given us a false negative.

So the next morning, the Dragon and I headed to the doc to get my blood drawn. The Dragon was excited at her post doc visit lollipop and I spent the drive just praying that when I got the phone call that afternoon, there would be celebrating instead of sorrow. Dragon and I went to her gymnastics class and picked up groceries, we walked the dogs and had lunch with the Sir at work, and then we headed to my sweet friend’s home for Dragon’s nap and for support as I waited to hear back from the doctor’s office.

My phone rang a few hours later and I took a deep breath as I answered the call.  It was my favorite nurse, and I knew by the tone of her voice what she was about to tell me.

My pregnancy test had come back negative.  The embryo had not stuck.

I wept into my friend’s shoulder. I called the Sir and told him the news. I felt a heaviness in my heart and body that I have not felt since our pregnancy loss.

And although I had never been pregnant with this little boy, that all of the symptoms were medication related and not him sending out a signal that he was tucked away in there, it did feel like a loss. It still does.

I have dreamed about this boy for years, but especially the last three, knowing we had this one embryo left after the Dragon, one last chance to expand our family to four.  I dreamed he’d be my one kiddo with curly hair, that his brown eyes would be the same caramel color like his dad’s.  I dreamed of his Star Wars nursery and the pictures of he and his sister I would put in the frames around our house.  I dreamed of another baby being snuggled by the hound and wondered what the polar bear would think of the new puppy. I had dreamed of holding him in my arms on those sleepless newborn nights and just staring into his tiny face, singing him the same lullabies and hymns I had sung to the Dragon.  I had dreamed he would be kind and stubborn and have a laugh that would bring joy into our house.  Even though he was never actually here, this boy had a name and was very very real to me.

So now the Sir and I are just trying to wade through this unique grief…grief of a life that we had hoped would be.  Grief of plans we had already made for the year in how we would prepare for this new child.  I grieve for a pregnancy that will never be, for a body I won’t be able to watch change and grow as I impatiently wait to meet my son.  I grieve for my husband, that he won’t be able to teach this boy how to hit a home run in the backyard.  I grieve for my daughter, because I don’t want her to grow up and not have the blessing of someone that understands just how crazy her parents are, someone who grew up in the room down the hall from hers. 

I don’t know what the Sir and I will do next…my heart is hurting too much to make any significant life decisions. This was our 8^th failed infertility treatment out of the 9 we’ve done over the last six years and I don’t think I would be able to handle another round. 

I don’t know if someone will ever hand us another baby, and I grieve for that, too.

Forgetful

It has been almost exactly three years since I was reminded daily that I’m infertile. Now it is nearly impossible to forget as I prepare to go through my second frozen embryo transfer.

I had forgotten about how tricky it is to get all of the logistics planned around a schedule that is already busy and this time, has a toddler and baby-sitter schedule thrown in.  Last time, the Sir was getting paid to go to school, but this time he’s in a very busy, active duty position and when you need a driver because you’re going to be pumped full of Xanax, that can get tricky to coordinate.

I had forgotten how easily it is to get overwhelmed (or occasionally encouraged) by the dozens of statistics that I can’t help but look up online (I know---that’s stupid). Comparing our embryo to others to see if they were successful after a transfer.  Looking up rates of miscarriage with a B- rated embryo.  Trying to find any similar stories about people that transferred embryos with chromosomal abnormalities and ended up pregnant and with a healthy baby in their arms.  It is like trying to run your odds at a gambling table in Vegas even though no one’s experience is ever going to mirror or impact your own. Someone’s win on a pair of threes, doesn’t mean that same hand will give me a jackpot, too.

I had forgotten how physically I am affected before the transfer even occurs.  The stress typically gives me nightmares and those have been frequently manifesting already. The testing I have to redo this round is painful and has typically blown the rest of my day as I try to recover or grit my teeth through the pain post-procedure. 

I had forgotten how the prayer in my head is more constant than ever…Praying for courage. Praying that all this effort and cost pays off. Praying for a pregnancy, one that is healthy and goes full term. Praying that this doesn’t end in disappointment and heartache. Praying that I can be a good mom and wife in the midst of the chaos. Praying for our son.

We have chosen to not go through this process again---this is it for us. And so I am sure someday I will forget…that these details will blur together into one lump experience of infertility. That it will be a period of time that will be a blurry memory when I think back to it.  But the hope is that I can look over to my son, to my daughter, and not care about all the details that I have forgotten to get them at my dinner table.

Because despite it all, I am still going to step forward in the prayer that someone will be handing me a baby.

Infertility Doesn't End with a Baby

It has been two years since I had to walk through the doors of a reproductive endocrinologist’s office with the hopes that when I passed through those doors on the way out, that we had been given hope.  The last time I walked out our doctor’s doors, I was nine weeks pregnant with the Dragon.

And now, I have an active two year old and a husband finally home from deployment and we are about to start the process for baby #2 again, because infertility doesn’t end even when you have a kid sleeping down the hall from you.

The Sir and I don’t have the luxury of having a brief discussion about stopping birth control (which I haven’t been on in five years anyway) with the hopes that we get pregnant just a few short months later.  We don’t have accidental pregnancies or unexpected surprises and there’s no ”let’s just see what happens” options when you have an infertility diagnosis.

We have to have months of discussion about timing and his availability to accompany me to doctor’s appointments on a work day or who’s going to tame the Dragon while we’re gone.  We have to talk about how we are going to pay for this next round when we haven’t even paid off the procedure that resulted in the Dragon.  I have to get mentally and physically ready to get back on the hormones that will be prescribed and go through all the uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, procedures once again.  We have to be prepared for the fact that we only have one embryo left---one last shot---and that there’s about a dozen steps that have to work out before we even get a positive pregnancy test. We have to step out in faith and surround ourselves in prayer to fight this battle one last time, to not lose hope, to trust that God will remain sovereign in the midst of this once again.

I wish the Sir and I could share a bottle of wine on a Saturday and have a good ol’ fashioned romp in the bedroom to make this baby, rather than heading to the hospital and holding hands while a doctor inserts this embryo.  The first option is definitely a lot more fun for both of us.

But for whatever reason, God has lead us down this path.  He was faithful and generous in giving us our Dragon, and now we pray that He allows us to meet this little boy that we have been waiting and praying for over the last two years.

So this Christmas, we ask that you send some prayers our way, because we hope by next year, someone will be handing us another baby.

Falling Short

Parenting during a deployment is hard.  Parenting during deployment with a strong willed, high needs dragon toddler seems nearly impossible.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it---it sucks balls.

Dragon has never been an easy kiddo to raise.  She feels every emotion to an extreme level, and that includes anger and frustration and sadness.  She needs a constant combination of mental AND physical stimulation and rarely can sit still for more than a few minutes before she wanders off to find something that suits her fancy more than what she’s currently doing. From the moment her little wide toddler feet hit the ground in the morning, it is full speed ahead until bedtime with few stops in between.

So running at 100MPH every day, all day, starts to wear a person down, particularly when it is a mama that already has extra responsibilities on her plate with the Sir being away.  There is no one to hand off responsibility to when Dragon is on her fifth tantrum since breakfast or when mama is in the midst of another storm related migraine.  There is no one to tag in when you’re at the end of your rope.

And it is wearing on my heart.  So often I end the day wishing I had done more, been more, loved more.  That I had taken time to do another craft or made a more nutritious meal or stopped folding the third load of laundry to read Cora’s favorite book another round.  I judge the time we spent at the park versus the time we spent at the grocery store, the effort I put into pulling the weeds versus creating chalk art in the driveway, the amount of my day I spent disciplining versus snuggling.  And when I finish the calculations in my head, my sum as a mommy always seems to fall short. 

But, Praise God, He seems to remind me over and over that He and Cora are not measuring me up to my own expectations.  That God sees my heart, hears my prayers, and is with me each step of this deployment journey.  He speaks through my sweet encouraging friends, who tell me I’m doing a good job and hug me when I have had a tough morning as a mommy.  He speaks through my husband, who manages to send me flowers from around the world to remind me that the Sir sees my struggle and loves me all the same. He speaks through my big headed dog, who somehow manages to know the exact moment his mom needs him to jump on the bed so she can cry into his neck.

And my God reminds me through that tiny, feisty dragon that her little eyes see a mommy that loves her to the tips of her fat toes.  When she successfully climbs a big ladder at the park and immediately looks over to give me a big hammy grin.  Or when she “helps” me pull the weeds amidst the rocks in the front yard and then comes over to put her dirty hands in mine as we go back inside for lunch.  Or after being disciplined for what seems to me like the hundredth time just that day, she brings me over her favorite book to read while we snuggle in the corner of the couch. 

Dragon sees what my heart intends as a mommy, and I pray that someday, I can see it, too,