Dear Baby Boy--
Happy Birthday.
I wish you were here with me. I wish I could hold you in my arms and nurse you to sleep and lay you in your crib and turn on the sound machine and I wish I were laying here in my bed worrying about how you'd sleep and if you were going to make it all the way though the night. I wish you were crawling around and picking up crumbs off the floor. I wish you were slobbering on all of your brother's toys and itching to be a big boy and take over the house. I wish you were babbling your first words at me from a high-chair as you beg for more food (and faster!). I wish you were laying on the couch making out with the dog like your brother did at a year old, even though I did NOT approve of this behavior. I wish I were giving you bubble baths with your brother and watching him teach you ALL about the whales and dolphins and sharks floating around you both in the treacherous bathtub seas. I wish you were here to ride in the stroller and slowly melt into sleep as your brother pushed you around the block on our evening walk. I wish you were here to sleep snuggled next to him in his big boy bed, just because you love to snuggle. I wish you were here to leap head-first off the couch just because it seemed like fun at the time. I wish you were here to pick up all of your brother's bad habits. I wish you were here to make me crazy. I wish you were here to make me wonder what I was thinking having two boys! I wish you were here. Period.
If you were here, I'd be baking a cake and mixing icing to find just the right colors. I'd be helping you practice blowing so you could blow out your first birthday candle on your own. I'd be wrapping presents and counting plates and cups and napkins. I'd be double checking the RSVP list for your party. I'd be charging my camera battery. I'd be double checking the grocery list. I'd be washing diapers and cleaning the house top-to-bottom for the arrival of guests. I'd be making a slideshow of all the 1000s of pictures I'd taken of you over the months so everyone could see how you've grown and watch your adventures. I'd be sitting here tearing up over how much you've grown and how far you've come and be thinking, "How did my baby get so BIG?!?"
Instead, I'm laying here alone. Wishing I could hold you one more time. Wishing I could kiss those tiny lips just one last time. Wishing I could relive that hour over and over and over so that I would never forget a single detail of the swirls of hair on your tiny head or the fingernails on your fingers. So I'd never ever ever forget how much I loved your huge feet. So I'd never forget that you had a perfect miniature replica of my nose (and your brother's). So I'd never forget those few minutes I got to hold you in my arms and pray that things could be different for you. For us. Because little boys need their mamas. And mamas are never complete without their little men to take care of.
A year ago, just hours before my labor began, I couldn't imagine a world without you in it. I've been living in that world for 363 days now and it is an awful place. Absolutely awful. You would have made the world so much better, just by being you. You were sweet, but mischievous. You were quieter than your brother (thank goodness!). You never threw wild parties in my belly like he did, but you would roll and kick and stretch out those little legs of yours. Sometimes you'd stop moving just long enough to make me begin to wonder and as soon as I'd break out the doppler you'd run away from it and spend the next few moments beating it silly instead of letting me hear your heartbeat---this habit of yours ultimately got me one last ultrasound glimpse of you in the hospital because the doctor wanted to get your heart-rate for the chart but you were having NONE of it and just happily beat up the Doppler. You liked to toy with us that way. You loved to kick your brother when he kissed you. You liked to beat up Daddy while he slept. You HATED it if Mama squished you with tight clothes or by laying on her tummy. You loved to dig your teeny toes down as low as you could to make Mama uncomfortable. You took almost an hour to show us the goods at the anatomy scan---you waited until we were about to give up and then spread them wide and proud to show off your little manhood. You took your sweet time about things and didn't rush. You were laid back. You were perfect. And I want so much to know who you would have become. Surely not the wild take-no-prisoners toddler your brother is. You'd have been different. The perfect foil for his crazy antics.
He would have been SUCH a good big brother to you. He would have loved you to the ends of the Earth. He still talks about you every single day. He still carries his "Brother" doll around and sleeps with it every single night. He knows that you were in Mama's tummy and that you came out and you were too small, so you died. He misses you. He remembers how cute you were and how small. He remembers playing with you and talking to you and kissing you. He remembers those weeks you were growing in my belly. He remembers being there when you were born and holding you and kissing your face and he remembers that you had a weenie (he was very impressed with your toes too!). He knows you were sick and hurting and he still cries for you sometimes. He wishes he could see you. He wants to play with you so much. He calls all of the baby things yours. Even his old hand me downs are yours in his mind. Your blankets, your crib, your clothes, your swing. And he's very protective of your things. Just like he protects that doll. He brushes his teeth with it. He plays with it---and it breaks my heart every time. He pretends that you ARE that doll and that he's playing with YOU. And he tells me all the time what you like, what you feel, what you want. And I wish so much that I could bring you back and let him have his BROTHER. That doll has learned to play so many games and do so many big-boy things that I can only imagine what he would teach you and do with you if you were here with us. It would be amazing to watch and it is one of the parts of losing you that makes my heart ache the most. I may not deserve the amazing gift to be a mother again. I know I'm not perfect. But that little boy deserves to have his brother. And YOU deserve to have your big brother and to LIVE and grow and be. None of us deserved what happened to you.
And your Daddy doesn't talk about it much. He feels guilty. When he talks about you, it usually starts with somethign having to do with how we could have changed what happened. How we could have fixed it. How things could have been different. How to prevent it from happening again. I know he loved you and misses you as much as any of us, but he is quiet. I think he hides it because he knows that the pain is so raw and clawing for me that he feels like he must be strong because talking about you makes us both hurt more for a little while. Its easier for him to deal with the medical facts than with YOU sometimes, so he thinks of it clinically. When he does let himself feel, he's angry. Very very angry. But he cries for you too. He nearly had a mental breakdown for months after you were born. He had migraines and health issues from all of it. At your funeral, he lost it completely, sobbing while thanking his Marines and friends for coming and supporting us and while telling them about how amazing you were. He loves you so very much. And I know he talks to you, just as I do. So listen to his advice. He's pretty good at it. He is your Daddy, afterall.
I wish things could be different, little one. I ache to have you here with me. Instead, you're in a box on my dresser just below a collage of photos of us all together the day you were born. Next to that box, there is an album of HUNDREDS of photos taken of you in your few short minutes of life and when we held you the day they cremated you. I wish there were thousands more. Hundreds of thousands. I'd walk across the desert without a drop of water for one more minute with you, my love. One more chance to touch your face and let you know how very loved you are and how missed. You will never be forgotten. Not for one minute. Never. You will always be a part of our family and we will always have a place for you in our hearts. We even have a tiny pumpkin for you in our Pumpkin Family that we do on the porch every year with your initial on it. Your photos hang on our walls. We talk about you and the pregnancy with you, the labor, and our few moments with you, just as much as we talk about the pregnancy, birth, and first days with your brother. We only wish we could have gotten to know you better and that you could have known just how much we truly love you with all that we are.
So, happy almost birthday, little one. I wish you were here to celebrate with us. But, don't worry, we'll have cake for you and a little 3 person party. You're welcome to blow out your candle if you want. Your brother said he'd help. And that you need dinosaur cupcakes for your party. Its going to be a pretty big deal around here. Wish you could come.
I love you. So much.
Love,
Mama
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The best feeling ever!
I started out at 171.
Today, I weigh 144!!!
19-24lbs until my goal. When it was 50lbs, it seemed completely impossible. But now, 27lbs from my original weight, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I would love to be 120-125 again (what I weighed when I went to college). And I'm going to get there! My first goal is to get to 135 by the time my Hubs gets back from deployment (9lbs in 1-2.5 months or so, so totally possible). Then lose the last 10 by letting my sexy, muscular, ridiculously hot Marine husband work out with me (P90X, HERE I COME!)---His body fat is like 7% or less and he's RIPPED, so its going to be AMAZING to not feel like a tub of lard when we're naked together!
When I broke through the 150 barrier, I CRIED.
Today, when I saw 144 on the scale, I did again.
If I do this EVERY time I cross a 5lb goal, my Husband is going to make fun of me---ya know, right after he finishes drooling and humping my leg
BEFORE and CURRENT pics below...although the iPhone app won't let me post them in order!
Today, I weigh 144!!!
19-24lbs until my goal. When it was 50lbs, it seemed completely impossible. But now, 27lbs from my original weight, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I would love to be 120-125 again (what I weighed when I went to college). And I'm going to get there! My first goal is to get to 135 by the time my Hubs gets back from deployment (9lbs in 1-2.5 months or so, so totally possible). Then lose the last 10 by letting my sexy, muscular, ridiculously hot Marine husband work out with me (P90X, HERE I COME!)---His body fat is like 7% or less and he's RIPPED, so its going to be AMAZING to not feel like a tub of lard when we're naked together!
When I broke through the 150 barrier, I CRIED.
Today, when I saw 144 on the scale, I did again.
If I do this EVERY time I cross a 5lb goal, my Husband is going to make fun of me---ya know, right after he finishes drooling and humping my leg
BEFORE and CURRENT pics below...although the iPhone app won't let me post them in order!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Emotional Vomit
Sometimes the urge to let words flow out of me becomes so strong that I find myself staring at a blank sheet of paper or, more often, a blank page on a computer screen. When I start to write, I may not be entirely sure of what I will find when I am finished. I only know that it comes from somewhere inside so deep that the words could never find their way up through my lungs and into my throat to be spoken aloud.
You see, I often find that when I open my mouth to speak, that the words are jumbled. My mouth simply can't form the sounds in the right ways to make it come out the way it was meant. The written word, however, leaves so little and so much room for interpretation. There is no inflection. There is no sarcasm. There is only the truth of what is written and that can be taken in so many ways, dependent upon the person who has found themselves reading it (that would be you, dear internet follower).
So, for whatever comes hereafter, I hope you find in it some healing or some laughter or some perspective. Whatever you find, may you enjoy it and take it in the spirit in which it is offered: one broken soul offering up a piece of herself to strangers.
Today, among many other things, I found the memorial dress made for Deagan by my friend Heather. It was hand stitched and made perfect by her hands. I love it and which I had received it in the mail before his body was turned over to the funeral home. When we were able to view him again after that, I was too afraid to undress and redress him because his paper thin skin had become sticky in the early stages of decay and I did not want to risk removing the meager garments they had prepared him in. I carried it with me to view him, but could not bear to bring harm to him, even in death, so he never wore the beautiful little white satin gown that would just have perfectly fit him.
The gown was in a pocket in my suitcase from our move here. As I began repacking for our return move to California, I found it as well as the blanket we wrapped him in and the tiny little heart given to us by the hospital that matched the blanket they gave us. The blanket with the faintest stain from his blood or mine. The heart that I tucked in close to his chest as I swaddled him after he had died so that his brother could hold him. The tiny knit hat that swallowed his even tinier head, but looked too cute in the pictures to take off. The hat that couldn't hide the swirls of dark hair at his temples that promised to grow into a thick mane had he only had the chance to live.
As I stood there, holding the few remaining mementos of the child I will never again hold or kiss, I clutched them to my chest and buried my face in them and inhaled as deeply as I could, knowing that, nearly 9 months later, any faint scent of him would not be there. But I had to try. I needed some part of him to keep with me always. Those tiny flecks of blood on the blanket. The molecules still on the heart. The microscopic hair on the hat. I needed it as close to me as it could possibly be. I wanted to just pull them inside me and hold them there, knowing even in that moment, nothing will ever fill the deep hole inside me that has been there too long.
I have been walking around incomplete since the moment a doctor spoke to me and said, "He will be born tonight and he will die." My only response to him was "What is the best case, miracles-happen, scenario" and when he told me, I told him I'd take that option instead. And I almost succeeded. I almost, through sheer force of will, determination, and fervent and constant prayer, managed to keep my son alive.
I don't know that I will ever again be that strong. I don't know that I will ever again look into the black open pit of fear and take a confident step into it, so sure that I would walk across unharmed simply by refusing to fall. It wasn't that I thought I could control it all. It wasn't that I didn't think God would force me to endure even more pain after what I'd already gone through. It was, simply, that I refused to allow it. I refused to let negativity invade and fear to take hold. I refused to be a willing victim and not fight tooth and nail to the very bitter end.
I'm not sure I have that kind of strength now. I'm not sure I have anything left at all. What I didn't lose when I lost Deagan, I give away every single day to my living son because he deserves all of my joy and my love. And I give it to my husband because he is an amazing man and person. And I have little left for myself because the fire in me, the very heat that forged the woman who refused to give in, is in an urn on my dresser. And nothing will ever be completely right again.
You see, I often find that when I open my mouth to speak, that the words are jumbled. My mouth simply can't form the sounds in the right ways to make it come out the way it was meant. The written word, however, leaves so little and so much room for interpretation. There is no inflection. There is no sarcasm. There is only the truth of what is written and that can be taken in so many ways, dependent upon the person who has found themselves reading it (that would be you, dear internet follower).
So, for whatever comes hereafter, I hope you find in it some healing or some laughter or some perspective. Whatever you find, may you enjoy it and take it in the spirit in which it is offered: one broken soul offering up a piece of herself to strangers.
Today, among many other things, I found the memorial dress made for Deagan by my friend Heather. It was hand stitched and made perfect by her hands. I love it and which I had received it in the mail before his body was turned over to the funeral home. When we were able to view him again after that, I was too afraid to undress and redress him because his paper thin skin had become sticky in the early stages of decay and I did not want to risk removing the meager garments they had prepared him in. I carried it with me to view him, but could not bear to bring harm to him, even in death, so he never wore the beautiful little white satin gown that would just have perfectly fit him.
The gown was in a pocket in my suitcase from our move here. As I began repacking for our return move to California, I found it as well as the blanket we wrapped him in and the tiny little heart given to us by the hospital that matched the blanket they gave us. The blanket with the faintest stain from his blood or mine. The heart that I tucked in close to his chest as I swaddled him after he had died so that his brother could hold him. The tiny knit hat that swallowed his even tinier head, but looked too cute in the pictures to take off. The hat that couldn't hide the swirls of dark hair at his temples that promised to grow into a thick mane had he only had the chance to live.
As I stood there, holding the few remaining mementos of the child I will never again hold or kiss, I clutched them to my chest and buried my face in them and inhaled as deeply as I could, knowing that, nearly 9 months later, any faint scent of him would not be there. But I had to try. I needed some part of him to keep with me always. Those tiny flecks of blood on the blanket. The molecules still on the heart. The microscopic hair on the hat. I needed it as close to me as it could possibly be. I wanted to just pull them inside me and hold them there, knowing even in that moment, nothing will ever fill the deep hole inside me that has been there too long.
I have been walking around incomplete since the moment a doctor spoke to me and said, "He will be born tonight and he will die." My only response to him was "What is the best case, miracles-happen, scenario" and when he told me, I told him I'd take that option instead. And I almost succeeded. I almost, through sheer force of will, determination, and fervent and constant prayer, managed to keep my son alive.
I don't know that I will ever again be that strong. I don't know that I will ever again look into the black open pit of fear and take a confident step into it, so sure that I would walk across unharmed simply by refusing to fall. It wasn't that I thought I could control it all. It wasn't that I didn't think God would force me to endure even more pain after what I'd already gone through. It was, simply, that I refused to allow it. I refused to let negativity invade and fear to take hold. I refused to be a willing victim and not fight tooth and nail to the very bitter end.
I'm not sure I have that kind of strength now. I'm not sure I have anything left at all. What I didn't lose when I lost Deagan, I give away every single day to my living son because he deserves all of my joy and my love. And I give it to my husband because he is an amazing man and person. And I have little left for myself because the fire in me, the very heat that forged the woman who refused to give in, is in an urn on my dresser. And nothing will ever be completely right again.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Begging for Treats
So, we have 3 dogs here currently. My dog, Bandit, the in-laws dog, Cody, and my brother-in-law's dog, Reno. We keep their treats in the pantry where we also keep Smidget's snacks.
So, today, my MIL was giving out treats to the dogs and she had 4 dogs lined up in a row ready to accept them. Yes, four. One of them had no fur and looked suspiciously like Smidget squatting on his haunches. So, she commanded the dogs to "Sit!" and all four did. Then she gave them each a treat (3 got Beggin' Strips and the one little fur-less one got a goldfish cracker).
My kiddo sure is silly.
When the dogs start barking at a fox in the back yard in the evening, he runs right over and stands in the midst of them (he's similar height to two of them) and barks and barks right along side them.
As a baby he ate out of their dog bowls too, if I didn't watch him like a hawk.
All in all, I think my child thinks he's a puppy.
I can live with that ;)
So, today, my MIL was giving out treats to the dogs and she had 4 dogs lined up in a row ready to accept them. Yes, four. One of them had no fur and looked suspiciously like Smidget squatting on his haunches. So, she commanded the dogs to "Sit!" and all four did. Then she gave them each a treat (3 got Beggin' Strips and the one little fur-less one got a goldfish cracker).
My kiddo sure is silly.
When the dogs start barking at a fox in the back yard in the evening, he runs right over and stands in the midst of them (he's similar height to two of them) and barks and barks right along side them.
As a baby he ate out of their dog bowls too, if I didn't watch him like a hawk.
All in all, I think my child thinks he's a puppy.
I can live with that ;)
Monday, July 2, 2012
Things Mama's Do/Know (2)
1. Mamas accept that there will be toads. Lots of them. On her. Beside her. Under her. Its going to happen. And Mama is going to have to kiss a few and hold a few and pet a few. And she's going to pretend to be disgusted and put-upon by it. But, then she remembers that she taught the little man how to catch them and showed him all about them, so its really her fault anyway, so she might as well play with them too.
2. Mamas remember their favorite parts of childhood and do their best to give that to their child. For me, that's adventure. We go adventuring. We never know where we'll wind up, we just GO! Sometimes we go pet the horses next door. Sometimes we find shiny rocks in the driveway. Sometimes we catch toads or crawfish or anything else that will hold still long enough. Mostly, though, Mama remembers catching lightning bugs and shares those joys in what seems miraculous with her little man. Even if it means staying up past bedtime.
3. Mamas remember that while kids do need proper nutrition and healthy snacks and very little sugar, summer is made up of popsicles, s'mores, and watermelon. Its a requirement, so don't bother denying it. Just enjoy it and remember that he can eat his celery for his next snack.
4. Mamas know that little boys must learn how to roast weenies over a campfire (and marshmallows!) and learn how to make his face turn red with a flashlight in the mouth and how to set up a tent and climb inside and play under the stars. Little boys live for camping. And mamas also know that they're still tough guys when they get scared by noises outside and need to snuggle mommies in the night. And mamas secretly love it and snuggle them right back---because that MIGHT have been a scary monster, ya know?
5. Mamas know how to hold their pee. They know that pregnancy and 10lbs kicking you in the bladder is NOTHING compared to a sick feverish little man who just fell asleep on your chest and is absolutely miserable who won't sleep without being on his mama---who has a bladder full to bursting. And mama won't begrudge him one little bit, even though she wants to scream in frustration. But you bet she knows how to carry him to the potty and pee without waking him up if she reaches DEFCON-5 status. And has done it often.
6. Mamas know that grins mean mischief. Every single time. Even when he's being good, the grin promises more to come. Even when he's being bad, the grin tells Mama that he didn't mean it and he won't mean it next time either. Mama also knows that she knows how to grin too. And that he learned his sense of mischief from her. Afterall, she's been painting mustaches on him since he was 3 months old. Because you just can't have too much fun in life! Just wait til Daddy gets back---he's getting marker mustaches too :D
7. Mama knows that little boys need their Daddy time and hand over, even though SHE hasn't talked to Daddy in a week and wants nothing more than to hear his voice and listen to him breathe over the phone. Mamas know that even if he never speaks a word to Daddy, that he still wants to hold the phone and "talk" to him. And Mama knows that listening to both her men fall asleep while they talk to each other, then picking up the phone to listen in herself is just about the most perfect way to spend an evening that was ever created.
8. Mama knows that little boys LOVE their weenies. They talk about them. They play with them. They share their joy in having a weenie with everyone they meet. They announce in public restrooms that "Daddy has a weenie" and tell everyone "Daddy have big weenie. I has little weenie" and grins with pride when everyone within earshot has to cover a chuckle in response.
9. Mama knows that little people love nothing on earth more than an audience. They will perform for hours in front of perfect strangers and eat up the attention. Then, when you want them to show off a new skill for a doctor/teacher/grandparent/etc, they will clam up completely and pretend they don't speak English. And then bust out with a monologue the instant they think no one is paying attention to them. Because kids are NUTS.
10. Mamas love snuggling their naked babies---even when they're not babies anymore. Simply because mamas desire to gobble up every single square inch of their child every moment of the day. We want to absorb all of them that we can and have as much tactile, auditory, and other imput from our child as we possibly can. Because we know they grow too quickly and you can never get back even one single moment.
So, pardon me while I go snuggle my naked little boy while he sleeps---I plan to pinch his little butt (its just so damn CUTE!) and rub my face on his back and smell his little boy smell as I drift off to sleep.
2. Mamas remember their favorite parts of childhood and do their best to give that to their child. For me, that's adventure. We go adventuring. We never know where we'll wind up, we just GO! Sometimes we go pet the horses next door. Sometimes we find shiny rocks in the driveway. Sometimes we catch toads or crawfish or anything else that will hold still long enough. Mostly, though, Mama remembers catching lightning bugs and shares those joys in what seems miraculous with her little man. Even if it means staying up past bedtime.
3. Mamas remember that while kids do need proper nutrition and healthy snacks and very little sugar, summer is made up of popsicles, s'mores, and watermelon. Its a requirement, so don't bother denying it. Just enjoy it and remember that he can eat his celery for his next snack.
4. Mamas know that little boys must learn how to roast weenies over a campfire (and marshmallows!) and learn how to make his face turn red with a flashlight in the mouth and how to set up a tent and climb inside and play under the stars. Little boys live for camping. And mamas also know that they're still tough guys when they get scared by noises outside and need to snuggle mommies in the night. And mamas secretly love it and snuggle them right back---because that MIGHT have been a scary monster, ya know?
5. Mamas know how to hold their pee. They know that pregnancy and 10lbs kicking you in the bladder is NOTHING compared to a sick feverish little man who just fell asleep on your chest and is absolutely miserable who won't sleep without being on his mama---who has a bladder full to bursting. And mama won't begrudge him one little bit, even though she wants to scream in frustration. But you bet she knows how to carry him to the potty and pee without waking him up if she reaches DEFCON-5 status. And has done it often.
6. Mamas know that grins mean mischief. Every single time. Even when he's being good, the grin promises more to come. Even when he's being bad, the grin tells Mama that he didn't mean it and he won't mean it next time either. Mama also knows that she knows how to grin too. And that he learned his sense of mischief from her. Afterall, she's been painting mustaches on him since he was 3 months old. Because you just can't have too much fun in life! Just wait til Daddy gets back---he's getting marker mustaches too :D
7. Mama knows that little boys need their Daddy time and hand over, even though SHE hasn't talked to Daddy in a week and wants nothing more than to hear his voice and listen to him breathe over the phone. Mamas know that even if he never speaks a word to Daddy, that he still wants to hold the phone and "talk" to him. And Mama knows that listening to both her men fall asleep while they talk to each other, then picking up the phone to listen in herself is just about the most perfect way to spend an evening that was ever created.
8. Mama knows that little boys LOVE their weenies. They talk about them. They play with them. They share their joy in having a weenie with everyone they meet. They announce in public restrooms that "Daddy has a weenie" and tell everyone "Daddy have big weenie. I has little weenie" and grins with pride when everyone within earshot has to cover a chuckle in response.
9. Mama knows that little people love nothing on earth more than an audience. They will perform for hours in front of perfect strangers and eat up the attention. Then, when you want them to show off a new skill for a doctor/teacher/grandparent/etc, they will clam up completely and pretend they don't speak English. And then bust out with a monologue the instant they think no one is paying attention to them. Because kids are NUTS.
10. Mamas love snuggling their naked babies---even when they're not babies anymore. Simply because mamas desire to gobble up every single square inch of their child every moment of the day. We want to absorb all of them that we can and have as much tactile, auditory, and other imput from our child as we possibly can. Because we know they grow too quickly and you can never get back even one single moment.
So, pardon me while I go snuggle my naked little boy while he sleeps---I plan to pinch his little butt (its just so damn CUTE!) and rub my face on his back and smell his little boy smell as I drift off to sleep.
Seems overwhelming:
Okay, as for current testing:
1. Clotting factors/thrombophilia (negative)
2. Hormonal/Thyroid/metabolic (negative)
3. Hormonal/Fertility (normal)
4. Genetic (normal based on NO family history in 4 generations of ANYTHING).
5. Karyotype/Chromosome Count (normal for me. DH gets tested when he comes home)
6. Ovaries/tubes (normal)
7. Infection. Since you can't test for them all, the doc gave me a high-dose of antibiotics and told me to take them and Rx'd some for DH too. That way IF it was some minor infection that has lingered through the years from God-knows-where (DH and I both get tested constantly---military likes to make sure you're clean, haha)---well, lets just say that IF it was the infection, we'll both be cleared. Amazing to think that the solution could be 2 huge pills that I took 2 weeks ago and that I may already be fixed and there's no way of knowing because infection can be so well hidden by the body.
8. Uterus (HSG done, results this week). 6+
As for the uterus----
I suspect I may have fibroid tumors because the HSG didn't look normal to me (consider that I don't have experience reading them, just that my uterus wasn't the triangle shape that is 'normal' for most women). So, either my uterus is oddly shaped and no one saw that through 7 pregnancies or I have fibroid tumors that have caused the interior surface of my uterus to become oddly shaped. If this is the case, I suspect it would be intramuscular fibroids (submucosal, I believe is the term) and would require estrogen therapy (reduce estrogen = shrinking tumors) for several months to try to make them go away.
This is just my own supposition based off the fact that my uterus looked perfect on the left side and rounded on the right. Most naturally-occurring uterine malformations include T-shaped (not me), heart shaped (not me), or deviated (not me). None of those are the case, so I suspect that it is not merely that my uterus is naturally somewhat strangely shaped (and since I've had a full-term birth, that would make it not medically significant, possibly). Instead, I suspect that IF what I saw is accurate, that it is a fibroid or group of fibroids (which could explain all of my losses, actually, even Deagan).
However, the treatment is several months of hormone therapy, surgery, recovery, and then a complicated TTC/pregnancy and then a very likely automatic C-section (my propensity to make 10lb babies + weakened uterus from surgical scarring all over = automatic C). And given that my cervix SUCKS, I could be stuck with a very early C-section and still get a NICU preemie/micro-preemie. And, even if I do get pregnant and have a baby and all that, it would still be a year + of treatment and recovery and I do NOT think I can deal with that at all.
So, even though its an answer, I hope that I'm just a dum-dum and can't read an HSG and that its nothing at all and I was hallucinating at the time. I should get images of the HSG at my appointment and I plan to bring up my concerns about the shape with my doctor to see whether I was way off base or not---and when I get the pics, I'll post. They're interesting, regardless of whether I'm an idiot or not.
As for the REST of my treatment plans, etc:
1. TTC
---Take baby asprin from beginning of TTC EVERY day until birth
---Chart and take OPKs to pinpoint Ovulation
---Begin progesterone suppositories (200mg 2x/day) at ovulation
---Test for pregnancy at 10DPO onward (or earlier, I'm a POASA).
---If test negative at 16-18DPO, stop progesterone to trigger period.
---If test positive, call doctor ASAP to be seen
2. FROM BFP - 14 weeks:
---Continue baby aspirin OR
---Begin Lovenox/Heparin to prevent blood clotting issues (can't test for them all!)
---Continue progesterone 200mg 2x/day (or 3x/day depending on levels)
---Blood draws every 2 days until heartbeat detected
---Ultrasound every week until 12 weeks
---Monitor cervix via ultrasound every week.
3. 14-24 weeks:
---Continue baby aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin (waiting on doc to hear plan)
---Switch to progesterone injections or continue suppositories 200mg 2-3x/day
---Cerclage done at 12-14 weeks
---Weekly cervical ultrasounds
---Growth ultrasounds to measure baby's growth
4. 25-36 weeks (God Willing):
---Continue baby aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin
---Continue progesterone therapy
---Continue weekly cervical checks
---Continue cerclage
---Continue growth scans every 2 weeks
---Steroid injections for lung growth
---Weekly NSTs
---Decrease activity ("almost" bedrest)
5: 36-40 weeks
---Continue aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin
---Continue progesterone, slowly weaning at 38 weeks
---Remove cerclage
---Switch to manual cervial checks (non-ultrasound)
---Continue growth scan every 2 weeks
---Return to normal activity
---Continue NSTs
---Another round of steroids depending on baby's well-being/size.
That's the plan as of the day before my HSG was done. So, if something WAS wrong with the HSG as I suspect (but I may be HSG illiterate), we may be changing all that. We shall see.
1. Clotting factors/thrombophilia (negative)
2. Hormonal/Thyroid/metabolic (negative)
3. Hormonal/Fertility (normal)
4. Genetic (normal based on NO family history in 4 generations of ANYTHING).
5. Karyotype/Chromosome Count (normal for me. DH gets tested when he comes home)
6. Ovaries/tubes (normal)
7. Infection. Since you can't test for them all, the doc gave me a high-dose of antibiotics and told me to take them and Rx'd some for DH too. That way IF it was some minor infection that has lingered through the years from God-knows-where (DH and I both get tested constantly---military likes to make sure you're clean, haha)---well, lets just say that IF it was the infection, we'll both be cleared. Amazing to think that the solution could be 2 huge pills that I took 2 weeks ago and that I may already be fixed and there's no way of knowing because infection can be so well hidden by the body.
8. Uterus (HSG done, results this week). 6+
As for the uterus----
I suspect I may have fibroid tumors because the HSG didn't look normal to me (consider that I don't have experience reading them, just that my uterus wasn't the triangle shape that is 'normal' for most women). So, either my uterus is oddly shaped and no one saw that through 7 pregnancies or I have fibroid tumors that have caused the interior surface of my uterus to become oddly shaped. If this is the case, I suspect it would be intramuscular fibroids (submucosal, I believe is the term) and would require estrogen therapy (reduce estrogen = shrinking tumors) for several months to try to make them go away.
This is just my own supposition based off the fact that my uterus looked perfect on the left side and rounded on the right. Most naturally-occurring uterine malformations include T-shaped (not me), heart shaped (not me), or deviated (not me). None of those are the case, so I suspect that it is not merely that my uterus is naturally somewhat strangely shaped (and since I've had a full-term birth, that would make it not medically significant, possibly). Instead, I suspect that IF what I saw is accurate, that it is a fibroid or group of fibroids (which could explain all of my losses, actually, even Deagan).
However, the treatment is several months of hormone therapy, surgery, recovery, and then a complicated TTC/pregnancy and then a very likely automatic C-section (my propensity to make 10lb babies + weakened uterus from surgical scarring all over = automatic C). And given that my cervix SUCKS, I could be stuck with a very early C-section and still get a NICU preemie/micro-preemie. And, even if I do get pregnant and have a baby and all that, it would still be a year + of treatment and recovery and I do NOT think I can deal with that at all.
So, even though its an answer, I hope that I'm just a dum-dum and can't read an HSG and that its nothing at all and I was hallucinating at the time. I should get images of the HSG at my appointment and I plan to bring up my concerns about the shape with my doctor to see whether I was way off base or not---and when I get the pics, I'll post. They're interesting, regardless of whether I'm an idiot or not.
As for the REST of my treatment plans, etc:
1. TTC
---Take baby asprin from beginning of TTC EVERY day until birth
---Chart and take OPKs to pinpoint Ovulation
---Begin progesterone suppositories (200mg 2x/day) at ovulation
---Test for pregnancy at 10DPO onward (or earlier, I'm a POASA).
---If test negative at 16-18DPO, stop progesterone to trigger period.
---If test positive, call doctor ASAP to be seen
2. FROM BFP - 14 weeks:
---Continue baby aspirin OR
---Begin Lovenox/Heparin to prevent blood clotting issues (can't test for them all!)
---Continue progesterone 200mg 2x/day (or 3x/day depending on levels)
---Blood draws every 2 days until heartbeat detected
---Ultrasound every week until 12 weeks
---Monitor cervix via ultrasound every week.
3. 14-24 weeks:
---Continue baby aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin (waiting on doc to hear plan)
---Switch to progesterone injections or continue suppositories 200mg 2-3x/day
---Cerclage done at 12-14 weeks
---Weekly cervical ultrasounds
---Growth ultrasounds to measure baby's growth
4. 25-36 weeks (God Willing):
---Continue baby aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin
---Continue progesterone therapy
---Continue weekly cervical checks
---Continue cerclage
---Continue growth scans every 2 weeks
---Steroid injections for lung growth
---Weekly NSTs
---Decrease activity ("almost" bedrest)
5: 36-40 weeks
---Continue aspirin/Lovenox/Heparin
---Continue progesterone, slowly weaning at 38 weeks
---Remove cerclage
---Switch to manual cervial checks (non-ultrasound)
---Continue growth scan every 2 weeks
---Return to normal activity
---Continue NSTs
---Another round of steroids depending on baby's well-being/size.
That's the plan as of the day before my HSG was done. So, if something WAS wrong with the HSG as I suspect (but I may be HSG illiterate), we may be changing all that. We shall see.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Nothing...
Makes you appreciate having a healthy kid like nursing them through a sickness!
Makes you smile in wonder like the desire for play and fun even with a raging fever!
Melts you like sickly snuggles!
Some of our sick day adventures...
Makes you smile in wonder like the desire for play and fun even with a raging fever!
Melts you like sickly snuggles!
Some of our sick day adventures...
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Top 10 Reasons to Love a Smidget.
1. I love his sense of adventure. In the pool, he'll suddenly grab my neck and tell me to hide because the dinosaurs are coming. In the bathtub, the spout becomes a waterfall and we swim through the river. The shower is a powerful rain storm. In the car, we get chased by dinosaurs or run over by tractors or we crash something and he tells me the story as I drive along. When he is feeling a little bored, he grabs my hand and assigns me a role and we act out his fantasy. We build forts out of pillows and sheets and chairs. We make mustaches with markers and make faces in the mirror. We paint wild scenes on big pieces of paper (The Big Bad Wolf blows down Mr Pine's Purple House sometimes). We make big adventures out of chalk in the driveway. We go for long walks to treasure hunt or see the animals. We go to the beach simply because it's Thursday and we feel like it. We go to the zoo because its fun to watch the animals...be animals! We pretend to be animals. We sing songs loudly and off key. We dance for no reason to only the beat of our own drummers. We play naked (okay, he does. I wear jammies). We wrestle. We do somersaults. We think puddles are made for jumping in. We know dirt washes off. We know clothes are replaceable. We know that wounds are just another way to tell a story. We know that bare feet feel better in the grass. We catch ladybugs (and other bugs. LOTS of bugs in my life). We wash the car by "painting" it with soap. We turn every source of water into a source of splashing and mess and competition and fun. We take flying leaps into Mama's arms because the best part of leaping off into thin air is knowing you'll be caught and swept up by someone who will always be there to protect you. We take ridiculous pictures for Daddy. We catch lightning bugs. We defy bedtime because its summer and some things just have to be experienced. We watch the sun come up. We watch the sun set. We swim at dusk until it becomes so cold we have to stay in up to our chins. We, simply, make adventure in every single thing we do. Because little boys were made for adventuring.
2. His love of learning about what other people might think to be mundane: We go on treasure hunts and find new kinds of leaves, nuts, seeds, rocks, bark, bones, shells, nests, bugs, animals and more. Anything that is not alive goes right into his treasure bucket for him to keep. Anything alive we either observe from afar (deer, hawks, buzzards, snakes, horses, etc) or pick up and touch and handle and get to know. He loves learning about the gum-ball seeds and helicopter seeds. He likes watching plants grow in the garden and picking the vegetables and finding the bugs (he really likes bugs). And he REMEMBERS it all. If he sees an elephant, he can remember what THAT elephant was doign the last time he saw it. If you tell him a fact about an animal, he can repeat it a week later. If you show him how to drop a helicopter leaf, he'll want to do it from a higher and higher surface so he can watch it go down. He sees the miraculousness in ALL of the tiny details of everything he touches and sees. He loves the texture of a frog's skin. He loves the flicker of the lightning bug. He loves the way the plane flies across the sky. And he loves to just soak it all up and astound you with it later.
3. His amazing amount of joy and his ability to just let go and SCREAM his happiness so loud that everyone within 100 yards just has to smile at the sounds coming out of him. The neighbor girls LOVE his excited squeals and the way he LOVES to startle dogs/cats/birds by screaming and giggling. He catches frogs. As many as he can (and we're talking multiple every evening) and EVERY time its just like the first time all over. We explore the frog and count his fingers and toes and examine his parts and we pet him and put them in little boats or buckets and play with them for just a little while. Then, EVERY single time, we set the froggy free to go find his mommy or daddy or some such (I make up reasons for the froggy to need to be set free) and Smidget willingly sets him loose in the grass, only to cry because his friend hopped away. And then he catches another and squeals and giggles and runs around showing EVERYONE his new froggy friend and we repeat the process over and over with more shrieks of joy and exclamations about the frog's noises and jumps than I ever thought one boy would make. Who knew you could spend an hour with a frog and smile and giggle so much?
4. His love of stories, the sillier the better. He has a stack of books by his bed and can tell you about each and every one, quoting most of them verbatim and whole lines from others. He doesn't just listen to the story, he gets drawn into it and every story becomes interactive. He gasps in surprise, yells "Oh no!" if he suspects something bad might happen, he gets concerned about the characters if they look sad, he giggles/squeals uproariously when he is amused, he SCREAMS the punch lines to the jokes. He GETS the jokes. His whole body gets into it and he gets miffed if the reader isn't excited enough! And tha'ts just the stories we READ! The stories he TELLS! Wow. There's danger and suspense and humor and always a hug and a kiss and reassurance that its all better when he's done. He has an amazing gift at age 3 to captivate his audience. And I look forward to watching his gift grow and what he does with it.
5. The unexpected sweetness. From a boy who is constantly moving and who's emotions run to the extreme of loud and boisterous (including when he's mad....he's a true Gemini that way, I guess). Every one of his emotions is deeply felt. When he is sad, he is absolutely heartbroken. When he is angry, he is bitterly angry and can hold a grudge quite strongly...for about 5 minutes when his emotions have changed and gone somewhere new. Amidst all these loud and overpowering emotions, sometimes he just slows down and is totally at peace and is the most loving and sweet kid in the world. He tells you he loves you repeatedly, hugs you and kisses you a dozen times. He holds your hand or sits with you and snuggles. Every once in a while you get this peek of him that is just nothing but sweet. Sure, he kisses his Mama and various others (Mama most of all still!) just about any time---especially if there is an audience to perform for. He loves showing off! But, you only get that truly meltingly sweet man every once in a while during those quiet and peaceful times. This is one of the reasons I most love 7am. Squishy little Smidget is the sweetest midget of all (except when he is a dinosaur jumping on his mama's head :D).
6. His BOY-ness. He has a pet mummified frog...actually two. He loves bones and teeth. He likes mud and dirt. He LOVES catchign bugs and animals. He pets snakes and frogs and catches worms. He is almost always barefoot, dirty, and totally happy. He fishes. He loves cars and trucks and fire engines and planes and trains and dinosaurs. He likes to grill. He likes superheroes. He thinks I'm a superhero. He flirts. He smooches girls (especially his Auntie Jenny and his Mama). He talks about girls like they're some wonderful thing. He is a romantic and says nice things to girls and gives them presents (a leaf here, a rock there, a kiss later). He wants to be a pilot and a fireman and a superhero and a ninja and zookeeper and a circus performer and a train engineer. He is everything that epitomizes a little boy...and so very much more.
7. His feet. Smooth and yet callused. Soft and yet firm. Dirty and then so clean. In shiny loafers or bare in the dirt. Limp over the arm of a chair or wedged up under my ribs just like they were before he was even born. Playing "stinky feet" with him. Making footprints with him. Piggybacking him and holding them to keep him up. Lotioning them. Comparing our feet sizes---he still thinks mama has big feet! Watching those first shaky wobbly steps become the frantic mad-dash across the lawn. Climbing stairs one foot at a time. Standing on tippy toe to brush his teeth or drink from the fountain. The way he crosses his ankles when he sits/lays. The way he thinks Mama is an ottoman. All the steps in life he'll take and hoping I get to be along for the walk.
8. His face. So expressive. There is never any doubt as to exactly what he's feeling---even if he only wants you to THINK that's how he feels---the kid is a great actor. The quick grin, the slow smile, the bashful half smile, the smirk, the frown, the worried look, the mischief, the tired, the cranky, the mad, the disappointed, the happy, the gleeful, the flirtatious, the completely limp exhaustion, the curiosity, the concentration, the wonder, the awe, the joy, the grief, the love. Everything he is, reflected on the most beautiful face on Earth.
9. His generosity. He shares food and picks flowers for me. He shares is toys. He doesn't want anyone to feel left out, so he draws them in with little tiny gifts---a painting, a flower, a leaf, anything he thinks will make you happy.
10. Because he's mine. Because I longed for him. Because I wanted him more than I've ever wanted anything. Because I had to work so hard for him. Because I've worked so hard for others. Because I know what loss is. Because I know that he is the most important person in the entire world. Because I know that he is perfect. Because I can make him into an amazing man. Because of the amazing little man he already is. Because he was perfect the moment he was born. Because he has brought me so much and love and already broken my heart 1000 times over by outgrowing some of the things I love most. Because he will always be mine, no matter where life takes him. Because every bit of me will always belong to him. Because I am his first love. Because he is my greatest love.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Things Mamas Do:
1. Mama's take showers with tiny plastic dinosaurs because they know that "Dinosaur likes bathtime" and know its not worth the effort to remove them every time its Mama's turn to use the tub.
2. Mama's rarely get to read a Mama book, but know every single word to "Dinosaur vs Bedtime" and all of her little ones' favorite books---and doesn't even need to see the page to "read" it to a big boy who loves to hold the book himself.
3. Mamas have forgotten what its like to be alone in the bathroom. Tiny eyes peek around shower curtains when they wake up and want to snuggle. Tiny hands clap when Mama goes pee pee on the potty (even in public!). And tiny little feet sway back and forth as a little guy sits on the counter and plays with Mama's make-up brushes while she does her makeup. And little lips grin as he and his Mama brush their teeth and act silly as they get ready for bed.
4. Mamas know that big boys want to eat with forks...even if they can't keep the rice on them and would be better off with spoons.
5. Mamas don't get mad when their closets are invaded. They giggle quietly as naked little boys tap-dance across the room in bright orange patent leather ballet flats. And then they grab the camera.
6. Mamas know how to spark their little ones' imaginations with everyday items. Toilet paper rolls become trumpets, wrapping paper tubes become swords, towels become capes, balled up paper becomes snow-balls or boulders. Blankets make tents. Cushions make forts. And just about everything has a little bit of magic.
7. Mama knows that the 5 best words a child will ever hear are: "Oh baby, come to Mama!"
8. Mamas know that kisses really do make boo-boos all better and that any "owwie" can be cured with snuggles.
9. Mama isn't worried about being perfect and having an immaculate house or a perfect child. She knows that everyone grows up too soon and the best part of life is snuggling in bed with your Mama when you're little and don't know that the world can be very difficult to live in.
10. Mama feels a little bit of pain every single time she looks at her baby. Every time he smiles. Every time he hugs her. Every single time he kisses her and says "Wubz you, Mama!" Because love hurts, even the good kind, when your heart is so full that it can't hold any more at all. It hurts when you're so full of love for your little one that it literally feels like you might just rip at the seams one of these days. And even the pain feels good. Even when you feel that stinging in your eyes before your eyes well up. Even when you have the lump in your throat because you want to let the tears fall---tears of joy and love for your perfect little person.
That's what being a mama is all about.
2. Mama's rarely get to read a Mama book, but know every single word to "Dinosaur vs Bedtime" and all of her little ones' favorite books---and doesn't even need to see the page to "read" it to a big boy who loves to hold the book himself.
3. Mamas have forgotten what its like to be alone in the bathroom. Tiny eyes peek around shower curtains when they wake up and want to snuggle. Tiny hands clap when Mama goes pee pee on the potty (even in public!). And tiny little feet sway back and forth as a little guy sits on the counter and plays with Mama's make-up brushes while she does her makeup. And little lips grin as he and his Mama brush their teeth and act silly as they get ready for bed.
4. Mamas know that big boys want to eat with forks...even if they can't keep the rice on them and would be better off with spoons.
5. Mamas don't get mad when their closets are invaded. They giggle quietly as naked little boys tap-dance across the room in bright orange patent leather ballet flats. And then they grab the camera.
6. Mamas know how to spark their little ones' imaginations with everyday items. Toilet paper rolls become trumpets, wrapping paper tubes become swords, towels become capes, balled up paper becomes snow-balls or boulders. Blankets make tents. Cushions make forts. And just about everything has a little bit of magic.
7. Mama knows that the 5 best words a child will ever hear are: "Oh baby, come to Mama!"
8. Mamas know that kisses really do make boo-boos all better and that any "owwie" can be cured with snuggles.
9. Mama isn't worried about being perfect and having an immaculate house or a perfect child. She knows that everyone grows up too soon and the best part of life is snuggling in bed with your Mama when you're little and don't know that the world can be very difficult to live in.
10. Mama feels a little bit of pain every single time she looks at her baby. Every time he smiles. Every time he hugs her. Every single time he kisses her and says "Wubz you, Mama!" Because love hurts, even the good kind, when your heart is so full that it can't hold any more at all. It hurts when you're so full of love for your little one that it literally feels like you might just rip at the seams one of these days. And even the pain feels good. Even when you feel that stinging in your eyes before your eyes well up. Even when you have the lump in your throat because you want to let the tears fall---tears of joy and love for your perfect little person.
That's what being a mama is all about.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
A glimpse into his future...
Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of the man I am raising as he will be when he IS a man. Sometimes I get a flash only a few years into the future, sometimes its decades. What sends me there might be a gesture, a facial expression, a few words spoken in his squeaky toddler voice.
I see him becoming a thoughtful man. A man who contemplates live decisions long and hard but who is entirely capable of spontaneity and who does not over-think daily life. Someone who can be serious and sensitive, but also knows how to be entirely in the moment and full of love and laughter. Someone who is tallish and stocky who knows his size and isn't afraid to use it---usually to protect what he loves. Someone who is physically active, but also loves a quiet moment with a book or a favorite movie. Someone who, even at 30, still has a secret love of dinosaurs and gets excited to take his children to the museum to see the bones and get down on the carpet and play with plastic dinosaur toys. Someone who is somewhat afraid of new things and changes in life, but who grabs the hand of the one he loves and knows he'll get through it just fine. A smart man, but one who does not need everyone else around him to feel stupid. A man of integrity who knows how to say "I'm sorry" and "please" and "I was wrong" but who also is confident enough to stand up for himself and demand what he is due when times are difficult. A man who is sure of himself and knows his body. A man who can read the character of a person and disregard exterior flaws. A man who does not see race, color, or disability as negative factors when weighing the worth of another human. A man who calls his Mama just to say hello and can admit that he misses her. A man who sees a pregnant woman and runs ahead to open the door for her. A man who knows that women are just as capable as he is in nearly every way, but respects that physical feats are easier for him and, thus, offers to relieve her burdens. A man who helps others, but does not allow himself to be taken advantage of. A man who does not give everything to people who are unwilling or unable to give something back to him, even if it is only something small.
I hope that he grows up to be a wonderful man. Its my job to help him do it.
More than anything in the world, I want to be there to see him do it and be his biggest cheer-leader and strongest supporter through it all.
And I hope that gorgeous grin and expressive little face don't ever lose the magic that helps them completely melt my heart every time I look at him. I can't imagine anyone more beautiful than my children, especially the one I've gotten to watch grow from a newborn into an infant and then to a toddler...and, now, with potty training under-weigh, a little boy. He's no longer a baby, but he'll always be MY baby...even when he's old and gray, tall and handsome, bigger than me, and loved by all the world...even if I have 30 more babies someday in the future, this one will still be my baby forever and ever.
I see him becoming a thoughtful man. A man who contemplates live decisions long and hard but who is entirely capable of spontaneity and who does not over-think daily life. Someone who can be serious and sensitive, but also knows how to be entirely in the moment and full of love and laughter. Someone who is tallish and stocky who knows his size and isn't afraid to use it---usually to protect what he loves. Someone who is physically active, but also loves a quiet moment with a book or a favorite movie. Someone who, even at 30, still has a secret love of dinosaurs and gets excited to take his children to the museum to see the bones and get down on the carpet and play with plastic dinosaur toys. Someone who is somewhat afraid of new things and changes in life, but who grabs the hand of the one he loves and knows he'll get through it just fine. A smart man, but one who does not need everyone else around him to feel stupid. A man of integrity who knows how to say "I'm sorry" and "please" and "I was wrong" but who also is confident enough to stand up for himself and demand what he is due when times are difficult. A man who is sure of himself and knows his body. A man who can read the character of a person and disregard exterior flaws. A man who does not see race, color, or disability as negative factors when weighing the worth of another human. A man who calls his Mama just to say hello and can admit that he misses her. A man who sees a pregnant woman and runs ahead to open the door for her. A man who knows that women are just as capable as he is in nearly every way, but respects that physical feats are easier for him and, thus, offers to relieve her burdens. A man who helps others, but does not allow himself to be taken advantage of. A man who does not give everything to people who are unwilling or unable to give something back to him, even if it is only something small.
I hope that he grows up to be a wonderful man. Its my job to help him do it.
More than anything in the world, I want to be there to see him do it and be his biggest cheer-leader and strongest supporter through it all.
And I hope that gorgeous grin and expressive little face don't ever lose the magic that helps them completely melt my heart every time I look at him. I can't imagine anyone more beautiful than my children, especially the one I've gotten to watch grow from a newborn into an infant and then to a toddler...and, now, with potty training under-weigh, a little boy. He's no longer a baby, but he'll always be MY baby...even when he's old and gray, tall and handsome, bigger than me, and loved by all the world...even if I have 30 more babies someday in the future, this one will still be my baby forever and ever.
Friday, December 2, 2011
"Needy" For Christmas.
There are a lot of groups that give out christmas gifts to military kids around here. We qualify for all of them, but Smidget has everything he could need already, so I feel bad asking for it knowing some kids need it way more. Maybe because I grew up getting gifts from charities because we were so poor---those were the ONLY gifts we got, so I'd feel bad knowing that my son was getting something when another kid might not get a gift at all because he did.
And, maybe, my perception that my child is spoiled is skewed as well by the fact that I did grow up poor and didn't have a lot of toys. I don't think a child needs 10 versions of the same thing. Sure, some toys are meant to have numbers to their ranks (ever try playing with only one Lego?), but he doesn't need 6 cars that drive on their own when you shake them or two train sets or more MegaBlocks---his bin came with 100 pieces, why would he need more?
So, when going down the list of what he wants/needs for Christmas, I come up with:
1. Snow boots.
2. Socks.
3. 4T Pajamas (he likes dinosaurs, so I got 4 pair of dino jammies)
4. Matchbox cars (we stuff them into every bag, so handy for travel and waiting rooms!)
5. Disney DVDs. I'm not much for letting a TV parent for me, but a weekly movie night is great!
6. A train set (he doesn't have tracks, just a train his friend gave him. But he loves trains!
7. Puzzles---okay, here's one area where I approve of more more more. TRULY educational toys!
People have suggested that I should put a LeapPad, Tag Reader, etc on his list. Why would I want a machine to read my child a book? I ENJOY doing that with him! As tedious as it is to read "Dinosaur vs Bedtime" or "Dinosnores" or "Cat In The Hat" 3-5 times per night, I love it. And he loves that snuggle time with me. No machine can replace that. And, at $50+, there are a lot of other items that I'd prefer to get him!
As for the InnoTab and other hand-held gaming systems made for toddlers and preschoolers, I just don't understand the fascination. As an adult, I have a laptop, a smart-phone, a TV, a DVR, an iPod, etc. I'm 10x more connected than I ever was as a kid. And people wonder why it takes me 2 days to answer a text---because I put it down and stepped away. While being connected is nice when you're 3000 miles from your friends, it also distracts me from being HERE and NOW with my child and husband. WHY on earth would I want to give him something that will encourage that "connectedness" to electronics. If he's 10 years old before he ever plays a video game, he'll be just fine. And he won't be missing out on any education because, instead of playing "educational" video games and obsessively burying his nose in his game, he'll be walking with his head up and observing the world around him. He'll still learn that 2+2=4, but he'll also see the beauty in the soar of a hawk and the spray from a garden hose as he goes about his day because he's not concentrated on a game.
To me, Christmas is only partially about what you "want" and is more about what you need. When did it become about buying a child more and more and more until you have to sort through the toy bin and get rid of toys to make room for the new ones. When you're giving away/selling perfectly good toys, not because your child has outgrown the use of those toys or because the toy was used until it fell apart, but because your child is bored with it, or has so many toys that it just isn't in rotation anymore, or because you don't have room, you have a problem.
That is why I buy toys that meet my criteria:
1. Are not dangerous (no small parts, sharp edges, etc for young kids).
2. Are somewhat educational (colors, shapes, numbers, letters, reading, dino species, animal species, etc)
3. Do not take up much space or are collapsible/easily stored.
4. Is not similar to something he already has
5. Encourages imagination.
6. Are durable and not easily broken (I do have a very active little boy, after all)
7. Can be used by a wide age-range. I'd rather buy him something for age 3+ if its something he can grasp/enjoy now and grow into it, than get him something that suits him now that he will be bored with by the time he's 3.
8. Something that can be manipulated in many ways. If it has only one purpose, it'll mean he'll get bored faster. If its single-purpose, its not worth my money.
I have a lot of criteria, I know. But, sticking to them helps me to remember what my child NEEDS vs what he WANTS. My child doesn't need much. He's a simple guy. He's just as happy with an upturned laundry bin and a helium balloon as he is with a new toy. I've learned from watching him that you don't need a lot of TOYS when you know how to PLAY! Hell, you don't need toys at all when mom is perfectly willing to get down on all fours and chase you down while roaring like a dinosaur.
Also---children need fewer toys the more siblings they have. I've seen my child in the presence of other children. Half the time the toys are completely forgotten. Or, worse, they are used as weapons to batter each other because toddlers hate sharing. So, if my kid ever gets a sibling to play with, I'm pretty sure I'll buy even fewer toys than I do now because I'll be passing down Smidget's toys and they'll share others and they'll play together and imagine together in ways that need no toys at all!
So, why would I ask for a handout for my child. The best gift he could ever get is time with me---going to the zoo, going fishing, digging in the dirt, or playing make-believe. No charity can ever give him that. So, I see no reason to put my name on a list when there are FAR more needy children out there; many of whom, like me as a child, will get no gifts at all this Christmas except from those charities. And while I don't think those kids NEED toys either, there IS a need to feel loved and special by having a gift of your own to open on Christmas morning. So, I balance my buying for my son by realizing what he needs with what he wants to let him feel special without spoiling him. And by buying gifts for children who might not get gifts otherwise.
So, remember, if you don't need the hand-out, don't accept it. And if you don't need it, think about putting that little bit of surplus into buying a small gift for someone else's child. Regardless of how you feel about hand-outs and welfare, always remember that the children don't have a choice and supporting them is always a good decision!
And, maybe, my perception that my child is spoiled is skewed as well by the fact that I did grow up poor and didn't have a lot of toys. I don't think a child needs 10 versions of the same thing. Sure, some toys are meant to have numbers to their ranks (ever try playing with only one Lego?), but he doesn't need 6 cars that drive on their own when you shake them or two train sets or more MegaBlocks---his bin came with 100 pieces, why would he need more?
So, when going down the list of what he wants/needs for Christmas, I come up with:
1. Snow boots.
2. Socks.
3. 4T Pajamas (he likes dinosaurs, so I got 4 pair of dino jammies)
4. Matchbox cars (we stuff them into every bag, so handy for travel and waiting rooms!)
5. Disney DVDs. I'm not much for letting a TV parent for me, but a weekly movie night is great!
6. A train set (he doesn't have tracks, just a train his friend gave him. But he loves trains!
7. Puzzles---okay, here's one area where I approve of more more more. TRULY educational toys!
People have suggested that I should put a LeapPad, Tag Reader, etc on his list. Why would I want a machine to read my child a book? I ENJOY doing that with him! As tedious as it is to read "Dinosaur vs Bedtime" or "Dinosnores" or "Cat In The Hat" 3-5 times per night, I love it. And he loves that snuggle time with me. No machine can replace that. And, at $50+, there are a lot of other items that I'd prefer to get him!
As for the InnoTab and other hand-held gaming systems made for toddlers and preschoolers, I just don't understand the fascination. As an adult, I have a laptop, a smart-phone, a TV, a DVR, an iPod, etc. I'm 10x more connected than I ever was as a kid. And people wonder why it takes me 2 days to answer a text---because I put it down and stepped away. While being connected is nice when you're 3000 miles from your friends, it also distracts me from being HERE and NOW with my child and husband. WHY on earth would I want to give him something that will encourage that "connectedness" to electronics. If he's 10 years old before he ever plays a video game, he'll be just fine. And he won't be missing out on any education because, instead of playing "educational" video games and obsessively burying his nose in his game, he'll be walking with his head up and observing the world around him. He'll still learn that 2+2=4, but he'll also see the beauty in the soar of a hawk and the spray from a garden hose as he goes about his day because he's not concentrated on a game.
To me, Christmas is only partially about what you "want" and is more about what you need. When did it become about buying a child more and more and more until you have to sort through the toy bin and get rid of toys to make room for the new ones. When you're giving away/selling perfectly good toys, not because your child has outgrown the use of those toys or because the toy was used until it fell apart, but because your child is bored with it, or has so many toys that it just isn't in rotation anymore, or because you don't have room, you have a problem.
That is why I buy toys that meet my criteria:
1. Are not dangerous (no small parts, sharp edges, etc for young kids).
2. Are somewhat educational (colors, shapes, numbers, letters, reading, dino species, animal species, etc)
3. Do not take up much space or are collapsible/easily stored.
4. Is not similar to something he already has
5. Encourages imagination.
6. Are durable and not easily broken (I do have a very active little boy, after all)
7. Can be used by a wide age-range. I'd rather buy him something for age 3+ if its something he can grasp/enjoy now and grow into it, than get him something that suits him now that he will be bored with by the time he's 3.
8. Something that can be manipulated in many ways. If it has only one purpose, it'll mean he'll get bored faster. If its single-purpose, its not worth my money.
I have a lot of criteria, I know. But, sticking to them helps me to remember what my child NEEDS vs what he WANTS. My child doesn't need much. He's a simple guy. He's just as happy with an upturned laundry bin and a helium balloon as he is with a new toy. I've learned from watching him that you don't need a lot of TOYS when you know how to PLAY! Hell, you don't need toys at all when mom is perfectly willing to get down on all fours and chase you down while roaring like a dinosaur.
Also---children need fewer toys the more siblings they have. I've seen my child in the presence of other children. Half the time the toys are completely forgotten. Or, worse, they are used as weapons to batter each other because toddlers hate sharing. So, if my kid ever gets a sibling to play with, I'm pretty sure I'll buy even fewer toys than I do now because I'll be passing down Smidget's toys and they'll share others and they'll play together and imagine together in ways that need no toys at all!
So, why would I ask for a handout for my child. The best gift he could ever get is time with me---going to the zoo, going fishing, digging in the dirt, or playing make-believe. No charity can ever give him that. So, I see no reason to put my name on a list when there are FAR more needy children out there; many of whom, like me as a child, will get no gifts at all this Christmas except from those charities. And while I don't think those kids NEED toys either, there IS a need to feel loved and special by having a gift of your own to open on Christmas morning. So, I balance my buying for my son by realizing what he needs with what he wants to let him feel special without spoiling him. And by buying gifts for children who might not get gifts otherwise.
So, remember, if you don't need the hand-out, don't accept it. And if you don't need it, think about putting that little bit of surplus into buying a small gift for someone else's child. Regardless of how you feel about hand-outs and welfare, always remember that the children don't have a choice and supporting them is always a good decision!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Co-Sleeping
I've heard people say "oh, you need to get that kid out of your bed!" and "how do you have romantic time?" and other comments of disbelief when they discover that my 2.5 year old still sleeps in my bed most nights. Not that its any of their business, but I figured I'd share some of my reasons for cosleeping and some of my reasons for continuing to do so for so long.
1) I sleep more soundly when he's with me. I'm not worried about him.
2) I get more sleep with him with me. He doesn't wake in the night and need me to go comfort him to sleep.
3) I get to wake up to a beautiful blonde grinning face and "I wuz you, Mama" and hugs and kisses. My husband is gone in the morning when I wake up, so its nice to wake up with someone lovey and sweet even when my hubby can't be there.
4) When he's sick, he is right next to me and better able to be propped so his sinuses drain.
5) When he was nursing, I didn't even have to wake up to nurse. He'd find it in his sleep without ever waking either of us. So we BOTH slept longer and more soundly!
6)Nightmares. My husband is very prone to nightmares. He has them nightly to the point where even he wakes up sweating and freaked out. Apparently, they're genetic because my son does the same thing, even when he was just a baby. Instead of waking up and then freaking out because he was alone, he would freak out and wake himself up. If he manages to fully wake himself up, it can take hours of snuggling to get him back to sleep. BUT, if I'm right there beside him and can hold him while he sleeps and comfort him if he does start to have a nightmare, he will soothe back into sleep. He doesn't have dreams like this every night, but when he does he will have them all night long over and over. He typically does it once a week or so, but there is no way of knowing when it will happen.
I'm not saying I don't want my bed back. I do. I miss getting to wake up next to my husband. I miss falling asleep in his arms. I miss the intimacy. But, my son is only now becoming able to understand what is happening when he wakes up from a nightmare. So, now its time to transition. But, only because BOTH of us are ready!
1) I sleep more soundly when he's with me. I'm not worried about him.
2) I get more sleep with him with me. He doesn't wake in the night and need me to go comfort him to sleep.
3) I get to wake up to a beautiful blonde grinning face and "I wuz you, Mama" and hugs and kisses. My husband is gone in the morning when I wake up, so its nice to wake up with someone lovey and sweet even when my hubby can't be there.
4) When he's sick, he is right next to me and better able to be propped so his sinuses drain.
5) When he was nursing, I didn't even have to wake up to nurse. He'd find it in his sleep without ever waking either of us. So we BOTH slept longer and more soundly!
6)Nightmares. My husband is very prone to nightmares. He has them nightly to the point where even he wakes up sweating and freaked out. Apparently, they're genetic because my son does the same thing, even when he was just a baby. Instead of waking up and then freaking out because he was alone, he would freak out and wake himself up. If he manages to fully wake himself up, it can take hours of snuggling to get him back to sleep. BUT, if I'm right there beside him and can hold him while he sleeps and comfort him if he does start to have a nightmare, he will soothe back into sleep. He doesn't have dreams like this every night, but when he does he will have them all night long over and over. He typically does it once a week or so, but there is no way of knowing when it will happen.
I'm not saying I don't want my bed back. I do. I miss getting to wake up next to my husband. I miss falling asleep in his arms. I miss the intimacy. But, my son is only now becoming able to understand what is happening when he wakes up from a nightmare. So, now its time to transition. But, only because BOTH of us are ready!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
An Internal Debate:
When someone asks you how many kids I have, I have a minor panic attack. The answer comes automatically to me. I have two sons. Every part of my soul knows that I have two sons and its as clear to me as if it were tattooed on my forehead. But, while I have two, only one will actually be the recipient of all the mothering I will do, so I haven't figured out exactly how I should answer this question...
I find myself saying "two" and then they ask how old my other baby is and I say, "oh, he would have been ___" and such. I'm sure some people think I say it as a way of getting attention/pity, but its automatic. I DO have two children who were born alive into this world and have legal names on the books in some courthouse somewhere. One of them is not with me, but I met Deagan. I held him in my arms. I talked to him. I kissed him. I kissed his tiny face. I SAW his beautiful face. I mothered him, though only for a very short time. I love him just as much as anyone loves their living kids (myself included), so it feels wrong to not include him when someone asks how many kids I have.
He's not just a source of pain for me. He's a source of pure joy, even if I also grieve his loss. I am HAPPY when I think about him---or, rather, the time I had with him. I want to talk about him, not because I want people to know that I lost a baby, but because I am so PROUD of him and think he was the most beautiful baby on Earth and because he had so much personality for someone who weighed less than a pound and a half. And I do not mind having that conversation about him with a stranger, but I hate the look of pity that comes across their face when they realize that he died. I hate that look.
But, look or no, I refuse to say that I only have one child. That is wrong. It would feel more right to say that I had 6 children than to say I only have one. 1, 2, 4, or 6: All are technically correct answers to the "How many children do you have?" question, depending on how I define "child," but it feels absolutely wrong to not include Deagan or show off a picture, etc.
And the "Is he your only one?" question I get while people watch him play at the park----that one has definitely made me burst into tears once or twice already. Because "yes" and "no" are both correct. You should have seen the look on the face of the poor woman who asked me when I sobbed "he's the only one who is alive" and tried to not let Smidget see my face so he wouldn't realize I was crying and start crying too. Looked about like I suspect her face would look if she ran over me in her car or something. She was horrified that I had lost it, haha. It was like "OMG! I BROKE HER! LOOK WHAT I DID TO HER!!! HOW DO I FIX IT?!?" Looking back, that look is hilarious. I didn't think so at the time!
I find myself saying "two" and then they ask how old my other baby is and I say, "oh, he would have been ___" and such. I'm sure some people think I say it as a way of getting attention/pity, but its automatic. I DO have two children who were born alive into this world and have legal names on the books in some courthouse somewhere. One of them is not with me, but I met Deagan. I held him in my arms. I talked to him. I kissed him. I kissed his tiny face. I SAW his beautiful face. I mothered him, though only for a very short time. I love him just as much as anyone loves their living kids (myself included), so it feels wrong to not include him when someone asks how many kids I have.
He's not just a source of pain for me. He's a source of pure joy, even if I also grieve his loss. I am HAPPY when I think about him---or, rather, the time I had with him. I want to talk about him, not because I want people to know that I lost a baby, but because I am so PROUD of him and think he was the most beautiful baby on Earth and because he had so much personality for someone who weighed less than a pound and a half. And I do not mind having that conversation about him with a stranger, but I hate the look of pity that comes across their face when they realize that he died. I hate that look.
But, look or no, I refuse to say that I only have one child. That is wrong. It would feel more right to say that I had 6 children than to say I only have one. 1, 2, 4, or 6: All are technically correct answers to the "How many children do you have?" question, depending on how I define "child," but it feels absolutely wrong to not include Deagan or show off a picture, etc.
And the "Is he your only one?" question I get while people watch him play at the park----that one has definitely made me burst into tears once or twice already. Because "yes" and "no" are both correct. You should have seen the look on the face of the poor woman who asked me when I sobbed "he's the only one who is alive" and tried to not let Smidget see my face so he wouldn't realize I was crying and start crying too. Looked about like I suspect her face would look if she ran over me in her car or something. She was horrified that I had lost it, haha. It was like "OMG! I BROKE HER! LOOK WHAT I DID TO HER!!! HOW DO I FIX IT?!?" Looking back, that look is hilarious. I didn't think so at the time!
"Lessons" to learn? I don't think so.
Can I just say this:
Losing a baby doesn't make me stronger. I was already strong to begin with. Losing a baby weakens me. It puts dents and holes in my armor. Losing a baby doesn't make you stronger, it makes you realize how strong you already were---but not til after you spend weeks or months feeling weaker than you've ever felt in your life. I am not strong right now. I am a sobbing weak mess. But, someday I will be strong. Some day I will be able to speak his name without a catch in my breath or a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes. That day is not today.
Losing a baby does not make me a better mother to my oldest---nor does it make me love him more or hold him tighter. It would be impossible for me to love him more than I already did from the moment he was conceived. Sure, every mom can improve, but I will not improve because another baby died, I will improve because I find that things don't work and I try something else.
So, please stop acting like this makes me stronger or a better person; like this improves me or who I am in any way. And please stop acting like I have some lesson to learn from this. I was already a good person. I was already an amazing mother. I was already patient and loving and giving. This will not change who I am on a core level. It is merely a burden I have to bear for some unknown reason. Sure, everything that happens shapes who I am, but this loss didn't teach me anything good.
It made me trust my body less.
It made me hate myself more.
It made me more fearful and cautious.
It made me more jealous and angry.
It made me less hopeful.
It made me less joyous.
And I hope that someday I can work through all that and love my body and respect it again and not wake up every single day and feel guilty (even though my head KNOWS there was nothing I could have done). And I don't know if that will happen, but I do know that it will be a long journey. And, with every loss, I become less confident, less hopeful, that I will some day hold a baby of my own in my arms and to my breast and fall asleep with a baby on my chest smelling the top of it's head and sighing in utter peace. My greatest desire is to feel that again, and I am slowly becoming more and more sure that it will never happen again. And I hate that.
Losing a baby doesn't make me stronger. I was already strong to begin with. Losing a baby weakens me. It puts dents and holes in my armor. Losing a baby doesn't make you stronger, it makes you realize how strong you already were---but not til after you spend weeks or months feeling weaker than you've ever felt in your life. I am not strong right now. I am a sobbing weak mess. But, someday I will be strong. Some day I will be able to speak his name without a catch in my breath or a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes. That day is not today.
Losing a baby does not make me a better mother to my oldest---nor does it make me love him more or hold him tighter. It would be impossible for me to love him more than I already did from the moment he was conceived. Sure, every mom can improve, but I will not improve because another baby died, I will improve because I find that things don't work and I try something else.
So, please stop acting like this makes me stronger or a better person; like this improves me or who I am in any way. And please stop acting like I have some lesson to learn from this. I was already a good person. I was already an amazing mother. I was already patient and loving and giving. This will not change who I am on a core level. It is merely a burden I have to bear for some unknown reason. Sure, everything that happens shapes who I am, but this loss didn't teach me anything good.
It made me trust my body less.
It made me hate myself more.
It made me more fearful and cautious.
It made me more jealous and angry.
It made me less hopeful.
It made me less joyous.
And I hope that someday I can work through all that and love my body and respect it again and not wake up every single day and feel guilty (even though my head KNOWS there was nothing I could have done). And I don't know if that will happen, but I do know that it will be a long journey. And, with every loss, I become less confident, less hopeful, that I will some day hold a baby of my own in my arms and to my breast and fall asleep with a baby on my chest smelling the top of it's head and sighing in utter peace. My greatest desire is to feel that again, and I am slowly becoming more and more sure that it will never happen again. And I hate that.
The Odds Are Against Me
WARNING: This post is pointless. Just venting frustrations and getting somethings off my chest. Feel free to ignore it.
I've had 6 pregnancies. Only one "successful"
9/2007 Chemical.
4/2008 Miscarriage at 12 weeks.
6/2009 Live birth at 40 weeks of 10lb baby (now age 2.5)
9/2010 Chemical.
4/2011 Miscarriage at 15 weeks
10/2011 Live birth at 23 weeks of 1.5 lb baby who lived about an hour..
I keep being asked whether we'll try again.
We will. Just as soon as I am medically cleared. I'm not replacing Deagan or my other lost babies, I'm seeking the child I still don't have. The one I get to bring home and love. The one that my son can big-brother and I can nurse. I hunger to be a mother. When children are taken from me, it doesn't diminish that hunger, it intensifies it. So, yes, we will try again.
I keep being asked whether I can do it again.
The truth? I don't know. But, there are no guarantees in life. You don't know what will happen from one day to the next. If you start not doing things because you're afraid of the possible consequences, then you're not living your life. Sure, you have to weigh things out and determine whether outcome is worth the risk. And, to me, a healthy baby is worth the risk. My body is proven, we KNOW I can have a baby. So, I have to try. I'm incomplete. So, I'll keep trying until I'm complete or until my body can't do it. I'm hoping I find completion before that.
I keep being asked if I'm afraid it'll happen again.
I'm terrified. Absolutely terrified. And I hope to never again feel my child take a last breath. People say "I can't imagine" and they're absolutely right. They CAN'T imagine. And I hope that I never have to live it again. Its bad enough reliving it in my head every day. But I can't let fear control my life. Victims let fear control them. I've never been a victim and I never will. I am a survivor.
And I keep being told that I should hold my eldest son a little closer or appreciate him more now.
I already loved and appreciated him as much as it is possible to love and appreciate another human being. I already knew how amazing he is. I already know that he's the most beautiful, smartest, and sweetest little guy in the whole world. My kid didn't need to die so I'd appreciate his big brother. My child didn't need to die so that I would learn a lesson or be a better mom or more patient or more understanding. I was already a fucking fantastic mom. I give my eldest son at least 100 kisses a day. I tell him I love him at least 100 times a day. I hug him and squeeze him more often than any other mom I know. I lost 1 baby and 1 chemical before him, but even they didn't teach me to love him any more because its not POSSIBLE to love him more. I've ALWAYS known that he was a gift from God. I didn't need dead babies to teach me that. Thanks for the sentiment. I know you mean well.
Sorry to dump on y'all. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated right now.
I've had 6 pregnancies. Only one "successful"
9/2007 Chemical.
4/2008 Miscarriage at 12 weeks.
6/2009 Live birth at 40 weeks of 10lb baby (now age 2.5)
9/2010 Chemical.
4/2011 Miscarriage at 15 weeks
10/2011 Live birth at 23 weeks of 1.5 lb baby who lived about an hour..
I keep being asked whether we'll try again.
We will. Just as soon as I am medically cleared. I'm not replacing Deagan or my other lost babies, I'm seeking the child I still don't have. The one I get to bring home and love. The one that my son can big-brother and I can nurse. I hunger to be a mother. When children are taken from me, it doesn't diminish that hunger, it intensifies it. So, yes, we will try again.
I keep being asked whether I can do it again.
The truth? I don't know. But, there are no guarantees in life. You don't know what will happen from one day to the next. If you start not doing things because you're afraid of the possible consequences, then you're not living your life. Sure, you have to weigh things out and determine whether outcome is worth the risk. And, to me, a healthy baby is worth the risk. My body is proven, we KNOW I can have a baby. So, I have to try. I'm incomplete. So, I'll keep trying until I'm complete or until my body can't do it. I'm hoping I find completion before that.
I keep being asked if I'm afraid it'll happen again.
I'm terrified. Absolutely terrified. And I hope to never again feel my child take a last breath. People say "I can't imagine" and they're absolutely right. They CAN'T imagine. And I hope that I never have to live it again. Its bad enough reliving it in my head every day. But I can't let fear control my life. Victims let fear control them. I've never been a victim and I never will. I am a survivor.
And I keep being told that I should hold my eldest son a little closer or appreciate him more now.
I already loved and appreciated him as much as it is possible to love and appreciate another human being. I already knew how amazing he is. I already know that he's the most beautiful, smartest, and sweetest little guy in the whole world. My kid didn't need to die so I'd appreciate his big brother. My child didn't need to die so that I would learn a lesson or be a better mom or more patient or more understanding. I was already a fucking fantastic mom. I give my eldest son at least 100 kisses a day. I tell him I love him at least 100 times a day. I hug him and squeeze him more often than any other mom I know. I lost 1 baby and 1 chemical before him, but even they didn't teach me to love him any more because its not POSSIBLE to love him more. I've ALWAYS known that he was a gift from God. I didn't need dead babies to teach me that. Thanks for the sentiment. I know you mean well.
Sorry to dump on y'all. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated right now.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Telling my Secrets.
I have many secrets. Some only I know. Some are kept amongst the closest of my friends and family.
And others are becoming harder to keep secret. Not because my past is coming back to haunt me or anything like that, but because it is becoming harder for me not to scream it from the rooftops.
Everyone I know knows about Deagan. Most have seen photos. Some may find the pictures shocking, frightening, or perhaps even disgusting. I don't care. I love them. I love every curve of his face, whether he's a live or not. He could never be disgusting to me. Some might say that those photos should be private. My mother is one of those. But I think he was beautiful. If he were alive, I'd show the photos to everyone just as I am showing these. If he were born at 40 weeks, people would have been texting me left and right begging for photos and birth stats and every detail. The day Deagan was born, I didn't receive any texts after labor started. My friend Jae received them for me. I didn't even look at my phone until late that night. No one else mattered. Some might not understand my openness about my feelings or how direct I am. I've been called "blunt" more than once in my life and another "b" word a few times too. Its not that I'm unfeeling, its that I compartmentalize well. Its not that I am seeking attention, its that I don't care what your opinion is, so I say exactly what I think. I don't have the time or the energy right now to worry about whether I'm hurting your feelings or making you feel sad. That doesn't mean that I don't love you or care about you, just that what I want to say is more important to me right now than what you have to say about it. So, don't give me any lip about how I shouldn't post photos or talk about one aspect or another. Sure, he was born 5 weeks ago, but that's like the blink of an eye for me. I'll be talking about him months or years from now. Get used to it.
What people aren't so used to me talking about are my other losses. I have had two late first trimester miscarriages. I carried the first baby until 12 weeks. That was my first hospital-confirmed pregnancy. The first definite pregnancy I had had up to that point. After I started bleeding, they discovered that baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks. It took another 6 weeks for my body to get the memo. During that time, I dreamed and made plans and fell in love with my baby. When I lost that baby I was devastated. Because I was so far along and excited for my first appointment and ultrasound, just about everyone knew about that pregnancy. What they don't know is that we named him. I say "him" because I was SO sure that he was a boy. So, we gave him a boy's name. Gabriel. And so we grieved for our lost baby fairly quietly.
And then I became pregnant again and carried to full term and delivered the most magnificent little blonde man the world has ever seen. But, even in the instant he was born, I knew our family was not complete. I knew I wanted to do THAT all over again. As soon as possible!
So, just before my son's first birthday, I had my IUD removed and started back on the baby-making. It took months. And months. And then, finally, six months and 8 cycles later (cue rant about jacked up hormones from breastfeeding which did not let me ovulate or cycle on a normal schedule), I awoke on Jan 7th and thought, "Hmm. I'm 9 days post ovulation, maybe I should pee on a test just for fun." I truly did not expect it to be positive. I was so certain it wasn't possible because we hadn't done the deed at the right time and we'd only done it once. There was NO way I was pregnant. Right? WRONG. A faint line showed up. Enough to make me take a picture and text it to my husband and best friend and hear their reactions. Jenny texted me back to tell me that she saw it too and my husband (who is blind to all things pregnancy-test related) simply asked me if it meant I was pregnant. I just replied "would I send you a photo of a negative test? what do YOU think?" and he got the point about then :D
After a few days, we made our news public, sure that our previous loss would not be repeated. I'd had a healthy baby between them, right? I just knew this one was going to be okay. So when I started spotting just after announcing, I hoped and prayed that it was just that "normal" first trimester bleeding that I've heard so much about. I even had an ultrasound at 8 weeks and had seen a perfect baby with a perfect heartbeat. Surely, once a heartbeat is detected, it is extremely rare to miscarry, right? So I comforted myself from weeks 4-11 that the spotting was just that "normal" spotting and that everything was fine. At about 10.5 weeks, the spotting slowed and then stopped. I was home free! I was closing in on the second trimester and the bleeding had stopped. We were goign to make it! The only thing niggling in the back of my mind was that I hadn't yet been able to get baby's heartbeat on the home doppler I have. Sure, it was still early, but it bothered me since I'd gotten it at 9 weeks exactly with my surviving son. So I reminded myself that HE was a freak and measured way ahead from very early on. Clearly, you can't base a normal baby on a 10lb newborn's pregnancy stats, right? And so I continued to hope, only beginning to suspect that something might not be right (although, I'd feared it every day, so strongly that my heart skipped a beat every time I went to the bathroom or coughed or sneezed or lifted my toddler). On the day of my ultrasound at 11 weeks, I awoke convinced that I'd go in and be told what a worry-wort I was being and how pointless my fears had been. I was sure I'd be told that I was being a pregnant hypochondriac. Surely, I'd go in and see a perfect baby. Baby had been fine 2.5 weeks before. Surely I was just paranoid, right?
Wrong. Totally wrong. The ultrasound showed a perfectly developed 10 week baby. But no heartbeat. So they checked using the internal ultrasound. Nothing. Not even one flicker. Nothing at all. Perfect fingers and toes just starting to become visible. A face and a nose and a beautiful cord. Knees and elbows. Miraculous body parts that normal people don't appreciate, but a mother who has had a pregnancy loss occur unexpectedly sees every single cell as the miracle that it is. I was offered several options to "take care of" the situation. I could have a surgery to remove the baby, I could use chemicals to force myself into labor, or I could wait it out and let my body do it naturally. Maybe I'm crazy, but I hate forcing my body to do anything unnatural. So, if you know me, you know what I chose.
It took me another 4 weeks to start bleeding. And 3 days before labor began. And it was the most horrible experience of my life to that point, with the exception of my first miscarriage. This one was less horrifying because I knew what would happen to my body. I'd done it before. It was familiar to me and, thus, not quite as terrifying. At least I knew to have maxi pads at home and didn't have to stop on the way home. That was a step in the right direction. Bleeding out in my car on the way home from the ER the first time wasn't as pleasant as it sounds. Nor was having NO idea what was happening to my body. Fun!
Like my first miscarriage, everyone knew about this baby, especially after we'd seen the heartbeat. So, everyone knew I miscarried. No secrets there. But, we really didn't make it known that we named this one either. We had no idea about gender, but thought that since my gut said boy with Gabriel and with Ax and had been right, that we'd just go with whatever I felt was right. I said we'd just go with a boy name. None of the girl ones felt right. So, we named him Caleb. By this time, I'd had three "boys"---Gabriel, Smidget, and Caleb. My losses were known, but their names were not. They were only told the basics. We kept the names private, our own way of coping and talking about the babies without having to say "it" or simply "the baby"---I didn't realize when we named Gabriel how useful naming him would be as the losses multiplied. Its much easier to say "Gabriel" than "My first miscarriage." I still, obviously, have to do this for doctors, but it helps day-to-day.
But, with the addition of Deagan to the list of losses, it feels strange not to say the names of the others. People might not understand why we named Gabriel and Caleb. Afterall, they weren't really babies, per se. At least not to anyone besides us. But, Deagan was clearly a baby. He had a face. He lived. He breathed. My belly grew. He kicked. He wiggled. He was born in a hospital, not in my bathroom on the floor while I sobbed. In every way except his size and gestation, he was a real normal baby. And that he didn't come home with us. People understand why we named him. But he was really a middle ground. A place between the 10lb healthy beautiful little boy I delivered over two years before and the miscarriages I'd had. So, the more I think about Deagan, the more it feels disingenuous to NOT speak of the others by name. Because, to you they may have just been lost pregnancies, but to me they were my lost children. Different symptoms. Different circumstances. Different births. Not generic or insignificant. Not to me. Not to their father. And, especially Deagan, not to their brother.
Ax wasn't born when I lost Gabriel, but he was aware of Caleb's existence. And, between the time I lost Caleb and when i got pregnant with Deagan, Ax constantly asked for his brother because he was too little to understand what had happened without witnessing some of the process. Miscarriages are too gruesome to expose him to, so I was left trying to explain the concept to him. And I failed him in that. After Deagan, however, he seems to get it. Although, he thinks Deagan is the SAME brother that we lost before. Someday he'll understand fully and know that he was blessed with many siblings, but never got to brother them. Someday. For now, I am blessed to witness how good of a brother he WOULD be and pray that someday he gets to realize that potential. For now, I teach him his brothers' names and tell him every day about Deagan and show him pictures. Someday he will understand who Gabriel and Caleb are as you who read this are beginning to understand...
But their names were not my only secret. The other secrets were more closely guarded. Two pregnancies. Pregnancies I don't talk about because they were over as quickly as they began.
The first happened on the 8th of September 2007, my best friend's 23rd birthday. On that day, in a conversation with a coworker complaining about her period starting, I realized that mine had not. I am normally very aware of these things, so when I did the math I was shocked to realize that I was two weeks late. I was TERRIFIED. I'd been married for over two years and living with my husband full-time for over a year after I graduated college. What was so concerning about it and had me absolutely panic stricken was that we were not trying at all. We hadn't been using traditional birth control since I graduated simply because I abhor hormones entirely. So, 15 months of our other methods had worked great. Until then. I knew. I just knew I was pregnant. I'd never been a day late in my life. In fact, I could remember the exact dates of my last SIX periods prior to that because they were so regular. Always the same day of the week, four weeks apart. Exactly 28 days. Like clockwork since my period started 12 years before. I had been working out and dieting, but nothing significant, just trying to get fit. I wasn't stressed. There was only ONE explanation.
I called Jenny. Really. Not my husband. Not my mom. JENNY. I was FREAKED. But Jenny was excited. She was glad it wasn't her, obviously, but very excited about the possibility. My first reaction had been terror. Hers was joy. And so our conversation turned to "what if I am?" And slowly my panic turned to hope.
I stopped on my way home from work and picked up a test. Two of them. Just in case. I went home and read the directions while waiting on my husband to come home. It said to use first morning pee, so I opted not to panic him unecessarily. I"d just tell him pending the test results.
I awoke early and peed while he was still sleeping. I made a mess. I wasn't used to holding pee strips in my stream! I watched with an eagle's eye. Slowly, after a few minutes, an extremely faint line appeared. That line appeared to be almost invisible. The test box didn't say anything about barely there lines. So, I was glad I had bought a double. The problem? I'd peed ON the stick instead of dipping, so now I had to wait for the next day. So I kept silent, tortured.
Day two dawned, and as my husband lay sleeping off a 15 hour night-shift, I took a disposable cup into the bathroom and took the test. As the pee moved across the screen, I waited for the results. The line never showed. And, to my own shock, I wanted to scream "NO!" as loudly as I could. How could that be? I was late! Really late! And there was a line yesterday! What could this mean? I was so hopeful! Just as I would have raced out of the house to get my keys and go find a pregnancy test, my husband walked into the room, completely confused about the scene before him, only wanting to empty his bladder. Upon seeing how upset I was, he asked "what's wrong?" and all I could do was sob "I'M NOT PREGNANT!!!" and bawl into his arms.
My poor husband was so confused. He sat me down in the living room and peed and then came back, asking me to explain. And so I did. I told him how upset I was that the test had been negative when the faint line had made me hopeful. After a lot of "okay, so you're not, what's the big deal?" and then "do you want a baby for real?" and much more talking, we decided that our pregnancy "scare" had made us want to have children, so we decided to try during my next cycle.
Ad so, the very next day, my period showed. Of course. Only, this time, it wasn't like any period I'd ever experienced. The cramps were much worse. I bled more heavily. And, for the first time in my life, I passed clots with my cycle. It was so strange and left me confused. The next month at my annual exam, I mentioned it to my doctor, along with my late cycle, our pregnancy scare, and my faint lines. The doctor said that there was no way to confirm it after-the-fact, but that he would suspect that I had probably been about six weeks pregnant at the time that I tested but that baby had likely stopped developing earlier and that i simply figured it out around the same time my body did and purged itself. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I felt more of a potential loss than a real loss. That COULD have been my baby. I didn't know about the baby at all, wasn't even SURE that I was pregnant at all, but I still felt very saddened by it. And, with reassurance that very early miscarriages are extremely common and could not have been prevented. He then declared me fit for conception and sent me on my way after my regular exam. To this date, very few people other than Jenny or AJ have ever been made aware of this first loss. Mostly because I wasn't SURE I lost a baby until it happened again.
And it wasn't Gabriel that convinced me, it was my second very early loss (commonly referred to as a "chemical pregnancy").
After my early loss in 2007, we got pregnant again in February 2008 and carried until April 2008 when I gave birth to Gabriel. Then I got pregnant again in September 2008 and delivered in June 2009 with a healthy Smidget to take home. When Smidget neared his first birthday, baby fever struck again. Now I KNEW how awesome being a mother was, so it hit eve harder than it had the first time. So, my IUD came out and we started trying to get pregnant in May of 2010. My cycle was completely out of control due to breastfeeding hormones and the leftover hormones from the IUD, so I was counting my cycles very carefully. They seemed to hold steady at 24 days. So, when September rolled around and I was at 25 days with an elevated basal temperature (indicating possible pregnancy), I whipped out the pee tests and went to town.
Low and behold! A LINE! It was a squinter. I had to go out into the sunlight to see it. I took pictures and sent them to Jenny and to a few "Line Spotter" friends of mine from my pregnancy forum. EVERYONE saw that faint line. They edited the pictures to show it, faint, but definitely there. Since I was now a very wise pregnancy test taker, I knew that hormone levels double every 48 hours, so my lines would get darker every day! So, I counted my stockpile of tests and waited. I held my pee for 4 hours and peed again on a generic test. The lines were still there! On a different brand! With diluted pee! False positives are EXCEEDINGLY rare. To get them on two different tests with different pee was unheard of! I started to think "Oh my! We're pregnant!!!" and texted AJ that I had something to show him. Of course, being completely pee-test-blind, he said he "thought" he saw it when he came home. So, I decided to pee again the next day.
And so I did. And the line was just a shade darker. Dark enough that even AJ admitted it was true! We were PREGNANT!!! I told Jenny, but I also told her that it was too early to be 100% sure because the tests were still very faint, so we were going to wait for darker tests.
But they never came. The line stayed there, barely visible, for two more days. On the 5th day, day 30, September 28, 2011 I awoke to my period. Or what, had I not tested, I would have THOUGHT was my period. But this one was different. It started heavy and stayed very heavy for several days, then tapered off. It lasted longer than my normal periods. I also had clots. It reminded me exactly of what I had experienced in 2007. This time I KNEW the lines were real. 4 tests do NOT lie. I was pregnant. And it was over. Just like it had ended for me in 2007. For the first time in over 3 years, I took pain medication for my "period" and told AJ the news. It was exactly 20 days after the 4th anniversary of my first chemical pregnancy. We grieved, of course, but for the potential more than for the life itself as we had not been sure about that life and had not known about it at all for more than a few days. We had not bonded because of our insecurity about the pregnancy and our fears, but we mourned the loss of the opportunity and what could have been even as we began to try again. It took us four months this time to conceive Caleb. I found out I was pregnant in January 2011 and miscarried April 1, 2011, exactly 20 days before the 3rd anniversary of my first miscarriage. In April I did not ovulate. I had a very painful ovarian cyst and was unable to get pregnant then, but we tried again in May.
Just two days before my 27th birthday, I discovered I was pregnant with Deagan. I thought he was just the most perfect gift. And he was.
And so those are my secrets. I am not just a mother of one. I am a mother of 6. Not a mother of 4 as many would believe simply because I did not discuss the two early losses. Since September of 2007, in a total of 50 months, I have been pregnant for 24 of those months. And have been trying to get pregnant for 15 months. So, there were a total of only 7 complete months in which I was not either pregnant or actively trying to become so. Those 11 months were spent breastfeeding my only living child (plus 13 more on top of that while I was trying to get pregnant too). 100% of the past 4+ years has been spent on this.
Some people say I'm obsessed with it. That I'm too into it. That I over-research. That I try to hard. I say that if you think I am trying to hard, please trade positions with me for a while because, clearly, fertility and healthy babies come easily to you. It doesn't come easily to me. So, judge my enthusiasm for pregnancy all you want. Judge my love of even the tiniest changes in my body all you want. Judge my belly pictures all you want. Judge the pregnancy tests and the photos of them all you want. They mean something to me. They mean hope. Every single tiny sign that I am pregnant and that the baby could be healthy and survive means more to me than you could ever understand unless you have stood in my shoes or been in my situation. And if you would deny me that, I want nothing to do with you anyway.
And others are becoming harder to keep secret. Not because my past is coming back to haunt me or anything like that, but because it is becoming harder for me not to scream it from the rooftops.
Everyone I know knows about Deagan. Most have seen photos. Some may find the pictures shocking, frightening, or perhaps even disgusting. I don't care. I love them. I love every curve of his face, whether he's a live or not. He could never be disgusting to me. Some might say that those photos should be private. My mother is one of those. But I think he was beautiful. If he were alive, I'd show the photos to everyone just as I am showing these. If he were born at 40 weeks, people would have been texting me left and right begging for photos and birth stats and every detail. The day Deagan was born, I didn't receive any texts after labor started. My friend Jae received them for me. I didn't even look at my phone until late that night. No one else mattered. Some might not understand my openness about my feelings or how direct I am. I've been called "blunt" more than once in my life and another "b" word a few times too. Its not that I'm unfeeling, its that I compartmentalize well. Its not that I am seeking attention, its that I don't care what your opinion is, so I say exactly what I think. I don't have the time or the energy right now to worry about whether I'm hurting your feelings or making you feel sad. That doesn't mean that I don't love you or care about you, just that what I want to say is more important to me right now than what you have to say about it. So, don't give me any lip about how I shouldn't post photos or talk about one aspect or another. Sure, he was born 5 weeks ago, but that's like the blink of an eye for me. I'll be talking about him months or years from now. Get used to it.
What people aren't so used to me talking about are my other losses. I have had two late first trimester miscarriages. I carried the first baby until 12 weeks. That was my first hospital-confirmed pregnancy. The first definite pregnancy I had had up to that point. After I started bleeding, they discovered that baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks. It took another 6 weeks for my body to get the memo. During that time, I dreamed and made plans and fell in love with my baby. When I lost that baby I was devastated. Because I was so far along and excited for my first appointment and ultrasound, just about everyone knew about that pregnancy. What they don't know is that we named him. I say "him" because I was SO sure that he was a boy. So, we gave him a boy's name. Gabriel. And so we grieved for our lost baby fairly quietly.
And then I became pregnant again and carried to full term and delivered the most magnificent little blonde man the world has ever seen. But, even in the instant he was born, I knew our family was not complete. I knew I wanted to do THAT all over again. As soon as possible!
So, just before my son's first birthday, I had my IUD removed and started back on the baby-making. It took months. And months. And then, finally, six months and 8 cycles later (cue rant about jacked up hormones from breastfeeding which did not let me ovulate or cycle on a normal schedule), I awoke on Jan 7th and thought, "Hmm. I'm 9 days post ovulation, maybe I should pee on a test just for fun." I truly did not expect it to be positive. I was so certain it wasn't possible because we hadn't done the deed at the right time and we'd only done it once. There was NO way I was pregnant. Right? WRONG. A faint line showed up. Enough to make me take a picture and text it to my husband and best friend and hear their reactions. Jenny texted me back to tell me that she saw it too and my husband (who is blind to all things pregnancy-test related) simply asked me if it meant I was pregnant. I just replied "would I send you a photo of a negative test? what do YOU think?" and he got the point about then :D
After a few days, we made our news public, sure that our previous loss would not be repeated. I'd had a healthy baby between them, right? I just knew this one was going to be okay. So when I started spotting just after announcing, I hoped and prayed that it was just that "normal" first trimester bleeding that I've heard so much about. I even had an ultrasound at 8 weeks and had seen a perfect baby with a perfect heartbeat. Surely, once a heartbeat is detected, it is extremely rare to miscarry, right? So I comforted myself from weeks 4-11 that the spotting was just that "normal" spotting and that everything was fine. At about 10.5 weeks, the spotting slowed and then stopped. I was home free! I was closing in on the second trimester and the bleeding had stopped. We were goign to make it! The only thing niggling in the back of my mind was that I hadn't yet been able to get baby's heartbeat on the home doppler I have. Sure, it was still early, but it bothered me since I'd gotten it at 9 weeks exactly with my surviving son. So I reminded myself that HE was a freak and measured way ahead from very early on. Clearly, you can't base a normal baby on a 10lb newborn's pregnancy stats, right? And so I continued to hope, only beginning to suspect that something might not be right (although, I'd feared it every day, so strongly that my heart skipped a beat every time I went to the bathroom or coughed or sneezed or lifted my toddler). On the day of my ultrasound at 11 weeks, I awoke convinced that I'd go in and be told what a worry-wort I was being and how pointless my fears had been. I was sure I'd be told that I was being a pregnant hypochondriac. Surely, I'd go in and see a perfect baby. Baby had been fine 2.5 weeks before. Surely I was just paranoid, right?
Wrong. Totally wrong. The ultrasound showed a perfectly developed 10 week baby. But no heartbeat. So they checked using the internal ultrasound. Nothing. Not even one flicker. Nothing at all. Perfect fingers and toes just starting to become visible. A face and a nose and a beautiful cord. Knees and elbows. Miraculous body parts that normal people don't appreciate, but a mother who has had a pregnancy loss occur unexpectedly sees every single cell as the miracle that it is. I was offered several options to "take care of" the situation. I could have a surgery to remove the baby, I could use chemicals to force myself into labor, or I could wait it out and let my body do it naturally. Maybe I'm crazy, but I hate forcing my body to do anything unnatural. So, if you know me, you know what I chose.
It took me another 4 weeks to start bleeding. And 3 days before labor began. And it was the most horrible experience of my life to that point, with the exception of my first miscarriage. This one was less horrifying because I knew what would happen to my body. I'd done it before. It was familiar to me and, thus, not quite as terrifying. At least I knew to have maxi pads at home and didn't have to stop on the way home. That was a step in the right direction. Bleeding out in my car on the way home from the ER the first time wasn't as pleasant as it sounds. Nor was having NO idea what was happening to my body. Fun!
Like my first miscarriage, everyone knew about this baby, especially after we'd seen the heartbeat. So, everyone knew I miscarried. No secrets there. But, we really didn't make it known that we named this one either. We had no idea about gender, but thought that since my gut said boy with Gabriel and with Ax and had been right, that we'd just go with whatever I felt was right. I said we'd just go with a boy name. None of the girl ones felt right. So, we named him Caleb. By this time, I'd had three "boys"---Gabriel, Smidget, and Caleb. My losses were known, but their names were not. They were only told the basics. We kept the names private, our own way of coping and talking about the babies without having to say "it" or simply "the baby"---I didn't realize when we named Gabriel how useful naming him would be as the losses multiplied. Its much easier to say "Gabriel" than "My first miscarriage." I still, obviously, have to do this for doctors, but it helps day-to-day.
But, with the addition of Deagan to the list of losses, it feels strange not to say the names of the others. People might not understand why we named Gabriel and Caleb. Afterall, they weren't really babies, per se. At least not to anyone besides us. But, Deagan was clearly a baby. He had a face. He lived. He breathed. My belly grew. He kicked. He wiggled. He was born in a hospital, not in my bathroom on the floor while I sobbed. In every way except his size and gestation, he was a real normal baby. And that he didn't come home with us. People understand why we named him. But he was really a middle ground. A place between the 10lb healthy beautiful little boy I delivered over two years before and the miscarriages I'd had. So, the more I think about Deagan, the more it feels disingenuous to NOT speak of the others by name. Because, to you they may have just been lost pregnancies, but to me they were my lost children. Different symptoms. Different circumstances. Different births. Not generic or insignificant. Not to me. Not to their father. And, especially Deagan, not to their brother.
Ax wasn't born when I lost Gabriel, but he was aware of Caleb's existence. And, between the time I lost Caleb and when i got pregnant with Deagan, Ax constantly asked for his brother because he was too little to understand what had happened without witnessing some of the process. Miscarriages are too gruesome to expose him to, so I was left trying to explain the concept to him. And I failed him in that. After Deagan, however, he seems to get it. Although, he thinks Deagan is the SAME brother that we lost before. Someday he'll understand fully and know that he was blessed with many siblings, but never got to brother them. Someday. For now, I am blessed to witness how good of a brother he WOULD be and pray that someday he gets to realize that potential. For now, I teach him his brothers' names and tell him every day about Deagan and show him pictures. Someday he will understand who Gabriel and Caleb are as you who read this are beginning to understand...
But their names were not my only secret. The other secrets were more closely guarded. Two pregnancies. Pregnancies I don't talk about because they were over as quickly as they began.
The first happened on the 8th of September 2007, my best friend's 23rd birthday. On that day, in a conversation with a coworker complaining about her period starting, I realized that mine had not. I am normally very aware of these things, so when I did the math I was shocked to realize that I was two weeks late. I was TERRIFIED. I'd been married for over two years and living with my husband full-time for over a year after I graduated college. What was so concerning about it and had me absolutely panic stricken was that we were not trying at all. We hadn't been using traditional birth control since I graduated simply because I abhor hormones entirely. So, 15 months of our other methods had worked great. Until then. I knew. I just knew I was pregnant. I'd never been a day late in my life. In fact, I could remember the exact dates of my last SIX periods prior to that because they were so regular. Always the same day of the week, four weeks apart. Exactly 28 days. Like clockwork since my period started 12 years before. I had been working out and dieting, but nothing significant, just trying to get fit. I wasn't stressed. There was only ONE explanation.
I called Jenny. Really. Not my husband. Not my mom. JENNY. I was FREAKED. But Jenny was excited. She was glad it wasn't her, obviously, but very excited about the possibility. My first reaction had been terror. Hers was joy. And so our conversation turned to "what if I am?" And slowly my panic turned to hope.
I stopped on my way home from work and picked up a test. Two of them. Just in case. I went home and read the directions while waiting on my husband to come home. It said to use first morning pee, so I opted not to panic him unecessarily. I"d just tell him pending the test results.
I awoke early and peed while he was still sleeping. I made a mess. I wasn't used to holding pee strips in my stream! I watched with an eagle's eye. Slowly, after a few minutes, an extremely faint line appeared. That line appeared to be almost invisible. The test box didn't say anything about barely there lines. So, I was glad I had bought a double. The problem? I'd peed ON the stick instead of dipping, so now I had to wait for the next day. So I kept silent, tortured.
Day two dawned, and as my husband lay sleeping off a 15 hour night-shift, I took a disposable cup into the bathroom and took the test. As the pee moved across the screen, I waited for the results. The line never showed. And, to my own shock, I wanted to scream "NO!" as loudly as I could. How could that be? I was late! Really late! And there was a line yesterday! What could this mean? I was so hopeful! Just as I would have raced out of the house to get my keys and go find a pregnancy test, my husband walked into the room, completely confused about the scene before him, only wanting to empty his bladder. Upon seeing how upset I was, he asked "what's wrong?" and all I could do was sob "I'M NOT PREGNANT!!!" and bawl into his arms.
My poor husband was so confused. He sat me down in the living room and peed and then came back, asking me to explain. And so I did. I told him how upset I was that the test had been negative when the faint line had made me hopeful. After a lot of "okay, so you're not, what's the big deal?" and then "do you want a baby for real?" and much more talking, we decided that our pregnancy "scare" had made us want to have children, so we decided to try during my next cycle.
Ad so, the very next day, my period showed. Of course. Only, this time, it wasn't like any period I'd ever experienced. The cramps were much worse. I bled more heavily. And, for the first time in my life, I passed clots with my cycle. It was so strange and left me confused. The next month at my annual exam, I mentioned it to my doctor, along with my late cycle, our pregnancy scare, and my faint lines. The doctor said that there was no way to confirm it after-the-fact, but that he would suspect that I had probably been about six weeks pregnant at the time that I tested but that baby had likely stopped developing earlier and that i simply figured it out around the same time my body did and purged itself. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I felt more of a potential loss than a real loss. That COULD have been my baby. I didn't know about the baby at all, wasn't even SURE that I was pregnant at all, but I still felt very saddened by it. And, with reassurance that very early miscarriages are extremely common and could not have been prevented. He then declared me fit for conception and sent me on my way after my regular exam. To this date, very few people other than Jenny or AJ have ever been made aware of this first loss. Mostly because I wasn't SURE I lost a baby until it happened again.
And it wasn't Gabriel that convinced me, it was my second very early loss (commonly referred to as a "chemical pregnancy").
After my early loss in 2007, we got pregnant again in February 2008 and carried until April 2008 when I gave birth to Gabriel. Then I got pregnant again in September 2008 and delivered in June 2009 with a healthy Smidget to take home. When Smidget neared his first birthday, baby fever struck again. Now I KNEW how awesome being a mother was, so it hit eve harder than it had the first time. So, my IUD came out and we started trying to get pregnant in May of 2010. My cycle was completely out of control due to breastfeeding hormones and the leftover hormones from the IUD, so I was counting my cycles very carefully. They seemed to hold steady at 24 days. So, when September rolled around and I was at 25 days with an elevated basal temperature (indicating possible pregnancy), I whipped out the pee tests and went to town.
Low and behold! A LINE! It was a squinter. I had to go out into the sunlight to see it. I took pictures and sent them to Jenny and to a few "Line Spotter" friends of mine from my pregnancy forum. EVERYONE saw that faint line. They edited the pictures to show it, faint, but definitely there. Since I was now a very wise pregnancy test taker, I knew that hormone levels double every 48 hours, so my lines would get darker every day! So, I counted my stockpile of tests and waited. I held my pee for 4 hours and peed again on a generic test. The lines were still there! On a different brand! With diluted pee! False positives are EXCEEDINGLY rare. To get them on two different tests with different pee was unheard of! I started to think "Oh my! We're pregnant!!!" and texted AJ that I had something to show him. Of course, being completely pee-test-blind, he said he "thought" he saw it when he came home. So, I decided to pee again the next day.
And so I did. And the line was just a shade darker. Dark enough that even AJ admitted it was true! We were PREGNANT!!! I told Jenny, but I also told her that it was too early to be 100% sure because the tests were still very faint, so we were going to wait for darker tests.
But they never came. The line stayed there, barely visible, for two more days. On the 5th day, day 30, September 28, 2011 I awoke to my period. Or what, had I not tested, I would have THOUGHT was my period. But this one was different. It started heavy and stayed very heavy for several days, then tapered off. It lasted longer than my normal periods. I also had clots. It reminded me exactly of what I had experienced in 2007. This time I KNEW the lines were real. 4 tests do NOT lie. I was pregnant. And it was over. Just like it had ended for me in 2007. For the first time in over 3 years, I took pain medication for my "period" and told AJ the news. It was exactly 20 days after the 4th anniversary of my first chemical pregnancy. We grieved, of course, but for the potential more than for the life itself as we had not been sure about that life and had not known about it at all for more than a few days. We had not bonded because of our insecurity about the pregnancy and our fears, but we mourned the loss of the opportunity and what could have been even as we began to try again. It took us four months this time to conceive Caleb. I found out I was pregnant in January 2011 and miscarried April 1, 2011, exactly 20 days before the 3rd anniversary of my first miscarriage. In April I did not ovulate. I had a very painful ovarian cyst and was unable to get pregnant then, but we tried again in May.
Just two days before my 27th birthday, I discovered I was pregnant with Deagan. I thought he was just the most perfect gift. And he was.
And so those are my secrets. I am not just a mother of one. I am a mother of 6. Not a mother of 4 as many would believe simply because I did not discuss the two early losses. Since September of 2007, in a total of 50 months, I have been pregnant for 24 of those months. And have been trying to get pregnant for 15 months. So, there were a total of only 7 complete months in which I was not either pregnant or actively trying to become so. Those 11 months were spent breastfeeding my only living child (plus 13 more on top of that while I was trying to get pregnant too). 100% of the past 4+ years has been spent on this.
Some people say I'm obsessed with it. That I'm too into it. That I over-research. That I try to hard. I say that if you think I am trying to hard, please trade positions with me for a while because, clearly, fertility and healthy babies come easily to you. It doesn't come easily to me. So, judge my enthusiasm for pregnancy all you want. Judge my love of even the tiniest changes in my body all you want. Judge my belly pictures all you want. Judge the pregnancy tests and the photos of them all you want. They mean something to me. They mean hope. Every single tiny sign that I am pregnant and that the baby could be healthy and survive means more to me than you could ever understand unless you have stood in my shoes or been in my situation. And if you would deny me that, I want nothing to do with you anyway.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Deagan Kieran.
You don't go into this thinking "I'm going to lose this baby."
Hell, when you see two lines on a test, all thought in general goes right out the window. Once the news sinks in, if you're a first time mama-to-be, you start thinking of names and crib sets and what furniture you want and what college they'll go to and who's eyes they'll have and whether there will be a hot-dog or three little lines on the ultrasound in 16 weeks.
If you're a mama like me, when you see those lines---after the grin of pure joy has melted from your face and you've gotten off the phone with your best friend and your husband is prancing around the living room like he nailed a 14 point buck (or other manly task)---the hope drains out of you. You cling to the tiny shreds of it. You know the miracle inside of you is fragile. You know that even if you do every little thing correctly; even if you don't chew gum with fake-sugars or lift 30lb toddlers, or have a sip of champagne to toast at a wedding; you know it can be taken away all too quickly.
So, while your friends are congratulating you and asking you whether you want a boy or a girl, you're saying "Just, God, please keep my baby safe" and when you get through the first hurdle, you hold your breath and wait for the next instead of enjoying the ride. You try to have faith. You do all the same things you always did. You write in the journal. You take the weekly belly pictures. You post all the details from your doctor's visits. And with every phone call or text or email telling friends and family the good news, you become a little more hopeful. You think "We've made it this far. We can do it!"
You walk into the doctor's office for that first visit and your hands shake visibly. Your head is swimming, racing with a million what-ifs. You've had the first visit that ended horribly. You've been there. You've done it. You KNOW how horrible that is. And yet you manage, somehow, to walk calmly in and undress and put on that robe and sit there, staring down the ultrasound machine, willing it to give you perfect results. Willing it to show you a baby with a beating heart and waving arms. That very same machine has betrayed you before. You've been in this room, so hopeful and full of promise, only to see your perfect baby on the screen and be confronted by utter silence. You hope the doctor has simply forgotten to turn on the sound, but you know. You have seen enough ultrasounds to know that there is no flicker. No tiny heart beating to produce the sound. You hope that THIS TIME it will be different, despite the bleeding. Despite the cramping. Despite all of the signs you've had, you hope and pray that this time it will be different.
So you wait. And when the doctor comes in, she starts to go over your weight, check your breasts, and perform the PAP exam. All the while, you just want to scream "SHOW ME MY BABY!!!" But you don't. You wait patiently for her to finish. You wait for her to finish her lecture about pregnancy weight gain---and assure her that you know what you're doing and only gained 5lbs with your last---at which time she switches from lecturing you about gaining too much weight to telling you to gain MORE weight this time and you simply laugh. Weight gain isn't what you're worried about. And so, at long last, she tells you to lay back again and she lays the blanket across your lap so that you can open the robe to reveal your slightly thickened belly. You're surprised that she suggests an external ultrasound, but don't argue. Whatever lets you see the baby quickest. Whatever shows you a heart beating away at roughly twice the speed of your own, which is now racing. You know there's not much there. Your uterus is no bigger than an orange and the baby only an inch or so long at this point, but you know that whatever that ultrasound sees will forever change you. And so you bite your lip and close your eyes for a second as the gel is applied. And as the wand is gradually lowered. Just before it makes contact, you turn your head to the screen, not wanting to miss a second of seeing your baby. And you wait for the picture to become clear. You see a head and a chest and stare. But it doesn't take long. You see the most wonderful flicker in the world. The flicker of a tiny life inside of you. The heartbeat is strong and so the hope inside you begins to grow again. Hurdle #1 is jumped with flying colors. Your baby is alive. You've made it to 10 weeks. And you know that, even now, this can be taken away. It wouldn't be the first time.
And so you pass the days. You sit on the fence between hope and fear. Some days you lean toward fear as you see the spotting continue. And then, as the spotting stops, you lean a little more towards hope. And, soon after the spotting has gone, you feel a little bump. You hold your breath, half convinced that its merely a gas bubble until you feel another. And you fly. Those little swooshes and flutters you've been feeling weren't your imagination! There's a BABY in there! Someone is kicking you! And you know that this didn't happen the last time, so you start to feel a little safer. The last baby never kicked. The last baby's heart was never strong enough to hear on a doppler, so surely this time you'll make it through to the end. Surely this time you will give birth to something wonderful. And still, you never suspect. Hurdle #2 is crossed. Your baby is alive. You've made it to 12 weeks! But still you know, it can end. But the hope within you grows again and slowly overtakes the fear and you start to say "when the baby comes" more and more and talk about names and pick out bedding sets and start to feel a little more like a naive first-time mama.
And so, feeling full of hope and promise, you tell your toddler about the baby. You explain that there's a baby in mama's belly. He thinks there's one in his too. So, as you lay in bed comforting yourself with a round of listening to the doppler sing out your baby's heartbeat, you let him put the doppler on his belly too. He thinks its funny when he hears a heartbeat in his belly too. And so when he kisses "mama's baby" you kiss his too and tell them "night-night" before drifting off to sleep. And you hope. And as the days pass like this, those kicks become stronger and that heartbeat continues to thump along. And you look down to find that slightly thickened belly has become a definite bump. And you find that you've finally come to the 14th week of your pregnancy. The mythic 2nd trimester. The "safe" zone. The point at which miscarriages become rare. To mark the momentous occasion, you listen to the baby on the doppler one more time, even though the thumps and bumps you're feeling have already told you that your baby lives. And, with the sound of that heart beating on that first day of your 14th week, you mark one more thing off the list. Hurdle #3 is crossed. You are in the second trimester. Your baby lives.
You now think to yourself, "My other losses had stopped growing by now, we've come farther than before." and instead of comparing this pregnancy to your losses, you begin to compare it to the one successful pregnancy. You say "With Smidget I ___, but this time I ____." And start to ponder whether the differences and similarities have any bearing on the gender of the baby. Your friends start to guess what you're having. Your friends and family members tell you what they "want" and all you want is a baby. You think of the pros and cons of each gender, but simply can't even comprehend the idea of having a preference. And so you schedule the gender ultrasound. You're so full of promise and hope now. Baby is moving and grooving, your belly is growing, the bleeding has stopped. All is well! You can make it through! You make the appointment and head in. You are a planner, so you are anxious to find out. You want to know what you're having so you can make all those plans that first-time mother's make. So you can have that experience because NOW you have hope. And you sit there, in a room with your husband, son, and two best friends and you wait. You watch the baby on the screen contorting and playing and generally avoiding the camera. You get beautiful photos of baby's face, but have to fight to see the rest. Finally, after a bit of loving prodding, you get him to open his legs. Its a BOY! And suddenly, you know that is right. That's exactly what you were meant to have. Two boys. Brothers. Perfect little boys perfectly matched to be best friends and mortal enemies. Scraped knees and roars and ER trips and all. That's where you were meant to be. And so you know its right. How could anything so perfect be taken away? You start to gain a little of the denial of a first-time mom again. You think "no way! we're too far into this. I'm going to make it. No way this is getting taken away. Its too perfect" and so you've jumped hurdle #4. Your baby is alive and you have HOPE.
And so the planning begins. You pick out bedding and arrange the nursery. You talk about names in earnest. You think of all of the amazing things you and your two boys will do. You are excited to introduce him to his grandparents and his aunts and uncles and cousins. And so you share the news. You call one set of grandparents and are met with whoops of joy. You call your own mother and hear "well, I'll love him anyway" and you just want to scream "I HAVE A HEALTHY BABY!!! I'd love him if he had two heads and no genitalia at all!" You take a deep breath and call your best friend. She may have (not so) secretly wanted a girl, but she knows you're having a boy and would NEVER try to ruin that for you. So you know you can call her and talk about anything at all. And so you call to talk about baby toes and nursery decor and little boys. And so you hope. And as you begin to plan, the days move more quickly. You put his clothes in his drawers and set up his nursery and start to cut fabric for the bedding. And then things change. Daddy is getting deployed. You're moving "home" with the family. So he won't get his own room. He won't get his own furniture. And you are heartbroken. You lose many of those hopes and dreams you had for his early life. You instantly have Daddy ripped out of all of his "firsts" and that shatters you a little. But you are strong. You make new plans. You add in his grandparents. You add in getting to meet the whole family. You add in trips all over the East Coast visiting friends. You add in Mardi Gras! It will be okay. You'll get through it. And so you begin your plan again. You make new dreams. You have new hopes. And one day you wake up and think "I'm twenty weeks pregnant!" and you know you're half way there. And so you jump hurdle #5 with barely a blink. You've got some confidence now. You'll make it. And hurdle #6 is just ahead. You can see it and you just know you're going to make it. You start your countdown: Only 4 more weeks til viability.
As the week of viability closes in, you just quietly state once a week "Only __ weeks til viability" and then, at 23 weeks, you sit at dinner and you say "only 7 more days til viability" and talk openly with friends about how excited you are and how hopeful and you let your toddler show off his brother-loving tricks including blowing raspberries on your tummy and hugging and kissing his brother and telling him he loves him. He even informs everyone that brother has a weenie. He's very excited too. And so you enjoy your evening. And you have no idea that in a few short hours, you'll be fighting to stay pregnant with every ounce of your being.
You head home and you empty your too-full bladder and you note the ridiculous amounts of discharge you've had for two days. You chalk it up to the crazy pregnancy hormones. All of your friends have complained about the geyser-in-the-pants that happens to them during pregnancy, so you figure its normal and you station yourself on the couch hugging your son until bedtime. And you carry him into the bedroom and diaper him and put him in his jammies for bed and you grab your own jammies and head for the bathroom to empty your too-full pregnant bladder one more time before bed---a nightly routine since you peed on a stick months before. And so you do. All seems normal and so you wipe. And, because you've been afraid so long for so many years, you automatically look at the toilet paper before you pitch it in. And your heart stops. Runner down! Just when the hurdle was close enough you could reach out and touch it, you fall. And so you jump back to your feet and scream "LETS GO NOW!" and pull your pants back up and head straight for the car, your husband and jammy-clad toddler following close behind. You drive yourself to the L&D and undress and lay back on the bed. You can feel him kicking. You KNOW he's alive. So you pray. You pray like no one ever prayed before. You pray it is nothing. Unexplained bleeding like before. You pray it can be stopped. You pray it is nothing. You pray that its not too late. And then they let you hear his heartbeat and you want to scream "I KNOW HE'S OKAY! I CAN FEEL HIM MOVING!!! NOW FIGURE OUT WHY I'M BLEEDING" but you don't. You listen to his heartbeat and try to let it calm you as you patiently wait on the doctor to come. The same doctor who brushed you off when you came in and made you wait, standing, at the front desk for the nurse to come around and help you. It only took a minute, but still. You wait on him.
And he comes in and tells you that you're having your baby. And that he is going to die. And you ask if there is any other way. And he says "it would take a miracle, but if we can stabilize you and get your water bag to recede and your cervix to close, then we may be able to give you a cerclage and ship you down to the NICU hospital" and so you form a plan. He begins to go on about how you're goign to go into labor tonight and have your baby and you simply say, "No, I am not. We're going to make it happen, doc. I am not having him tonight." And so you don't. And you don't have him the next day either. Through sheer force of will and the cunning use of gravity, you manage to keep him in. And then the miracle happens. Your tricky baby avoids the doppler, so the doctor orders an ultrasound. An ultrasound that shows that your water has receded. Your cervix has closed! MIRACLES HAPPEN! And so you begin to hope again. You name him. Deagan Kieran. You start to formulate plans for the coming weeks of bedrest. You begin to hope not for 40 weeks, but for 30. You begin to think about what needs to be done for a preemie and how to make that work with a 2 year old and a military husband. You actually begin to breathe again.
And then the contractions start. And you tell them. And they decide to monitor you. You ask for medications to stop the contractions and they say they're going to keep monitoring you. You ask again and they say they're talking to the NICU hospital to see what the plan is for treatment. You know its all too late. And still you fight. With every contraction you clench your kegels and pray. And then they get so painful that you can't pray during contractions, so you moan. You scream. Primal, aching screams. Screams of horror. Screams of anguish. You moan the dirge of a mother who has lost children and cannot stop another from coming too soon. You whisper his name between contractions and tell him its okay. That you love him anyway. That you will take care of him. The doctors have already told you that they don't believe they can help him, so they won't even try. And so you know that you must give him all that you can for however long you can. And so you moan. And, eventually, you can't stop the pushing. Eventually, no matter how hard you fight the contractions, the pressure is too powerful. And so you ask for pain meds. You ask for something to make the pain stop. You don't want this. You don't want to feel it. Fighting the pain makes it so much worse, but you can't bring yourself to work with it the way you did when you gave birth last time. You can't bring yourself to encourage him to come. And so you take the meds. But they don't help the pain at all. Just make you want to throw up. And so you fight through. The doctor comes and tells you that the baby is dead and that his feet are in the birth canal and the water is already ruptured. And you take a deep breath. That's not true. He's kicking RIGHT NOW. He's pushing on your cervix and butting his backside up against your side. You know he's alive. And so you talk to him. You tell him its okay, that he has to come out now. That his water is broken and that you want to see him before he dies. And so when the next contraction hits, you try not to fight it. You try to force yourself to work with it. You can't bring yourself to push, but you try not to fight.
And the next contraction hits you hard. You feel the pressure. You're sure he's coming. You call out as it peaks and hear a CRASH as your water breaks and splashes against the wall and floor. You cry and scream "Was that him? Did he come out?" convinced that you've launched your tiny baby into the wall on the opposite side of the room. You panic, trying to lift up to see, but the nurse reassures you that it was only your water. The water they said had already ruptured. He reassures you that the baby hasn't come yet. And all pain is gone. With the pressure gone with the water, the pain is manageable again. And so you prepare yourself for the next contraction. And as you feel it peak and the pressure builds again, you feel your tiny baby engage and move into the birth canal. You roll to your side because, somehow, you know that is right. you move up on the bed a little and curl into the fetal position and tell them to get the doctor becuase he's coming. You make it through another contraction as you feel him start to crown. You hear your husband calling for the doctor to come catch the baby as he runs back to your side. And as the next contraction hits, you hear the doctors enter the room and feel your baby slide from your body onto the table, glad that you moved up so that he wouldn't fall to the floor. The doctor is there, lifting him onto your belly with his cord closed by a hemostat. Your baby is alive.
You take him and cradle him and whisper to him about how much you love him and how very sorry you are that you couldn't keep him. How much you wish you had kept him just a few more days. How much his brother and Daddy love him. How beautiful he is. You whisper all these things and breathe him in. You examine every body part. You check him over and count his toes. You deem him to be absolutely perfect. And bigger and far more complete than you ever suspected and 23 week baby to be. You marvel at the perfection you've been given. And you watch him breathe. Something they said he couldn't do. You watch his tiny heart beat through the thin wall of his skinny chest and your heart beats with love for him. You feel his grip on your finger and feel his legs trying to kick. You try to warm him with your own body, with your hands, with the towels. You ask for a cord-clip so that he's not dragging around a heavy hemostat. You absently hear the doctors fretting over the placenta and you push for them once without taking your attention off your amazing son. You introduce him to his brother and they talk. They play. Your toddler tells him his ABCs and counts for him. Your toddler takes stock of his baby brother and names all of his body parts, excited the most over the toes and the weenie. And he kisses him and tells him he loves him as you cradle him. And Daddy gets his turn to hold him and cradle him and kiss him. And then you watch as his breathing slows and is no longer visible except in the flutter of snot at the corner of his nose. You watch as his heart rate slows to the same rate as yours, and then slower. You hold him and kiss him as he begins to struggle. And then you let Daddy hold him for his last few minutes of life.
Finally, the doctor comes in with his tiny preemie stethoscope and listens and proclaims your son to be dead and even though you know its true. Even though you watch the life seep out of him, you want to scream "NO!" and clutch him to your chest and deny it. But you don't. The doctor says you can have as much time as you want, and you want to scream "I'll take 60 years, thanks!" But you don't. You simply hold your son and try like hell to memorize every perfect dark hair on his head, every vein in his face, every curve of his fingers. The shape of his toenails, the swirls of fine hair on his back. The point of his chin. The fact that he did not have inverted nipples like your first! The kneecaps. His long legs. His gargantuan feet. His perfect little ears plastered to the sides of his head by the birth-cheese. You wonder whether he would have had an innie or an outie, but find it more interesting to wonder if his eyes were pale like yours or brown like Daddy's. You marvel at how much he looks like your first. You marvel at his very existence and how hard he fought. You are in love.
And, slowly he gets cold. Slowly his skin becomes clammy. So you let them take him for a bath and then you hold him more. You weigh him and are amazed that someone who seemed to take up all the space in the room could possibly weigh less than a pound and a half. You wonder how someone can seem so long when they measure only 11.5 inches. You wonder how someone can be so beautiful even after they have died. And you know it is because they had a beautiful soul. And so you wait. And you know it won't get any easier to let him go, so you finally do. And you are wheeled off to recovery as they take him down to the morgue. And you are empty. A hole has opened in your soul and you know nothing will ever fill it. And so you sob as you are taken upstairs and admitted to a room. You sob as you shower. You sob as you lay in bed praying to wake up and discover it has all been some horrible dream.
And the next morning you awake and you put one foot in front of the other. Because that's what you do. Deagan was a fighter and he gets that from his Mama. So you continue to take it one breath and one day at a time. You know you'll be okay because you're strong like him, but it doesn't stop you from wishing that you didn't need to be this strong.
And you know, you never plan to lose a child. Sometimes that fate chooses you and you are left to pick up the pieces. And people tell you not to plan. They tell you to take life as it comes. But you know that planning is a part of hoping. And hope is sometimes all you have left.
So I will plan. And I will hope. And, most of all, I will have faith. Faith that God would not give me this task without reason. And, even more, faith that He would not give me this all-consuming desire---nay, this need---to become a mother. The need to grow someone inside me and the need to bring them into the world and love them and provide for them all of the best things in life; things which are not things at all, but simply a mother and father who love them beyond all else and will support them no matter where life leads them. He has given me a lot of love that I hold inside that aches to have a place to go. And so I must have faith that God will give me enough places for it to go to hold it all. Until then, I sit here aching with so much love that I may burst at the seams.
Hell, when you see two lines on a test, all thought in general goes right out the window. Once the news sinks in, if you're a first time mama-to-be, you start thinking of names and crib sets and what furniture you want and what college they'll go to and who's eyes they'll have and whether there will be a hot-dog or three little lines on the ultrasound in 16 weeks.
If you're a mama like me, when you see those lines---after the grin of pure joy has melted from your face and you've gotten off the phone with your best friend and your husband is prancing around the living room like he nailed a 14 point buck (or other manly task)---the hope drains out of you. You cling to the tiny shreds of it. You know the miracle inside of you is fragile. You know that even if you do every little thing correctly; even if you don't chew gum with fake-sugars or lift 30lb toddlers, or have a sip of champagne to toast at a wedding; you know it can be taken away all too quickly.
So, while your friends are congratulating you and asking you whether you want a boy or a girl, you're saying "Just, God, please keep my baby safe" and when you get through the first hurdle, you hold your breath and wait for the next instead of enjoying the ride. You try to have faith. You do all the same things you always did. You write in the journal. You take the weekly belly pictures. You post all the details from your doctor's visits. And with every phone call or text or email telling friends and family the good news, you become a little more hopeful. You think "We've made it this far. We can do it!"
You walk into the doctor's office for that first visit and your hands shake visibly. Your head is swimming, racing with a million what-ifs. You've had the first visit that ended horribly. You've been there. You've done it. You KNOW how horrible that is. And yet you manage, somehow, to walk calmly in and undress and put on that robe and sit there, staring down the ultrasound machine, willing it to give you perfect results. Willing it to show you a baby with a beating heart and waving arms. That very same machine has betrayed you before. You've been in this room, so hopeful and full of promise, only to see your perfect baby on the screen and be confronted by utter silence. You hope the doctor has simply forgotten to turn on the sound, but you know. You have seen enough ultrasounds to know that there is no flicker. No tiny heart beating to produce the sound. You hope that THIS TIME it will be different, despite the bleeding. Despite the cramping. Despite all of the signs you've had, you hope and pray that this time it will be different.
So you wait. And when the doctor comes in, she starts to go over your weight, check your breasts, and perform the PAP exam. All the while, you just want to scream "SHOW ME MY BABY!!!" But you don't. You wait patiently for her to finish. You wait for her to finish her lecture about pregnancy weight gain---and assure her that you know what you're doing and only gained 5lbs with your last---at which time she switches from lecturing you about gaining too much weight to telling you to gain MORE weight this time and you simply laugh. Weight gain isn't what you're worried about. And so, at long last, she tells you to lay back again and she lays the blanket across your lap so that you can open the robe to reveal your slightly thickened belly. You're surprised that she suggests an external ultrasound, but don't argue. Whatever lets you see the baby quickest. Whatever shows you a heart beating away at roughly twice the speed of your own, which is now racing. You know there's not much there. Your uterus is no bigger than an orange and the baby only an inch or so long at this point, but you know that whatever that ultrasound sees will forever change you. And so you bite your lip and close your eyes for a second as the gel is applied. And as the wand is gradually lowered. Just before it makes contact, you turn your head to the screen, not wanting to miss a second of seeing your baby. And you wait for the picture to become clear. You see a head and a chest and stare. But it doesn't take long. You see the most wonderful flicker in the world. The flicker of a tiny life inside of you. The heartbeat is strong and so the hope inside you begins to grow again. Hurdle #1 is jumped with flying colors. Your baby is alive. You've made it to 10 weeks. And you know that, even now, this can be taken away. It wouldn't be the first time.
And so you pass the days. You sit on the fence between hope and fear. Some days you lean toward fear as you see the spotting continue. And then, as the spotting stops, you lean a little more towards hope. And, soon after the spotting has gone, you feel a little bump. You hold your breath, half convinced that its merely a gas bubble until you feel another. And you fly. Those little swooshes and flutters you've been feeling weren't your imagination! There's a BABY in there! Someone is kicking you! And you know that this didn't happen the last time, so you start to feel a little safer. The last baby never kicked. The last baby's heart was never strong enough to hear on a doppler, so surely this time you'll make it through to the end. Surely this time you will give birth to something wonderful. And still, you never suspect. Hurdle #2 is crossed. Your baby is alive. You've made it to 12 weeks! But still you know, it can end. But the hope within you grows again and slowly overtakes the fear and you start to say "when the baby comes" more and more and talk about names and pick out bedding sets and start to feel a little more like a naive first-time mama.
And so, feeling full of hope and promise, you tell your toddler about the baby. You explain that there's a baby in mama's belly. He thinks there's one in his too. So, as you lay in bed comforting yourself with a round of listening to the doppler sing out your baby's heartbeat, you let him put the doppler on his belly too. He thinks its funny when he hears a heartbeat in his belly too. And so when he kisses "mama's baby" you kiss his too and tell them "night-night" before drifting off to sleep. And you hope. And as the days pass like this, those kicks become stronger and that heartbeat continues to thump along. And you look down to find that slightly thickened belly has become a definite bump. And you find that you've finally come to the 14th week of your pregnancy. The mythic 2nd trimester. The "safe" zone. The point at which miscarriages become rare. To mark the momentous occasion, you listen to the baby on the doppler one more time, even though the thumps and bumps you're feeling have already told you that your baby lives. And, with the sound of that heart beating on that first day of your 14th week, you mark one more thing off the list. Hurdle #3 is crossed. You are in the second trimester. Your baby lives.
You now think to yourself, "My other losses had stopped growing by now, we've come farther than before." and instead of comparing this pregnancy to your losses, you begin to compare it to the one successful pregnancy. You say "With Smidget I ___, but this time I ____." And start to ponder whether the differences and similarities have any bearing on the gender of the baby. Your friends start to guess what you're having. Your friends and family members tell you what they "want" and all you want is a baby. You think of the pros and cons of each gender, but simply can't even comprehend the idea of having a preference. And so you schedule the gender ultrasound. You're so full of promise and hope now. Baby is moving and grooving, your belly is growing, the bleeding has stopped. All is well! You can make it through! You make the appointment and head in. You are a planner, so you are anxious to find out. You want to know what you're having so you can make all those plans that first-time mother's make. So you can have that experience because NOW you have hope. And you sit there, in a room with your husband, son, and two best friends and you wait. You watch the baby on the screen contorting and playing and generally avoiding the camera. You get beautiful photos of baby's face, but have to fight to see the rest. Finally, after a bit of loving prodding, you get him to open his legs. Its a BOY! And suddenly, you know that is right. That's exactly what you were meant to have. Two boys. Brothers. Perfect little boys perfectly matched to be best friends and mortal enemies. Scraped knees and roars and ER trips and all. That's where you were meant to be. And so you know its right. How could anything so perfect be taken away? You start to gain a little of the denial of a first-time mom again. You think "no way! we're too far into this. I'm going to make it. No way this is getting taken away. Its too perfect" and so you've jumped hurdle #4. Your baby is alive and you have HOPE.
And so the planning begins. You pick out bedding and arrange the nursery. You talk about names in earnest. You think of all of the amazing things you and your two boys will do. You are excited to introduce him to his grandparents and his aunts and uncles and cousins. And so you share the news. You call one set of grandparents and are met with whoops of joy. You call your own mother and hear "well, I'll love him anyway" and you just want to scream "I HAVE A HEALTHY BABY!!! I'd love him if he had two heads and no genitalia at all!" You take a deep breath and call your best friend. She may have (not so) secretly wanted a girl, but she knows you're having a boy and would NEVER try to ruin that for you. So you know you can call her and talk about anything at all. And so you call to talk about baby toes and nursery decor and little boys. And so you hope. And as you begin to plan, the days move more quickly. You put his clothes in his drawers and set up his nursery and start to cut fabric for the bedding. And then things change. Daddy is getting deployed. You're moving "home" with the family. So he won't get his own room. He won't get his own furniture. And you are heartbroken. You lose many of those hopes and dreams you had for his early life. You instantly have Daddy ripped out of all of his "firsts" and that shatters you a little. But you are strong. You make new plans. You add in his grandparents. You add in getting to meet the whole family. You add in trips all over the East Coast visiting friends. You add in Mardi Gras! It will be okay. You'll get through it. And so you begin your plan again. You make new dreams. You have new hopes. And one day you wake up and think "I'm twenty weeks pregnant!" and you know you're half way there. And so you jump hurdle #5 with barely a blink. You've got some confidence now. You'll make it. And hurdle #6 is just ahead. You can see it and you just know you're going to make it. You start your countdown: Only 4 more weeks til viability.
As the week of viability closes in, you just quietly state once a week "Only __ weeks til viability" and then, at 23 weeks, you sit at dinner and you say "only 7 more days til viability" and talk openly with friends about how excited you are and how hopeful and you let your toddler show off his brother-loving tricks including blowing raspberries on your tummy and hugging and kissing his brother and telling him he loves him. He even informs everyone that brother has a weenie. He's very excited too. And so you enjoy your evening. And you have no idea that in a few short hours, you'll be fighting to stay pregnant with every ounce of your being.
You head home and you empty your too-full bladder and you note the ridiculous amounts of discharge you've had for two days. You chalk it up to the crazy pregnancy hormones. All of your friends have complained about the geyser-in-the-pants that happens to them during pregnancy, so you figure its normal and you station yourself on the couch hugging your son until bedtime. And you carry him into the bedroom and diaper him and put him in his jammies for bed and you grab your own jammies and head for the bathroom to empty your too-full pregnant bladder one more time before bed---a nightly routine since you peed on a stick months before. And so you do. All seems normal and so you wipe. And, because you've been afraid so long for so many years, you automatically look at the toilet paper before you pitch it in. And your heart stops. Runner down! Just when the hurdle was close enough you could reach out and touch it, you fall. And so you jump back to your feet and scream "LETS GO NOW!" and pull your pants back up and head straight for the car, your husband and jammy-clad toddler following close behind. You drive yourself to the L&D and undress and lay back on the bed. You can feel him kicking. You KNOW he's alive. So you pray. You pray like no one ever prayed before. You pray it is nothing. Unexplained bleeding like before. You pray it can be stopped. You pray it is nothing. You pray that its not too late. And then they let you hear his heartbeat and you want to scream "I KNOW HE'S OKAY! I CAN FEEL HIM MOVING!!! NOW FIGURE OUT WHY I'M BLEEDING" but you don't. You listen to his heartbeat and try to let it calm you as you patiently wait on the doctor to come. The same doctor who brushed you off when you came in and made you wait, standing, at the front desk for the nurse to come around and help you. It only took a minute, but still. You wait on him.
And he comes in and tells you that you're having your baby. And that he is going to die. And you ask if there is any other way. And he says "it would take a miracle, but if we can stabilize you and get your water bag to recede and your cervix to close, then we may be able to give you a cerclage and ship you down to the NICU hospital" and so you form a plan. He begins to go on about how you're goign to go into labor tonight and have your baby and you simply say, "No, I am not. We're going to make it happen, doc. I am not having him tonight." And so you don't. And you don't have him the next day either. Through sheer force of will and the cunning use of gravity, you manage to keep him in. And then the miracle happens. Your tricky baby avoids the doppler, so the doctor orders an ultrasound. An ultrasound that shows that your water has receded. Your cervix has closed! MIRACLES HAPPEN! And so you begin to hope again. You name him. Deagan Kieran. You start to formulate plans for the coming weeks of bedrest. You begin to hope not for 40 weeks, but for 30. You begin to think about what needs to be done for a preemie and how to make that work with a 2 year old and a military husband. You actually begin to breathe again.
And then the contractions start. And you tell them. And they decide to monitor you. You ask for medications to stop the contractions and they say they're going to keep monitoring you. You ask again and they say they're talking to the NICU hospital to see what the plan is for treatment. You know its all too late. And still you fight. With every contraction you clench your kegels and pray. And then they get so painful that you can't pray during contractions, so you moan. You scream. Primal, aching screams. Screams of horror. Screams of anguish. You moan the dirge of a mother who has lost children and cannot stop another from coming too soon. You whisper his name between contractions and tell him its okay. That you love him anyway. That you will take care of him. The doctors have already told you that they don't believe they can help him, so they won't even try. And so you know that you must give him all that you can for however long you can. And so you moan. And, eventually, you can't stop the pushing. Eventually, no matter how hard you fight the contractions, the pressure is too powerful. And so you ask for pain meds. You ask for something to make the pain stop. You don't want this. You don't want to feel it. Fighting the pain makes it so much worse, but you can't bring yourself to work with it the way you did when you gave birth last time. You can't bring yourself to encourage him to come. And so you take the meds. But they don't help the pain at all. Just make you want to throw up. And so you fight through. The doctor comes and tells you that the baby is dead and that his feet are in the birth canal and the water is already ruptured. And you take a deep breath. That's not true. He's kicking RIGHT NOW. He's pushing on your cervix and butting his backside up against your side. You know he's alive. And so you talk to him. You tell him its okay, that he has to come out now. That his water is broken and that you want to see him before he dies. And so when the next contraction hits, you try not to fight it. You try to force yourself to work with it. You can't bring yourself to push, but you try not to fight.
And the next contraction hits you hard. You feel the pressure. You're sure he's coming. You call out as it peaks and hear a CRASH as your water breaks and splashes against the wall and floor. You cry and scream "Was that him? Did he come out?" convinced that you've launched your tiny baby into the wall on the opposite side of the room. You panic, trying to lift up to see, but the nurse reassures you that it was only your water. The water they said had already ruptured. He reassures you that the baby hasn't come yet. And all pain is gone. With the pressure gone with the water, the pain is manageable again. And so you prepare yourself for the next contraction. And as you feel it peak and the pressure builds again, you feel your tiny baby engage and move into the birth canal. You roll to your side because, somehow, you know that is right. you move up on the bed a little and curl into the fetal position and tell them to get the doctor becuase he's coming. You make it through another contraction as you feel him start to crown. You hear your husband calling for the doctor to come catch the baby as he runs back to your side. And as the next contraction hits, you hear the doctors enter the room and feel your baby slide from your body onto the table, glad that you moved up so that he wouldn't fall to the floor. The doctor is there, lifting him onto your belly with his cord closed by a hemostat. Your baby is alive.
You take him and cradle him and whisper to him about how much you love him and how very sorry you are that you couldn't keep him. How much you wish you had kept him just a few more days. How much his brother and Daddy love him. How beautiful he is. You whisper all these things and breathe him in. You examine every body part. You check him over and count his toes. You deem him to be absolutely perfect. And bigger and far more complete than you ever suspected and 23 week baby to be. You marvel at the perfection you've been given. And you watch him breathe. Something they said he couldn't do. You watch his tiny heart beat through the thin wall of his skinny chest and your heart beats with love for him. You feel his grip on your finger and feel his legs trying to kick. You try to warm him with your own body, with your hands, with the towels. You ask for a cord-clip so that he's not dragging around a heavy hemostat. You absently hear the doctors fretting over the placenta and you push for them once without taking your attention off your amazing son. You introduce him to his brother and they talk. They play. Your toddler tells him his ABCs and counts for him. Your toddler takes stock of his baby brother and names all of his body parts, excited the most over the toes and the weenie. And he kisses him and tells him he loves him as you cradle him. And Daddy gets his turn to hold him and cradle him and kiss him. And then you watch as his breathing slows and is no longer visible except in the flutter of snot at the corner of his nose. You watch as his heart rate slows to the same rate as yours, and then slower. You hold him and kiss him as he begins to struggle. And then you let Daddy hold him for his last few minutes of life.
Finally, the doctor comes in with his tiny preemie stethoscope and listens and proclaims your son to be dead and even though you know its true. Even though you watch the life seep out of him, you want to scream "NO!" and clutch him to your chest and deny it. But you don't. The doctor says you can have as much time as you want, and you want to scream "I'll take 60 years, thanks!" But you don't. You simply hold your son and try like hell to memorize every perfect dark hair on his head, every vein in his face, every curve of his fingers. The shape of his toenails, the swirls of fine hair on his back. The point of his chin. The fact that he did not have inverted nipples like your first! The kneecaps. His long legs. His gargantuan feet. His perfect little ears plastered to the sides of his head by the birth-cheese. You wonder whether he would have had an innie or an outie, but find it more interesting to wonder if his eyes were pale like yours or brown like Daddy's. You marvel at how much he looks like your first. You marvel at his very existence and how hard he fought. You are in love.
And, slowly he gets cold. Slowly his skin becomes clammy. So you let them take him for a bath and then you hold him more. You weigh him and are amazed that someone who seemed to take up all the space in the room could possibly weigh less than a pound and a half. You wonder how someone can seem so long when they measure only 11.5 inches. You wonder how someone can be so beautiful even after they have died. And you know it is because they had a beautiful soul. And so you wait. And you know it won't get any easier to let him go, so you finally do. And you are wheeled off to recovery as they take him down to the morgue. And you are empty. A hole has opened in your soul and you know nothing will ever fill it. And so you sob as you are taken upstairs and admitted to a room. You sob as you shower. You sob as you lay in bed praying to wake up and discover it has all been some horrible dream.
And the next morning you awake and you put one foot in front of the other. Because that's what you do. Deagan was a fighter and he gets that from his Mama. So you continue to take it one breath and one day at a time. You know you'll be okay because you're strong like him, but it doesn't stop you from wishing that you didn't need to be this strong.
And you know, you never plan to lose a child. Sometimes that fate chooses you and you are left to pick up the pieces. And people tell you not to plan. They tell you to take life as it comes. But you know that planning is a part of hoping. And hope is sometimes all you have left.
So I will plan. And I will hope. And, most of all, I will have faith. Faith that God would not give me this task without reason. And, even more, faith that He would not give me this all-consuming desire---nay, this need---to become a mother. The need to grow someone inside me and the need to bring them into the world and love them and provide for them all of the best things in life; things which are not things at all, but simply a mother and father who love them beyond all else and will support them no matter where life leads them. He has given me a lot of love that I hold inside that aches to have a place to go. And so I must have faith that God will give me enough places for it to go to hold it all. Until then, I sit here aching with so much love that I may burst at the seams.
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