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.