I Love My Babies

When did you first know what you wanted in life?

I think I was about 11. We had some friends from out of town come to visit, and they had a new baby with them.

Now, I had seen babies before. I am a homeschool alum, the oldest of 4 children...I don't think I knew a family, growing up, with less than 3 children. I had helped take care of my youngest sister a lot, who was born when I was 8, and had changed diapers, etc. I knew all about babies...

...But something happened the year I turned 11...(h-o-r-m-o-n-e-s...) and when Mrs. S. smiled at me and asked if I wanted to hold the baby, and I took that warm, sweet smelling little body in my arms, something went *pop* in me. I don't know what it was...perhaps a burst of progesterone... but I KNEW in that moment that I wanted one of these little miracles of my own one day.

When Matt and I were dating, one of the first things I demanded to know was what he felt about kids.

J: So...how do you feel about kids?
M: I like them.
J: How much?
M: A lot.
J: (After a moment of uncomfortable silence...) Well, I think you should know before this goes any further that I want 10 of them.
M:(After another moment of uncomfortable silence...) Well, I don't know...
J: What do you mean you don't know? I thought you said you liked kids.
M: I do...it's just that I always kind of wanted to have 12.

So we got married, and began the process of trying to start a family right away...only, nothing happened.

Months went by...then a year... I had plenty of false alarms. I went through so many pregnancy tests, and never got the faintest positive line. I did everything you're supposed to do. I charted, scheduled, planned, observed, changed my diet, started taking prenatal vitamins... It all produced nothing.

In March I thought we finally had a breakthrough. I was LATE. Like, not just one day, but 5 days. 5 days late was even convincing enough to get Matt to allow me to buy another pregnancy test. (He had banned me from buying them after like the 53rd false alarm...) I bought a First Response, and prepared to take the test (that I knew would be positive) the very next morning.

I got up super early, used the test, and stared at it unblinkingly, waiting for that dark pink line to appear. Only, it didn't. Not even a hint of a line. Not even an evaporation line. Nothing. To top it all off, (in case I was still in doubt,) minutes later my cycle kicked in at full force.

I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach by a mule. (And it wasn't because of the cramps.) I had fooled myself again...or rather, my body had fooled me again. I was so frustrated and upset that I told Matt that morning that I was done trying. So we stopped...we stopped the charting, the scheduling, the symptom watching, the caffeine restrictions. And it felt GOOD. For the first time since getting married I felt like the young, happy bride I was supposed to be. We threw our cares to the wind and just lived. It was great.

And lo and behold, I found myself pregnant the very next month.
Can words describe the first moment you know you're carrying your first baby? As soon as I saw that positive line my jaw hit the floor...and then my heart jumped to 550 beats per minute. I felt like I was going to faint and fly at the same time. And all my excitement and joy seemed 10 times greater than it should be, simply because we had waited so long.

That week was one of the best weeks in my life. I knew total, uninhibited, reckless joy. We told almost everyone. We talked about names. We 'knew' it was a boy. I scheduled a doctor's appointment...

Then the unimaginable... It was a Wednesday morning, just one week after getting the positive pregnancy test. I woke up in horrid pain...there was blood, and lots of it...and I knew in an instant that our baby was gone. I was only 5 weeks along.

Some people have told me that I was lucky that it happened so early. I saw the wisdom in those words, but they made no sense to my emotions. There was nothing 'lucky' about it to me. I couldn't believe what God had done. After we had waited so long, for Him to take the baby away so quickly made no sense to me.

Sometimes I think back and wonder how and why my grief was SO incredibly strong, for that tiny undeveloped embryo that was doomed from the start. But I don't wonder about it long...I know the answer... Because as tiny and helpless as that little one was, he was still our baby. Our child, the product of God's grace and Matt's and mine love for eachother. He was my hope and my joy.

It is SO hard to lose a child. Even a tiny child...a child I only knew existed for a week. The miscarriage shattered me so much that for a few weeks I felt resolved to never try again. I even thought about getting my tubes tied. I still wanted children, but there was no way I wanted to put us in the position to go through that horror again.

God and time heal in incredible ways, thankfully. After those horrid first few weeks of grief, I felt the Lord softening my heart and soothing my spirit. He showed me that even though it WAS a horrible experience, that our baby was with Him, and that even a tiny little life is still a life with a purpose... And more quickly that I thought possible, the desire to "try again" came back into my heart.

My body healed miraculously quickly, and my cycle was regular in just one months time. I didn't expect anything to happen though...not immediately, anyway. I mean, it had taken over 18 months of trying hard-core before we got pregnant with #1.

We were so surprised, then, when just 10 weeks after miscarrying, we had another positive pregnancy test.

I think for one split second, I experienced that excited happy joy as I stared at that pregnancy test...and then it went *poof* and was replaced with sickening anxiousness and worry. All I could think was, "am I ready to go through another miscarriage? Can I handle it, God?" From the very beginning I forced myself to take the pessimistic outlook that this pregnancy was doomed to fail too. I did it to protect myself. If things worked out well, then praise God. If I was going to miscarry, I didn't want to let myself get attached and excited.

Well, I'm 9.5 weeks along now. We got past the "anniversary" of 5 weeks, when we lost the first baby, and I started to hope again. Where as I had little to no symptoms with #1, I have experienced a slew of regular pregnancy symptoms with #2. And I have had my days of scares and anxiousness... I have had cramping and even some bleeding - when I first started bleeding I was beside myself. I just "knew" it was happening again...

However, at 6.5 weeks, I had a vaginal ultrasound, and saw the baby...no bigger than a tadpole...with a strong, beating heart. Despite the bleeding and the cramping, the baby looks very much alive. I was even told, "congratulations - you have a viable pregnancy."

As the weeks slip by I continue to let my guard down, little by little. My excitement seems to be growing at the same rate my belly is swelling (MUCH faster than I thought possible!) I have found it hard to talk to this baby the way I talked to my first, but I write her letters...(we don't know the baby's sex, but I am hoping it's a girl...which means it's most likely a boy, of course!) :) I even let myself daydream about whose nose he/she will have, and how much hair will be on her head. Things are starting to feel normal, and that's a nice feeling.

I don't expect the nerves to go away completely, but I am learning day by day to give this baby back to the Lord...to not hold on too tightly, while not letting go completely... All in all, we feel very blessed by this new life, and are looking to the future with hope.

*Photo of pregnant belly is not of me or by me. :)