Daniel and I discussed it before we got married, maybe even before we’d officially decided to get married. Both of us wanted a big family (at least by modern standards – Daniel wasn’t nearly as ambitious as I before I became his THE ONE), and we both knew we wanted to build our family biologically AND through adoption. Little did we know how difficult either of those desires would be.
My mom had uncomplicated pregnancies, multiple home births. I expected that would be my story as well. But then I developed severe preeclampsia at 30 weeks with my first baby.
And my first babies were all rough sleepers. And some among our first have had learning disabilities. And all of them are what the psychologists call “strong-willed.”
We had a hard beginning to the starting of our family. A hard enough beginning that many expected us to stop after one or two.
But I had discovered that difficult doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. God had used and still is using our difficulties around pregnancy and parenting to teach me dependence on Christ and to sanctify me into his image. He used and is using my children to expose sin and to call me to greater righteousness.
And when the time came for us to start parenting children from hard places, we were able to take in stride a lot of the difficulties that throw other foster parents or potential adoptive parents for a loop. Yes, fostering and adopting is still different, but it hasn’t (for us) been significantly harder than parenting our biological children.
I have always considered the difficulty worth it. After all, these are children, persons made in the image of God! Any amount of difficulty can be borne for the privilege of shepherding these precious, priceless people.
With our seven precious absolutely-worth-it children.
But while I’ve considered it worth it, and have been thankful for the spiritual growth I’ve experienced through the process of pregnancy and parenting, fostering and adopting, I’d not understood the great grace of having a hard beginning.
You see, after eight pregnancies (all hard in their own ways) and parenting nine children (5 biological, 4 foster), I ended up with the elusive (to me) “good baby”. Moriah has been sleeping a five-hour stretch each night since she was 6 weeks old. I’ve never been able to expect a five-hour stretch until at least 9 months.
And now I realize that if I’d have had this easy a time with my first, I’d have quit after the first hard one. After any of the rest of my children. Every other child would have seemed too hard. Fostering would have seemed an impossibility. Adopting? So much for that desire.
But God granted me the grace of hard beginnings, and waited until we already knew we were ready to finish our family before he gave me an easy child.
Praise God for his grace in giving us the privilege of raising these 7 precious children (and the three he allowed us to parent for only a time.) Praise God for his grace in keeping any of our children from being “the one that broke the family.” Praise God for the grace of hard beginnings.
**Of course, Moriah is only four months, so whether she remains “easy” remains to be seen. Certainly, the postpartum preeclampsia I experienced with her and her early difficulties with weight gain were not particularly easy – nonetheless, the overall experience with her thus far has been nothing like the “deep end” God graciously threw us into with our first pregnancy and several of the others, teaching us to cling closely to him as our life preserver.
Each time we did a biophysical profile and the ultrasound tech let me know that baby was head down, I marveled a little internally that this time it didn’t matter.
Having a head-down baby really mattered when I was aiming for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and a VBA2C (vaginal birth after two cesareans). But presentation means next to nothing when you’re planning a pre-labor cesarean due to complete placenta previa.
Brand new baby Frank
But then my blood pressure rose to severe ranges and I headed to the hospital.
Hospital staff were getting everything prepped for our c-section when they rolled in the ultrasound to take one last look at the placenta. It’d been three weeks since we’d looked at it directly – it hadn’t moved in the dozen weeks before that and we felt sure it wasn’t going to. What’s more, a regular ultrasound a couple weeks before had the ultrasound tech cautiously feeling out whether I knew the placenta was not going to let me VBAC this time. The previa was a done deal. It wasn’t moving. But it’d still be good to take a good look before we head to surgery.
But the tech couldn’t find the placenta on transvaginal ultrasound. It wasn’t over my cervix anymore. A regular abdominal ultrasound showed the placenta four centimeters behind my cervix. No previa.
And baby was head down, which suddenly mattered again. I no longer had an absolute contraindication for vaginal delivery! I was free to “TOLAC” again (trial of labor after cesarean).
So we started an induction. After an hour or two (maybe?), my blood pressure wasn’t coming down with IV labetalol so we decided to start an epidural sooner rather than later in hopes that it would bring my blood pressure down (I had already planned to get an epidural this time around since it would be an induced labor, which generally means more pain, and because I wanted the “insurance” of an epidural in place in case we needed to rapidly transition to a cesarean.) So we got the epidural in.
“Woo-ooo,” I let the anesthesiologist know that I was feeling woozy. The blood pressure cuff that had been inflating and deflating on my arm since admission confirmed that my blood pressure had dropped, quite low. The staff laid me down; they pushed fluids through my IV ports; they gave me medicine. I stabilized.
They rearranged the belly monitors, trying to get baby’s heart rate back on the monitor – but they couldn’t find it. Quick, bring in a ultrasound – oh, that explains it. Heart’s beating just fine, but baby is breech now. “What’s his presenting part?” I asked. “Foot” was the response.
A footling breech. Not even my doc, who does deliver breech babies vaginally under some circumstances, would deliver a footling breech vaginally.
For the second time that day, we began preparations for a c-section.
In the half hour it took my doctor to get from his west side office (of course this all had to happen when he wasn’t just across the street like he is at the beginning of the week!) back to the hospital to perform the c-section, Frank had flipped again, this time to transverse (lying across my belly rather than up and down).
Meeting Baby Frank
And so Frank was born, via a plan D c-section for breech positioning. He broke a collarbone on the way out (gotta be careful with those gymnastics!) but it hasn’t seemed to have bothered him.
I can’t help thinking of the parallels and perpendicularities between Louis’s birth and Frank’s.
With both, I developed preeclampsia which subsequently developed severe features which necessitated delivery. With Louis, I was determined to do anything possible to avoid a repeat c-section – with Frank I had come to peace with the reality that vaginal delivery was completely out of the question. When our “last ditch” ultrasound showed Louis still transverse, we called in the specialist and did a version. Our “last ditch” ultrasound with Frank started us off on a surprise TOLAC. But Louis bobbed quickly head down and back up to transverse on his version and Frank flipped footling and transverse just because.
Frank at one week
And both my breech boys were born via c-section, with stories specially written by a gracious God.
Frank Orval Pierce Garcia joined the outside world on Thursday August 26.
His birth blew all our expectations out of the water – beginning with the surprise discovery that the placenta was no longer over my cervix (as we prepared to head to OR when my preeclampsia developed severe features) and continuing on through a surprise rotation to breech (as we started an epidural for the surprise vaginal delivery attempt).
Frank was born at 36 weeks exactly, weighed 5 lbs on the dot, and has not needed a NICU stay. Thus far, my c-section and preeclampsia recovery has been uncomplicated. We both expect to return home tomorrow.
God has been gracious to us again and again and again – and we praise him for this newest evidence of grace.
Last year, recognizing that while we were at low risk for death or serious illness from COVID-19 you might not be, our family masked up, socially distanced, and got our vaccines.
My children have masked every time they’ve been in public since the CDC started recommending it (which means Daniel and I have also masked whenever our children have been in public, even during the brief period that CDC dropped the recommendation for masking for vaccinated individuals). My children missed a year of Sunday school (their primary interaction with other children) so their mother could continue to teach Sunday school without putting others at risk.
We did this not because we are particularly vulnerable to COVID but because the grandparents of my Sunday school students, the person who stands behind me at the grocery store, and the fellow taking my money at the McDonald’s drive-through might be.
This year, though, as Delta ramps up, filling our local hospitals once again and as lowered mitigation practices have started “respiratory season” months early (really months late since we basically skipped it last fall and winter), I feel particularly vulnerable.
Because this year, my family is at risk.
While preeclampsia is the immediate concern for me and baby, preeclampsia isn’t the only thing going on. I have complete placenta previa, which means that baby’s placenta completely covers my cervix. If my cervix starts to dilate and the placenta begins to detach early, baby could die. I could bleed out. It’s not a pretty possibility. This is why we’ll be delivering early, via c-section, no matter what happens with the preeclampsia.
But even if there’s no cervical dilation, no placental detatchment prior to our c-section, we’re not out of the woods yet. We are grateful that ultrasounds show no evidence of accreta – abnormal embedding of the placenta into my uterus. But even without any ultrasound evidence, there is still a significant risk, given my history of two prior sections and the presence of complete previa, that the placenta won’t detach cleanly and I’ll need an emergency hysterectomy and lots of transfused blood.
This year, given placenta previa and the risk of accreta, it matters to my family that our hospital is adequately staffed and equipped to handle desperate situations. We might well be that desperate situation.
But say God graciously grants us reprieve from early labor, from accreta, from hemorrhage. We’re still having a preemie. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This baby will be born before term. We’re going to try to get as close to term as safely possible, but “safely possible” is no later than 37 weeks, 5 days.
And, as we know from past experience, preemies are particularly susceptible to respiratory viruses. In fact, we were strongly encouraged to distance our preemies by keeping them away from all crowds (including grocery stores and church) and all other children until they were a year of age because of their risk for rehospitalization if infected by RSV (the “respiratory season” currently going on that we skipped last year is largely RSV).
But our baby won’t be able to stay away from all other children – he’s blessed with four big siblings. Instead, our children will likely have to spend a second year in a row isolated from other people – last year, to protect those others, this year to protect their baby brother or sister.
And should baby end up getting sick and ending up back in the hospital? It matters to our family that the hospital be adequately staffed and equipped to handle that situation.
Which means that this year, it matters to us personally that we as a society get COVID under control.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to you personally. You consider the risk to yourself to be fairly low. But if you get COVID and spread it and community levels stay high, my children face another year of isolation. If you get it and spread it and our hospitals stay full, I and our new baby may be unable to get the care we might need.
So please, even if you won’t do it for you, will you do it for us? Will you consider laying down some of your rights to help us? Get vaccinated if you haven’t already been. Wear a mask when you’re around other people, especially if you’re unvaccinated or your community has high levels of transmission. Choose not to go out at all if you’re sick.
When you’ve been a mother to preemies and had your fair share of complicated pregnancies, all sorts of numbers take on new significance.
For me, 29 weeks and 6 days is when I was hospitalized for preeclampsia with Tirzah Mae.
33 weeks, 6 days. When I was hospitalized with Louis.
32 weeks, 1 day. When Tirzah Mae was born.
34 weeks, 3 days. When Louis was born.
And today is 35 weeks. Baby #5 will be our oldest preemie yet.
Then there are the days from diagnosis to delivery.
8 days of hospitalized bedrest from diagnosis to delivery with Tirzah Mae.
4 days of hospitalized bedrest from diagnosis to delivery with Louis.
14 days now from diagnosis with Baby #5, still at home and still pregnant.
It’s encouraging to remember the numbers, to compare then and now.
It’s discouraging to consider the immediate future. We want baby and I to stay healthy, ideally for baby to stay in my womb for 19 more days. But 19 more days of waiting feels daunting. Sometimes just one more hour of waiting feels daunting.
“Rest” is exhausting when there’s the constant looming thought that the next blood pressure measurement might be the one that ends it all.
“Rest” is exhausting when you’re considering what to make for lunch and trying to balance time on your feet and kids’ complaints and whether the increased fluid retention from whatever sodium-filled convenience food you finally decide on will overwhelm your already fragile ability to cope.
“Rest” is exhausting when you want nothing more than to be present with your children but quickly feel overstimulated by the inevitable noise and movement and squabbling that four children competing for mama’s attention brings.
So here we are in the interim – looking back to celebrate two extra weeks with baby in the womb, two extra weeks at home with our already-born children.
And here we are in the interim, terrified at the hubris of scheduling a c-section for three weeks away, frightened at the prospect of (at any given moment) delivering within hours, worried that we haven’t the strength to continue this “rest” for three more weeks.
And here, while we’re in the interim, would you pray for us? Would you praise God for two weeks at home, for 35 weeks in the womb? And would you pray that we would experience true rest, the peace that passes understanding, for the rest of this pregnancy, whether that’s three more hours or three more weeks?
I’ve had a lot of questions in the past several days, so I thought I’d try to give a brief summary of preeclampsia for those who are interested.
Preeclampsia has two major diagnostic criterion – high blood pressure combined with protein in the urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy. For a diagnosis of preeclampsia, there need to be two measurements of blood pressure at least four hours apart where either the top (systolic) or bottom (diastolic) numbers are greater than 140/90. There are several other warning signs that preeclampsia might be on its way or present (large weight gains in the course of a day or week, lots of swelling in legs, intractable headaches, visual disturbances, severe pain in the upper right side of the belly) but those are not diagnostic like blood pressure and urine protein.
When I went for my prenatal appointment this past week, I wanted to talk with my doctor about preeclampsia because my morning blood pressures had been rising and because I had some of those other warning signs – I was gaining 2-6 lbs of fluid daily (although mostly losing it overnight), had developed pretty severe carpal tunnel (caused by fluid retention in my wrists), and was having painful swelling in my legs and feet as each day progressed.
In light of this, we did labs (including a test for urine protein) despite my blood pressure falling under the 140/90 threshold for a diagnosis of preeclampsia. I had protein spilling into my urine – and, at my appointment the next day, my blood pressure was over the line. This is when we arranged for me to have 24 hours of monitoring in hospital. Note that I didn’t yet have an official diagnosis of preeclampsia because I hadn’t had two blood pressures (taken at least four hours apart) “over the line”.
While hospitalized, I received a couple of steroid shots that will help mature baby’s lungs in case early delivery is required. Otherwise, I sat or laid around in bed between blood pressure checks, which occurred every 2 hours.
Of the 18 blood pressure checks I had in the hospital, five were at or above the 140/90 line that fits the diagnostic criterion for preeclampsia – the rest were in what, in non-pregnant folks, we call the pre-hypertensive range (top number between 120 and 140, bottom number between 80 and 90.) Prehypertensive blood pressures aren’t normal or healthy – they’re a sign to start taking care – but they’re not a sign of imminent danger either. If you showed up at your doctor’s office routinely with pre-hypertensive blood pressures, your doctor probably wouldn’t start you on medicine, but they might schedule you an appointment with a dietitian who can help you develop eating habits that are known to be helpful with managing blood pressure (both the Dash diet and the Mediterranean-style diet have good evidence for blood pressure control). Your doctor would likely also encourage regular physical activity and, if indicated, weight loss.
Given that my blood pressures were right there on the line during my hospitalization, I returned home yesterday afternoon. I will continue at home with outpatient monitoring at present.
As far as monitoring goes, there are three main potential indicators that I need to head back to the hospital and/or have the baby right away.
First, baby could stop growing or be in distress because of what’s going on with me. To make sure this isn’t the case, we will do weekly biophysical profiles which use ultrasound to measure baby’s growth, activity, and amniotic fluid.
Second, my blood pressure could rise to severe levels – greater than 160/110. I will continue to monitor my blood pressure at home at least once daily and I will go into the doctor twice a week to have in-office monitoring. (Louis had to be delivered at 34 weeks, 3 days when my blood pressure rose persistently into the severe range.)
Finally, other organs in my body could be affected (additional kidney problems, liver problems, blood cell abnormalities) which would be an indication for delivery – Tirzah Mae was born at 32 weeks, 1 day when my liver enzymes and blood cells indicated multiple organ involvement. I will have weekly labs to monitor for this last potential indication for delivery.
But, unlike during my pregnancies with Tirzah Mae or Louis, we have caught the preeclampsia while the majority of my blood pressures are NOT in the preeclamptic range. This makes outpatient monitoring a possibility and makes our likelihood of delaying delivery until the c-section we were otherwise planning for 36-37 weeks much higher than it was with either of our first two children.
So we are feeling fairly optimistic about the prospect of staying pregnant longer and maybe even avoiding a NICU stay this time around.
We do appreciate your ongoing prayers – we know things can still change pretty rapidly in this game and that we need to be ready for anything. We also want our children to be able to enjoy as normal a life as possible while we wait for the new baby to arrive while at the same time not hastening baby’s arrival – so we will need lots of wisdom as to what I should and should not be doing and how to truly love and wisely parent all five of our little ones as we wait.
Daniel could also use additional prayer as much of the added burden of parenting, meal preparation, and homemaking falls on him – and all this in the midst of a fairly busy season at his day job.
I got to looking at my old blood pressures to give an idea of the differences between my first twenty four hours of hospitalization with each case of preeclampsia.
Tirzah Mae
Louis
Now
Gestation (weeks,days)
29w,6d
33w,6d
33w,1d
Total BP readings
42
36
18
Normal BP readings (<120/80)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
1 (6%)
Pre-hypertensive BP readings (120-139/80-89)
12 (29%)
5 (14%)
12 (67%)
Preeclampsia BP readings (140-159/90-109)
20 (48%)
29 (81%)
4 (22%)
Severe preeclampsia BP readings (>160/110)
10 (24%)
2 (6%)
1 (6%)
A few notes: I had a lot more blood pressures taken with the first two pregnancies because each high blood pressure generally triggered a follow up after I’d had a chance to sit quietly for a while, in hopes that it would come down a little with extra rest. With Tirzah Mae, I was on IV magnesium sulfate for the first 24 hours of hospitalization to prevent seizures and lower blood pressure. Even with this intervention and no movement whatsoever, my blood pressure was still above the line (orange or red) 70% of the time. Contrast this with this pregnancy, where I received no medication and had no enforced restrictions (although I did mostly sit or lie down when I wasn’t getting up to use the restroom) and had blood pressures below the line (yellow or green) >70% of the time. The one “severe” blood pressure this time around was from when I was telling an animated story while my blood pressure was being taken (that’s a no-no – you’re not supposed to talk while your blood pressure is being taken.) A second pressure taken 5 minutes later when I wasn’t talking was at the low end of the hypertensive range.
Of course, I should add the caveat that I am not a medical doctor and cannot diagnose or treat any disease. I speak as a mother who has experienced preeclampsia three times, twice with severe features necessitating preterm delivery. If you have or suspect that you have preeclampsia, please contact your maternity provider so an individualized treatment plan can be made that takes into account your unique medical considerations.
“We specialize in pregnancy complications,” I tell the nurse with a laugh. And, truly, it often feels we do. Preeclampsia, transverse presentation, preemies, post-dates, prolapse, miscarriage, shoulder dystocia. We’ve done them all.
And with this pregnancy, we have complete previa and now preeclampsia again.
Yes, that’s right. I am back in the hospital at 33 weeks and a day, nursing a sore bottom from the corticosteroid shot meant to mature baby’s lungs in case we need to deliver in the next couple of weeks. Lord willing, no severe features of the preeclampsia will reveal themselves and I’ll head home after my second shot tomorrow.
Lord willing.
It can be such a glib phrase. Or it can be a profound one. I probably use it glibly plenty – but not when it comes to having babies.
If there’s anything specializing in pregnancy complications has taught me, it’s that God gives and takes away, he chooses and he chooses best. And he is present every step of the way.
He is present when sperm meets egg, when embryo implants, when placenta forms. He is present and working when preeclampsia is written into the vasculature of the developing placenta. Or when the placenta develops right on top of the cervix.
God was present and working when I started bleeding and our fourth baby was lost just five weeks after conception – and God was present and working when I started bleeding early on with this pregnancy and our baby survived.
God was present and working and willing when we discovered complete previa on the “routine” 20ish week ultrasound I’d declined with all my other pregnancies (providential, wouldn’t you say, that I chose not to decline this time, when it matters so much that I not go into labor or deliver vaginally?)
God was present and working and willing each time that the external signs made clear the preeclampsia that had been latent from the beginning.
None of this has ever been hidden from his sight. None of this has been outside his hand.
Lord willing.
Someone recently pointed out to Daniel that this is a part of Adam’s curse, this perpetual pain in childbirth. And so it is. But it is also God’s blessing on us fallen creatures.
For here, in the many pains of childbearing – pains we have felt most acutely – here we also experience his presence, his providence, his hand. Here we see that he is not content to let us lean on our own understanding, not willing to let us labor under delusions of our own control, not satisfied to let us remain in our fallen insistence on autonomy. Here, he calls us to rely on him, to trust him, to be conformed to his image.
For whatever God may will for the remainder of this pregnancy, I am confident in this: that God is willing and able to complete the good work that he started in us. He is present in this pain for that very purpose.
Have you been searching through pregnancy blogs for lists of “lifesaver products”? You’ve been reading up on the “must-haves” for newborns too? And don’t even get started on the lists of things to pack in your hospital bag.
Poll your mom friends on Facebook and they’ll each have a different product they absolutely couldn’t have done pregnancy without.
It’s only if they’re moms of many that you’ll start to be able to understand the truth – there’s no way you’ll be able to anticipate which product is going to be your life saver for this particular pregnancy/delivery/baby.
I couldn’t have done it without my lace-up tennies in my pregnancies with Tirzah Mae and Louis. My feet swelled so terribly and got so painful, I needed the extra support. I only wore tennis shoes while hiking during my pregnancy with Beth-Ellen (and I did a decent amount since we traveled to Yellowstone and to the Rockies with Daniel’s family and mine during our second trimester.) This pregnancy? I don’t think I’ve worn tennis shoes even once.
I developed carpal tunnel during my pregnancy with Louis and needed braces. Wearing them each night (and sometimes during the day) made the days bearable. Almost as soon as the pregnancy test was positive with the baby we lost, I needed braces again – and the pain went away as soon as we miscarried. I had no need for braces with Beth-Ellen, and haven’t needed them in this pregnancy either.
I got a ginormous pillow in my third trimester with Beth-Ellen, when my belly made sleep difficult. This time around, I pulled it out in the first trimester, because my hips were doing something weird and I just couldn’t get comfortable. I slept fine all the way through with both Tirzah Mae and Louis.
Support hose were lifesavers for pregnancies 1 through 3. This time around, despite a bit of swelling in my legs, the support hose don’t seem super necessary – but I’ve taken to wearing compression shorts religiously, even to bed.
My hymnal was a sanity-saver for hospitalization #1. I sang it through cover to cover during my eight days of bedrest and the subsequent 26 days with Tirzah Mae in the NICU. Remembering, I brought it along when I was hospitalized with Louis – and barely opened it. On bedrest with Louis and as I prepped for my second unplanned c-section, it was the robes I’d brought from home that kept me grounded. I’m not sure I used anything I’d packed in my hospital bag for Beth-Ellen – not the clothing or the essential oils or the tennis ball thingamajigger or the popsicles.
Newborn Tirzah Mae lived in mama’s Moby wrap. Newborn Louis actually (sometimes) slept in the bassinet insert for our Pack’n’Play. Newborn Beth-Ellen used a swaddle. The elastic binder they gave me after Louis made such a difference in my ability to walk post c-section. It didn’t help the terrible abdominal pain I had after Beth-Ellen. I could not for the life of me understand the mesh panties and peri bottle after the first two – but I totally got it after Beth-Ellen. I spent obscene amounts of time hooked to a hospital grade breast pump with Tirzah Mae and Louis – and never pumped once with Beth-Ellen. It took five years of nearly continuous breastfeeding for me to first need lanolin. I’ve never, despite a super-abundant supply, needed breast pads to deal with leaks. Pantyliners on the other hand? Definitely a sanity saver.
Which is why it’s no good trying to anticipate what you’ll need for your pregnancy, your delivery, or your new baby. You are different with each pregnancy, your delivery is different, your baby is different.
Anticipate that you won’t have everything you want, that you’ll experience surprises, that you’ll have to adapt on the fly. Anticipate that you’ll spend some money figuring out what the fix is for that unexpected problem. Anticipate that you’ll be searching Amazon or sending your husband to the store to find some elusive product you never would have imagined needing.
Most of all, anticipate that God’s grace will meet you when you find yourself back in the hospital after you thought you were all clear – or when your daughter jumps into your lap and now you can’t move without excruciating pain “down there” – or when all your dreams seem dashed – or when you simply don’t know how to soothe that fussy baby. You can’t anticipate what the problem will be or what product will be your “life-saver”, but you can trust that God will be there amidst the unexpected – and that he will carry you through.
I’ve never been one to delay telling the world I’m pregnant.
A baby’s a baby no matter how small – and I’m no good at secrets after all.
But after we miscarried in April, life has been hard. We didn’t get pregnant for several cycles (okay, just three – but we’d always gotten pregnant on first try before). We’ve had uncertainties with our foster daughter. We’ve traveled a lot, which kept me off-kilter. And I’ve been depressed – debilitatingly so.
I spent the summer worried we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again. Worried that Beth-Ellen would be our last biologically. Worried that we’d also lose our foster daughter and that it would tear me apart.
We found out we were pregnant the day Daniel left town to pick up our beef. I started bleeding the next day.
The bleeding stopped, but my worry didn’t. My basal body temperature has never been consistent (probably because I never sleep for 3-4 hours at a stretch), but it bounced up and down instead of staying high like it should for a pregnant woman. I stopped measuring it after a month. It wasn’t serving me – but the worry remained.
My depression deepened. I was grieving I wasn’t sure what. Grieving the baby, certainly. Grieving the closely-spaced family I’d dreamed of. Grieving the difficulties our foster daughter has faced and still may. Grieving saying goodbye to two foster children already. Grieving the things I used to be able to do but couldn’t now.
How could I share the joy of a new baby in the womb when joy wasn’t even half the emotion I was feeling? When I thought of saying something, I contemplated what I might say: “We’re pregnant again and I’m just hoping the baby’s alive. No, I haven’t had any morning sickness, really, I just can’t function after 11 in the morning because I’m too exhausted and everything is overwhelming and all I want to do is cry and scream and cry some more.”
When they offered me an appointment on Daniel’s birthday, I thought “Great. Daniel can get the news that this baby is dead on his birthday.” But I didn’t ask for a different day. I know that only means waiting longer, and I’d much rather know than keep worrying.
I’ve never had an early ultrasound before. I know exactly when I ovulate – no need for an ultrasound to check dates. But this time, I didn’t have any of my normal questions prepared. I had one main question: is our baby alive?
After I knew that, I had decided, I would tell the world. Then they could rejoice with me or grieve with me with some level of surety as to which I ought to be experiencing.
The baby is alive. Moving around enough my OB couldn’t really show us what was what in real time.
A weight off my heart.
But not the whole weight. No, this weight is much heavier than one baby or even two.
And that is why I, so unused to delay, waited so long (okay, nine weeks gestation) to tell you all that we were pregnant.
