Those of you who follow me on twitter or facebook may already know, but this little break in the blog was due to a very time consuming life changing situation in our lives recently. After  two false starts it looks like we have finally gotten the recipe right, because we are expecting our first child, a little boy, in November of this year.

It was terrifying at first. Each ultrasound was preceded by such anxiety that I would be physically sick. I was so afraid of going in and finding out we had lost this one too. But slowly, gradually, we have allowed ourselves to hope and then believe that this one is different and now, at 24 weeks, we are preparing ourselves for a baby, not a loss.

I plan on posting more often now that the fear I felt will not be tainting my words and I am allowing myself to relax. We have painted the baby’s room already and I am working on numerous projects to decorate it with (he’s gonna need a bigger room) which I will be happily sharing with you all as well.

I have found that I love being pregnant and each twinge, pain or discomfort only reminds me that there is a healthy baby in there and so I am thankful for all of it. Plus, it’s really cool – being pregnant affects every inch of your body in weird ways and it’s fascinating to experience.

Here’s the little peanut’s second sonogram, at 13 weeks. He wouldn’t turn and give us a nice profile pic so he looks like a little alien just floating there. The second shot she got his face in plane, but there he looks even MORE like a little alien and more than a little scary.  But he’s OUR little scary alien and we love him.

Our second miscarriage this past month was a bit easier on us mentally, because we hadn’t let ourselves fully accept that we were pregnant in case we were let down again. Sounds pessimistic, but it was a defense mechanism. That isn’t to say it was easy, but it wasn’t as much of a shock. It was a lot harder physically because it was a natural miscarriage, whereas my last was a “missed miscarriage” (meaning that my body didn’t know it had miscaried and  surgery was needed, which was actually painless and easy to recover from). Everyone says that a natural miscarriage is better for your body, but I dare them to tell that to me when I am lying in bed groaning with contractions or throwing up from a mix of pain and pain-killers. I may rip out a heart or two. Natural-smatural, I’d like my anethesia now, please.

Aparently, two miscarriages for different reasons and with different mechanisms is not uncommon, and even my doctor had three before her beautiuful child was born. I am just assuming her child is beautiful, to her anyways. I don’t stalk her or anything. So the tests are on hold until we see how my body handles a third pregnancy.  If we hit three strikes we go for tests but we won’t be out at the plate yet, thankfully. Even three miscarriages before happy babies is more common than you would think and if the tests do highlight a problem our modern medicines can cure a multitude of pregnancy issues once they know what is wrong. 

But, baby or not, I still have Adam, and we are still a family even if it is just us two for eternity. But we’re not giving up yet, and we’re gonna go down swinging.

I ran the gambit of emotions then: guilt, despite being told that a life lost this early was a life doomed from conception by its own genetic code; apprehension, about what was to come next, medically and emotionally; surprise, at the number of women I know who have endured the same and were able to share; gratitude, toward the family & friends who offered support and advice; acceptance, that this was not avoidable and fated in the stars, or the genes or the heavens or wherever this stuff is decided, and finally, determination to not let this set back our plans for a family any longer than medically necessary which sounds clinical, but it helped to have a “goal.”

So I guess this post probably explains my blogging absence over the last few weeks, but now that things are clearer I want to share as much of my experience as I can for those enduring the same. I am the type of person who will Google something to like this to learn about other’s experiences and the stories I read did me good so I would like to post my own and offer a forum for others to comment on anything sort of related. Since all the girly details are not for the faint of heart, I’ll be posting my stories about the medical and emotional progression on a separate page, apart from the main blog and will post the link once I get it up and running. I encourage everyone who wants (warning boys, if you pale at the word “menstruation” you’d better stick with the TSN website) to post their comments or stories too.

One night, about 7 years ago, while crying on Sarah’s shoulder about a break-up (or some similar teenage tragedy) so said a simple thing to me: “It gets better.” That was all, but it was the most encouraging thing to hear while my head was full and my heart was sad and it felt like it would hurt forever. I had already heard countless encouraging comments from everyone but this simple thought stuck on because it was simply stated enough to poke through my grief-induced stupor, and because when you feel sad it feels like it will never end and that is scarier than the loss itself. So I repeated to myself “It’ll get better.” And it did. Hang in there.