Four Years Ago...

...I was preparing to host a whole slew of people at my house.  My brother-in-law had just gotten engaged.  All of my in-laws, plus my soon to be sister-in-law's family were all meeting at my house for a bit of a celebration weekend.  Plus my sister and her then boyfriend, now husband, were coming.

And I had just had the miscarriage.

We had been looking forward to that weekend.  We knew Cameron was proposing the week before and we were so excited to have everyone there.  But then this huge tragedy happened - I mean, at the time it felt tragic, it was definitely one of my worst moments - and all I really wanted was to lay on the couch all weekend watching sad movies.

It's hard to believe it's been four years.  I was just talking with someone recently and I said it happened 2 years ago.  I stopped and said "Wait, no...4 years, 4 years ago." And I was astounded.  Four years?  It seems so much closer than that, because sometimes it still hurts.

Weird thing is, I had Freddie exactly one year later.  And I wouldn't trade him for the whole world...so I guess the universe and mother nature knew what they were doing.  I really can't imagine a world without Freddie in it.  In fact, my eyes get all teary just thinking about it.

I remember, how painful those first few months after it happened were.  How angry I was.  How nothing seemed to make sense.  People said the worst things.  I don't blame them.  I mean, if you've never experienced it, what do you say?  You say things like "Well at least you never felt it move," or "Everything happens for a reason," "Lucky for you it was so early," or "You already have Ainsley," or "You'll have another baby," and my personal favorite..."God has a plan."  God has a plan.  I have to say that nothing makes a person feel crappier during a low point than hearing that.  Because in my not so stable, still a bit hormonal mind that said - So God's plan is to make me miserable?  Why?  What did I do to deserve his wrath?  What about my plan?

However, there were a few people who got it.  Those ladies cried with me and understood all of my crazy emotions.  They listened to me go on and on and didn't think I was crazy when I said "Screw God's plan."  Because they had been through it.  So they knew.  They knew how it felt to soar with the knowledge that you were pregnant and then be pulled, crashing down to the ground, with the realization that you suddenly weren't.

Recently I found out that someone I care for quite a bit had a miscarriage.  I was very tempted to say all those dumb things people say, because in that moment, you just want them to feel better.  And having got to the other side, I know that some of them are true.  Instead, I held my tongue and just listened.  And then I told her that she wasn't crazy, that it was okay to have these feelings, that they wouldn't go away overnight...but eventually, they will subside.  That one day, you'll have your babies and it will all make sense even though there's no way to possibly see that now.  And every year around the due date or around the miscarry date, you'll get a little sad...a little reflective...and maybe feel the need to write a blog post about it.  But then the rest of the year, life will move on just as it always has.

So in that darkness, this is my light.  This is the "Why me?"  I doubt I made her feel better, but I hope I didn't make her feel worse.

Number Three

I sat there on the toilet puzzled.  Counting and recounting days.  Day 14.  No doubt, day 14.  So why was I seeing blood.  Twelve days early.

I stepped in the shower.  It's cancer.  I have cervical cancer or ovarian cancer or one of those cancers that never shows any signs and HOLY HELL I must make a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  I knew I shouldn't have waited on my annual, it was due a month ago.

And then...

What if it's not.  What if that pregnancy test I took two weeks ago was wrong.  What if my period wasn't a period.  What if the exhaustion isn't from the half marathon training.  Well, then I'm miscarrying.  In three pregnancies I've only bled once and it ended.  Just ended. 

I dry off and slip into yoga pants and a t-shirt.  I hand Clif $10 and send him to the store.  I stand in the kitchen waiting, googling "mid cycle bleeding," "cancer and bleeding," "bleeding while pregnant," "random female bleeding."  I come up with a million different scenarios.

I text my sister.  She's a nurse.  She doesn't know. 

Clif comes home and I take the test into the bathroom.

The positive sign appears before I can finish peeing.  I'm pregnant...but I'm not, I must be miscarrying.

Two weeks I've been pregnant.  Two weeks of caffeine and beer and sushi and over easy eggs.  Two weeks of running 5 and 7 and 11 miles.  Two weeks of crunches.  Two weeks...I'm pregnant, but I'm not.  I've done something wrong.

I have ultrasounds.

"Everything appears to be fine."
"This resembles a healthy 6 week fetus."
"I can see a slight flicker of a heartbeat, but I can't get a reading.  It's probably just too early."
"Right now, I see no blood around the fetus."

But the blood.  I was bleeding.  Bleeding in pregnancy is bad.  Very bad.  Tell me I won't miscarry, then I'll be excited.  Then I'll embrace this.

"Well, we can't say that exactly.  But we have no reason at this moment to believe you will lose this pregnancy."

So I wait.  I worry.  I know this is ending.  I won't be happy.  I won't get excited.  I won't tell anyone.

But I have to tell some people.  My sister, my mom, a friend I am spending a weekend at a winery with.  I have to tell them, because they'll know anyway.

They all say it will be fine.

But I'm sure it won't. 

So I don't get excited, I try to forget that I ever even saw that positive sign.  If I'm going to miscarry, it won't be like last time.  I won't be a wreck, because in my mind, I'm not even pregnant.  It's all a mind game anyway.  Miscarriage.  It's too early to feel it or know it.  You just fall in love with this idea and then poof, it's just gone.

I don't get excited when I can't keep my eyes open at 6 pm.  I don't get excited when I throw up my prenatal vitamins 3 nights in a row.  I don't get excited when I have to move the notch on my belt buckle.  I don't get excited when I see the first ultrasound, even though I can finally see the heartbeat.

I wait.  At 12 weeks I'll get excited.  We'll hear the heartbeat, then everything will be fine.

I am 12 weeks and 6 days when I'm sitting in the doctor's office waiting for my 12 week appointment.

There won't be a heartbeat.  I know there won't.  And then I'll miscarry and this will be over.

And then, just as that thought leaves my mind, a tiny little bubble deep in my pelvis.

Was that?

No.

Then another.

Yes, it was. 

You are there and you're telling me to stop worrying.

Be excited.

Just a Dream

The path in front of me curves around a lake.  The weather is perfect.  I can feel the sun heating my face.  I'm not wearing sunglasses but I'm not squinting or shading my eyes.  The brightness is pure and glowing, not blinding and harsh.  There is a slight breeze gently whispering past my ears, but otherwise it is quite.  There seems to be no one in this park except me and the stroller filled with soft pink blankets.

As I proceed around the bend, the lake is to my right, and up ahead on my left is a small clearing in the trees.  There sits a bench and on the bench sits a woman.  I can't make out her features but I know who it is and I can feel her warm smile even from this distance.

In a moment I am standing in front of her.  She is looking up at me with her wide grin and she looks the same.  Wonderfully the same.  She is not the sick woman with a swollen face and bald head.  She is not that fragile being I remember hugging all those years ago, not knowing it would be the last time.  She is strong, like I remember from my youth.  She is the woman who baked spaghetti sauce all day on Sundays, who made jam on her back porch from the berries we had picked, who canned the sweetest corn.  Even now, all these years later, I can close my eyes and recall the precise smell of that sauce, the exact sweetness of that jam and the firm texture of that corn.

She is beautiful and she is looking at me like I am her everything.  It is exactly the look I remember from her, the inviting smile that always made me feel safe and special.  I never doubted her love for me.  I never doubted that I was special to her.  So much so, that sometimes I'm convinced she loved me the most...thought I was the most special.  Right now, I need that confidence.  I need her to hug me and make me feel like everything will be okay.  Reassure me that my world isn't crashing.

The baby is crying now.  She stands and touches my cheek.  Then she turns and gently lifts the pink bundle out of the stroller.  She stares down into the blanket and smiles.  The sobs fade as the small being melts into the creases of her elbows and softness of her chest.

I open my mouth to protest, but she stops me.

It's okay.  I'll take care of her.

Knowing what that means forces hot tears out of my eyes and down my face.  I lean in to look at the small baby in her arms, but she pulls her close, shakes her head slowly and takes a step backwards.

She'll be safe with me.

I take one step back.  Her smile grows as she floats further and further from where I stand until all I can make out is the bright light in her eyes.  I want to remember this moment.  A moment that isn't quite real. I want to remember this light, this smile, these promises.

Mommy?

Mommy?

The sun is peeking in through the window and playing across my eyes.  I squint and blink away the sharp edge of the light.

Mommy?

Ainsley's nose is almost touching mine.

Mommy?  Why are you twying?

I wipe the tears from my cheeks and force a smile.  My grandmother's sweet face still fills my mind and though my doctor's appointment is 2 days away, I already know.  The vision of my grandmother provides a small sliver of peace.  But the sadness and the fear are heavy on my chest.  The knowing is hard, like a knife pushing deep in my gut, relentless and without mercy.

Why are you twying mommy?

I pull her into my lap and hug her close.  I close my eyes and breath in her soft baby scent, slowly it is being replaced with the aroma of childhood. 

I kiss her soft curls and say Just a dream, baby.

Sweet Boy

Since I posted about finding out if Ainsley was a boy or a girl, I wanted to do the same with Freddie.  I'm going to be honest, so don't hate me for it...


I never wanted a boy.  I mean, really, a boy just seemed like big time trouble to me.  If you would have asked me years and years ago how I pictured my future family, I would have answered Four girls, no boys!


I was so sick during those early months with Freddie.  That feeling of utter queasiness mixed with fatigue always reminded me of a Sunday morning hangover.  I had often had the same feelings with Ainsley, but I never actually got sick with her.  Freddie was a whole other story.  It was a welcome discomfort after a pregnancy where I never felt pregnant, which led to a miscarriage and 4 months of trying for another baby.

Looking back on those first 16 weeks of ickiness, I think I knew it was a boy, but I never wanted to admit it.  I would tell Clif that it was probably a boy because the pregnancy was so different.  The sickness, the heart burn, the gas, the way I instantly gained 20 pounds in my belly and rear end the moment I peed on the stick.  But I never wanted to commit to "it's a boy."  Most likely this was because deep down, I was really hoping for another girl.

Ainsley had been a dream child and I was so head over heels in love with her that I just couldn't imagine loving a boy the same way.  I wanted another Ainsley.  Also, I so bad wanted to give her a sister.  A sister close in age to her that she could grow up with.

Just like with Ainsley, I was nervous the day of the ultrasound but in a whole different way.  I was so afraid of reacting badly if it was a boy.  I didn't want to cry, I did not want to be that person, I wanted to not care, I wanted to want a boy.

The ultrasound tech got right down to business this time.  Did we want to know the sex?  Yes.  Well okay, it's  a boy.

I wasn't shocked, because a part of me knew...but I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, and I'm not going to lie.  I was disappointed.  I had been hoping, hoping, hoping for another girl.  What would I do with a boy?  I felt so guilty as we called family members to share the news and I couldn't even fake excitement.  I kept thinking what a horrible person I was.  Here, I had lost one pregnancy and then tired for months for another, and now I had this healthy baby boy growing inside of me and all I could feel was disappointment.

I spent a lot of my pregnancy feeling guilty for that feeling.  Feeling sad that it wasn't a girl and getting used to the idea of a boy.  Boy clothes are not as cute.  Boy nurseries are not as stylish.  Boy toys are not as fun.

And then...

March 18th, 2010, Freddie came roaring into my world.  And I was completely. in. LOVE.  All of those insecurities about raising a boy were gone.  All of the disappointment just vanished.  He was this perfect, precious being and he was so different from Ainsley - yet I loved him because of those differences.  And the love was just so instant and surprising because I had spent so long worrying about my feelings.

And now...

When that little crooked grin spreads across his face or those little pudgy arms wrap around my neck or his small bow-shaped mouth opens for a big slobbery kiss, I wonder how I could have ever felt disappointment.

That feeling is so foreign to me.  All I feel for this troublesome little boy is pure, unconditional love.  I am his momma and he is my sweet boy.