The Joy That Grows Part 1

Today is the ½ way point in this 31 Day Writing Challenge. It is also Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance/Awareness Day. I only know this because as I was scrolling through FB this morning I found a fellow 31 dayer that shared her story of loss. She, like me, experienced a partial molar pregnancy. Being the chances of this are 1 in about 1500 pregnancies, I was grateful to stumble upon it. It is because of this that I am diverting from my original plan for today’s post. My ½ point post will be about my story of loss and how I believe God has, and still is, using it to create something more beautiful then I could have imagined.

My first pregnancy was effortless. I was 27 years old. We had only been married 3 months when I found out we were expecting. I stood in our first little apartment’s bathroom feeling like I wasn’t ready to take in the significance of what was happening. However, what this was, this new amazing joy, was beginning to grow inside me. Beautiful joy.

Andy and I spent that day driving from one family member to the next. Barging into their place of work to share the exciting news. There were happy tears and happy dances all around. A day I will never forget.

The idea of waiting to tell anyone wasn’t even on our radar. It was complete innocence and joy. The best.

Besides teaching kindergarten having to tie way too many shoes with a massive belly and pushing out a 9lb 12oz shiny soul, my pregnancy was effortless and awesome.

I couldn’t wait to do it again.

Two years later, it was the day after Christmas, and with a new test in my parent’s bathroom, joy began to grow once again. Baby number two was on the way.

With the same innocence and excitement, we shared the news with everyone we could. We celebrated big and we began to plan. We talked names. We imagined our next Christmas with the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments being hung. We talked to our oldest about all the cool parts of being a big sister.

Our lives had taken a new course. Every daily decision had just shifted. We had one more shiny soul to consider in all we did.

So when I woke up two months later with cramps that brought me to my knees and I began to bleed, it felt as though life stood still. As I rocked back and forth in my mother’s arms, sobbing with a new sort of pain in my heart and gut that I didn’t know was possible, I not only lost that bright soul, I lost an innocence I didn’t know I had.

This is why, when we found out we were expecting the third time, we tried the cautious route. We had plans to wait the reccommended three months before telling anyone. But, with Andy’s mother battling stage 4 cancer at the time, cautious quickly got thrown out the widow. Who has time for that? Babies are happy. Babies bring joy from that first little moment you learn they exist.

We celebrated. We hoped. Life had taken a new course once again.

I went for a routine checkup and to have my first sonogram. As I lay in that chair, with the cold jelly junk on my stomach, anxiously awaiting the view of my baby, I felt both a deep yearning of a hope that was new to me and a heart gripping, on the edge of myself desire to know. I needed to KNOW.

The technician started to poke around my belly. Her silence was loud. Each second dragged as my nails dug into the chair beneath me. My ears were ringing with questions as I waited. What was she doing? Why was this taking so long? Finally, her silence was broken. “Have you experienced any pain or bleeding?”

And with that, the now familiar loss washed over me. My eyes began to burn, my heart began to break and I just wanted to tell that technician to get the heck out. I didn’t need to hear anything else from the doctor. I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t want to have to walk out of this room to tell my mother who was waiting for me outside that huge black door. I wanted only to sob, scream, and crawl under that stupid chair to be left alone.

My baby. My babies. I was their mommy yet I would never be able to kiss the chub rolls of their neck, smell their newborn breath, or hear them giggle. Grace would not have a little sibling to laugh late at night with. Andy wouldn’t get the chance to rock them to sleep in his big protective arms.

I was pissed off. I was confused and I was so, so, so sad.

I don’t know if I could really give this loss words. It is deep and wide. It is filled with unanswered questions and unmatched desire.

Yet, it is rarely spoken about. It is like a secret club nobody wants to be a part of.

It turns out that this was not a typical miscarriage again. It was a Partial Molar Pregnancy. I never took the time to learn all the details of what this means. When the doctor mentioned Chemo being a possibility if my blood levels didn’t go down, I decided I was not ready to KNOW the details. Just tell me what to do and I will follow.

I had to get blood taken once a month for a year. Getting pregnant within that year was not a possibility. A new baby for us to parent, a sibling for Grace to share childhood with and new life for the world to witness, was not part of our journey at the moment. This wasn’t easy for me to accept.

Life had certainly taken a new turn.

Doubt and fear have always been part of my nature. This was the perfect time for me to get swallowed up into the, oh so scared part of me. In fact, there were many days I felt like this was exactly what was happening.

Yet, against my own stubborn unwillingness to move on, God used deep loss to bring me to deep KNOWING. Slowly, sometimes excruciatingly slow, my heart was being pulled, made ready, and opened to new life.

It was during this time that joy began to grow in my heart once again. In a way I never saw coming.

To be continued……….