We are so excited to finally share some BIG and EXCITING news!!
I have wanted to post this time and time again but frankly I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I wrote the following and it’s taken me over three week to hit the publish button. I read it and read it again and each time I wonder how much of the feelings I feel are feelings meant to be remembered.
We have cried so, so, so many tears for this baby and now as scary as it is we are trying our hardest to get back to being truly excited!
I want just be able to say “We’re so excited”! and that be it.
Publish and done.
Sadly, that’s not our story this time and “we’re so excited” is only cutting the surface. One of the many, many surfaces.
Lets just say it’s been nothing less of an emotional roller coaster!
I don’t think the girl exists anymore that get’s to be only “So excited” to learn of a pregnancy. Once you experience first hand how easily something you want so bad can be taken away from you and there isn’t one thing you can do about it- it changes you.
I want to simply be as happy as I was when I was pregnant with Lola.
At times it’s an even happier time because of everything we have been through.
Our new, unfortunate, knowledge on just how miraculous it is to be pregnant with a healthy baby. I feel like after a loss so great you turn that emptiness, sadness and fear into a sacred love you would never have known existed had you not experienced such a loss.
Other times we have so much excitement, it becomes too overwhelming and that itself is what scares us from being excited at all.
Even before we were pregnant with our second and now third we talked about how our next pregnancy really would be more exciting because it would likely be more “special”. We knew what we were creating, we knew first hand the baby in your belly is the baby that comes out and turns into this beautiful creature full of their own personality and sass. We also SWORE we would be less worried our second pregnancy…. although the worry with Lola was (compared to our worry now) minimal to most it was extreme and for “no reason”.
Initially we were excited, I wrote December 13th on all my calendars and already pictured having a baby for this Christmas!
We were carefree, excited, telling everyone right away and then bam. We lost it all and have scars that will forever mark our hearts.
So worry works for us I guess you could say.
Our love for Lola is the scariest most powerful thing either of us have ever experienced. It’s so terrifying to have that kind of love from the moment you learn you are pregnant , from a simple test. Especially, considering the new reality of knowing first hand their are no guarantee's you get to keep them.
Yet still, after the horror of our miscarriage we were SO excited to find out we were quickly pregnant again!! Looking back I was much more optimistic than one would think!
I thought the miscarriage was over, behind us. Something awful we went through but came out the other side.
Little did I know the emotional part of it had hardly ran it’s course.
Within one week of finding out I was pregnant, I was at the doctor’s office.
I was experiencing the SAME EXACT symptoms I had experienced with the miscarriage just two months prior.
At 6 weeks they discovered I had a perigestational bleed and they “believe” this may be causing some of the bleeding episodes.
I can’t tell you how many times I would go to the bathroom just in a 10 to 15 minute time span (when I wasn’t bleeding). I was waiting for the same thing to happen, waiting to see clots, blood, any colored tint to let me know it was happening, another loss was coming.
Even knowing about the perigestational bleed… it almost meant nothing to me.
I knew I would lose this baby.
Even when I wasn’t bleeding, I felt awful majority of the time during the pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage and I felt awful majority of the time with the beginning of this pregnancy. That only equaled one thing to me- I would more than likely get the same outcome.
One particular “episode” I screamed bloody murder, fell to my knees and cried and pleaded that this not be happening again. Yet I knew instantly it too was over. In a matter of seconds I screamed for Alex and told him I never, ever wanted to be pregnant again.
I couldn’t even get out to him what happened but I knew I could not go through this physically or emotionally… again.
Fortunately, after may scares like this one on a weekly basis and each time following up with an ultrasound we were reassured the baby was not being affected and seemed to be healthy and growing each time.
Never the less the fear was undeniable. It quickly put us in a state of denial that we were even pregnant. We waited for the next episode almost daily wondering is this just what last weeks was or is this what happened two months ago. This fear was always combined with a guilt ridden detachment for the baby we refused to believe we were pregnant with except for the few moments during and after an ultrasound that “proved to us” baby was “okay”.
I remember the worst part’s being at night when I would fall asleep (accidently) with my hand on my stomach. I would wake up and quickly rip it away. I was only a few months but terrified to feel anything, to feel nothing, to think about a baby being in there- a baby I had not yet admitted to myself was mine because why would I want to if I wasn’t going to get to keep it.
Thankfully, each positive outcome of the ultrasound (and oh did we have some ultrasounds) restored some confidence and the ability to enjoy shared excitement for this baby.
I always heard Dr. Phil use this phrase on his show when he would talk to parents and although the scenario couldn’t be further from our scenario it’s rings true… “it takes thousands of atta boy’s to erase one your so stupid, unworthy etc”.
It has taken so many (and still does) positive ultrasounds and check ups to restore our faith that we can carry this healthy child to erase one miscarriage.
So thankfully our confidence and excitement is being restored especially since making it past the 11 week mark which is what we never made it past with baby #2. But we will never take for granted there are no guarantee's.
Initially in writing this (which I had no idea would be more than a few sentences) I was planning to write the fluctuation (almost daily) between excitement and fear. As I’m writing however, I’m learning the fear we felt is not contradicting of the excitement, instead the fear is being formed from the excitement.
Does that make sense?
I have always believed if you don’t fear anything you must love nothing. With that I believe the difference between fear and excitement is your attitude between the two.
The funny thing is as excited as we were we had lots of fears in our pregnancy with Lola. Looking back now they were SO minimal. I remember just wanting to get past each trimester and then have her born as a healthy baby girl! Once she was born I had the constant fear of SIDS and knew the decrease in percentage for each month. Once those risks were reduced and she started eating “real” food I swore daily she would choke and die. Then you learn of children developing cancer before they are 2 years old. The truth is once your a mama (and even before that) you always have fears if you love something.
Even with these fears, I was excited for EVERY appointment, I would count down the days until I could go and hear her heartbeat or get an ultrasound!
This go round I typically don’t sleep the night before an appointment and I am scared to death to go in the room where I once received horrible, horrible news. I think more about them not finding a heartbeat than I do about getting to hear the beauty of it.
Our fear is different now.
It’s a realization of a lack of control for an outcome you want so, so, so very badly.
The excitement has created a fear that will probably live more vibrantly inside each pregnancy to come for me (hopefully lots and lots) but we can hopefully get to a place where we chose to enjoy the excitement.
So when I say we are SO excited. We are SO excited, we are lots of other things too but it all comes from a deep, deep love of wanting, wishing and praying for something you want more than anything else. 
