The Stark White Test
It was a cold October morning and it was farmer's market day. October 26th to be exact. I was so sleepy. I had not gotten much sleep the past few days because I had to keep waking up to go to the bathroom. So that morning, I was so sleepy. I smiled and talked to customers and chit-chatted with my friend Levi and another one of our market friends about Levi's pregnancy. I went home kind of down, I had taken a pregnancy test the night before and it had been negative, which wasn't unusual. It had definitely been a stark white next to the control line.
For some reason, I guess I felt like there was a mistake. My progesterone levels had risen that month from less than a 2 to a 13. It was the perfect month to get pregnant. I drove the whole way home a little down at the whole thing and I passed by my regular dollar general. We go there at least three times a week because its so close so they all know me pretty well there. I asked for a test and (we will call him DG Guy for privacy) DG Guy gave me the test. I went home and took the first test. I sat there for awhile waiting on it to settle.
The What-Ifs
I was 95% sure it would be negative but... there was something there. Very faint, but it was there. My eyes might've well have popped out of my head. I literally heard myself swallow as I sat staring at it. I threw it down, grabbed my keys and ran out the door to buy two more. DG Guy says, "You just bought one!" I said, "Yeah, I know." My eyes told what had just happened, "He says, are we happy or..?" I nodded and smiled, "Very." I ran out to take the second test, the same thing. It was there. I sent it to my P.A. and nurse, they were excited but wanted me to wait two weeks to see if it darkened up. Every other day I tested and every other day it slowly and gradually got a little darker. The worry began to set in, "Is it supposed to be darker by now? Is this going to stick? Is this real?" I was so anxious to get an ultrasound. I had my first ultrasound and it showed a gestational sac. Worry set in again, "Will a baby be in there or will this be a blighted ovum? I have bad luck, what will happen? What if there is no baby?" I was sent for HCG level testing and my fears were escalated. My levels were rising but not doubling.
You know what I did, I ran to Google. According to Google and every baby forum on the world wide web, if your HCG levels are not doubling you have a superbly high chance of miscarriage. Very few cases make it without HCG levels doubling. I cried for like an entire weekend. I prepared myself for a miscarriage. I detached myself from the baby if there even was a baby and I did what I do when I grieve, I pretend it never happened. My friends prayed for me harder than I had ever seen people pray.
The Pink Lady
That Monday came and as I was sitting in the hospital that morning, I didn't know it but God was working. A woman I know, we will call her "The Pink Lady", had prayed that morning to come in contact with someone who would need her. (I still cry like a baby when I think of how God worked that morning.) I was sitting in the chair waiting to be called back to have my blood drawn. It was day 3 of the HCG testing and my final day. This day would show me if I would have a miscarriage or not. I was so on edge. I was on the verge of tears and I was staring down when I heard her voice. I looked up and to see her familiar face in the hospital that day was like seeing an angel in the pit of darkness. I smiled seeing her and she asked what was going on and I told her I was pregnant but I didn't know what would be the outcome. She asked to pray over me and when she prayed, wow. This woman was a spiritual warrior. Her prayer was so strong and so powerful. She demanded that God give me this child and let us become parents. By this time my tears were flowing all over the place. Before she left, she hugged me and when she hugged me, I almost didn't want it to end. The comfort that radiated off of her was exactly what my soul needed that day.
I got the blood drawn and basically wiped tears and snot away the entire time. I told them about the HCG tests not being good the days before and the woman who has always drawn my blood said she would pray for me too. She has that peace to her too.
Later when we got the results back, they were rising but not doubling. In my heart, I told myself it was not going to happen. This was just not my baby to hold.
And God Spoke
The Pink Lady prayer was still on my mind, that day I heard God for the first time in such a long time. I heard, "You're not listening to me!"
I was so caught off guard that I actually looked at Kevin, we made eye contact and then I turned back to the window. "I am too listening."
Later that day, I got my second sign.
A friend messaged me, she came with a message, one that I did not like. She was very blunt and basically told me that God was sending her a message and He told her to tell me that I need to stop worrying because it's only hurting me.
So as I was wrestling with God that night saying over and over in my head, "Okay, I get it." A third message came.
My mom called to tell me that God had sent her a message and it was that I needed to start praying and listening more.
There was no way I could've croaked any more than what I did. That night, I prayed but instead of the usual "Please God, Please." I said an aggressive prayer, "This baby will be mine and you're going to give it to me because I'm not going through another miscarriage. You will let me have this child and in return, I will raise this child to know you."
The next day we went to an ultrasound to see a yolk sac. The thing that will nourish the baby until the placenta takes over. My PA told me to stay off Google and to just accept that there was a teeny tiny baby in there that we just couldn't see yet. My husband continued to tell my PA that I was in denial about this whole thing. I was in denial that I was even pregnant.
I tried to stay off of Google but it was so hard. I now knew that there was no blighted ovum because there was something in that gestational sac. There was a yolk sac. But then what if there was no baby?
I was beginning to have morning sickness but for some reason, I kept asking, "What if?"
The thoughts ran obsessively through my head and the next week, we saw our answer.
There it was...
There it was, the proof that God had heard me. The ultrasound tech mumbled, "Heartbeat is 116." I jumped up, "Wait! There's a heartbeat!? Like there's an actual baby??"
With a heartbeat of 116 bpm and measuring 3.8 mm long, there was our baby. Kevin has always been there, rarely does he ever miss an appointment and he knows how serious these appointments are. I told him to look and he was so happy. The happiness that is a father who just saw proof of life after a few weeks of trying to convince his wife that she is carrying a baby is the most beautiful sight in the world. The sight of a mother who has just been seen that God saw her tears and heard her prayers is even more beautiful.
The sigh of relief when you tell your family there is a baby is another beautiful thing to add to the list.
We needed the heartbeat to get to 120 to be in a good heartbeat range. The next week that we went back, the baby had grown! It was the week of Thanksgiving and the baby's heartbeat was 154 bpm. But the best part was that it had grown. It was now 11.8 mm long. I was now at 7 weeks. The PA I saw that week wasn't my normal PA and she told me to come back in 5 weeks, but would my anxiety hold off that long? Nope!
Panic Sets In
At 8 weeks, I lost all my symptoms. All of them. I wasn't throwing up, I wasn't running to the bathroom to pee, I wasn't feeling tired. I began to get frantic. I lost the last baby at 8 weeks, 6 days so I was a wreck that week. I got ahold of my PA and she told me to come in for an ultrasound. She knows my anxiety levels and she knows how anxious I was about week 8.
We went to ultrasound and I was so nervous and stressed. Then I heard the most beautiful sound. It sounds like horses galloping through a tunnel at 170 bpm but it's also confirmation that the baby was still there. I said, "The last baby had a heartbeat, so give me some kind of other comforts. The ultrasound tech turns the screen around and says, "Well, it's grown a lot since you last saw it. At 18.3 mm I almost fell off the table, but then I noticed something, "Is it moving?"
She held the wand still and giggled, "Sure is! Look at that baby moving! It's rare to see them this active, this early." Kevin jumped out of the chair he was in and ran over to see. I know people say babies can't hear at this point, but I think they can. The more excited Kevin's voice got, the more the baby moved and bounced.
I was told to come back in two weeks.
The more I looked at the ultrasound photos during the week, the more I saw. From a little flipper-like hand to legs and a face, an actual face. It was incredible to see little cheekbones. It almost looked skeleton-like or alien-like.
The Workaholic Baby
At 10 weeks, we went back for an ultrasound. This time, we tried doing an abdominal ultrasound, where they put it on your belly. For some reason, I seemed to be overly excited on this day, maybe because this whole being pregnant after all this is finally starting to seem real. I joked with Kevin as the ultrasound tech giggled at how we go back and forth, it really is amusing. Then we heard those horses galloping at 174 bpm. Good. Then she showed us the most beautiful thing. The baby was moving, which we had seen the week before but this week was so different. It was looking like an actual baby.
Kevin videoed and we joked about how it was looking like it would be a workaholic like him because it enjoyed moving so much. It was waving and kicking those little legs around.
That evening I watched the video at least a million times, and I even paused it to see what all I could make out because I am not the best at making out what is what when the baby is moving so much. I saw a little hand with little fingers and it melted my heart to see that. I saw the spine, the legs and feet. It's perfect.
We go back at 12 weeks, so January 3rd to see the baby again and have the genetic testing to see if I am a carrier for anything.
No Heartbeat to Listen To I cheerfully headed to the ultrasound room and did everything like normal. It had been a normal week. We had anxiously waited for this day and to see our wiggly baby again. She put the gel on my belly and began searching. I looked at the screen. There was my baby. But it was being completely still. A sinking feeling overcame me. I began to have flashbacks to the last time. My heart felt like it was about to come up in the form of vomit. I frantically searched for the heart, trying to seem like I was calm, then I found it and it too was completely still. I knew the baby was gone. I felt her hand began to shake. I felt sorry for her, this was the second time she had found out we had a missed miscarriage. A missed miscarriage, no symptoms, no bleeding, nothing. You don't even know the baby is gone. The baby is still in you and you still feel very pregnant sometimes. I laid back down thinking how could this possibly be happening again to us. As I got up off the table I said in a low voice, "There's no heartbeat is there?" She gave me the most heartbreaking look and said as her voice broke, "No, I'm so so sorry." After trying a transvaginal ultrasound with no luck, I got up and shook my head at Kevin. Kevin almost flew out of the chair. His voice broke as he said, "What do you mean?" I got her to print me out photos of the baby and we went back to the room. We sat there in silence staring at each other. Then Kevin got up and held me until our practitioner came in. She told us that this was now not an infertility issue. It was now something deeper and it was out of her hands. She told us we'd do more tests and figure out where to be sent off to from there. I looked down at the ultrasound photos. This little baby. This little baby was just moving two weeks earlier. Full of life, and now, nothing. The Longest Weekend
We went home and laid in bed between visitors all day long holding each other, talking softly between tears and lightly kissing each other. We spoke of what do we do next. How much longer do we keep doing this to ourselves, why did this happen. The questions flowed between the two of us and we both whispered, "I don't know baby." to every question. That night we both battled with God. He was awake, couldn't sleep and he battled with God. I don't know what was said or done but somewhere in there he woke me up after my two-hour nap and said, "I think I conjured up a storm. Let's go to bed." He went straight to sleep. Me, however, I woke up at 3 a.m. to battle. I woke up and I was so angry. I sat in bed, listening to the rain pour outside and fussing with God, "Why did you let this happen! How could you!" I spent hours awake. I even walked outside, let the chickens out, fed them and sat on the porch steps. Then I went inside and began to research what could've caused this. At 7 a.m., God finally got through to me and I heard the word, "Rest" repeating in my head. I put my phone down, closed my eyes and fell into the deepest sleep I had had for a very long time. The entire time I was pregnant I had trouble sleeping but that morning, I woke up at peace. I woke up feeling like God had taken the pain away and now I was just left with the memories that felt like a dream. That night my husband told me he wanted to go to church the next day but I whispered, "I'm not ready." Then, I woke up the next morning with a text from my mom saying that she had been up all night and she couldn't sleep until she told me that I needed to go to church the next day. I said, "I'm not ready to go back yet." She said okay and left it at that. But it burdened me all morning so I took a shower and woke up Kevin, I told him to get ready to go to church and we went. Speaking to the pastor helped him a lot more than I knew he needed. God is still working in this situation. The Photo I searched back through photos and found one that struck me like a bolt of lightning. A photo of my belly. A sunbeam from the sun going straight to my belly. I looked at my husband, "This was the day before our appointment, do you think?" He nodded and smiled at me. Here, take a look for yourself.
I told Kevin that when he feels the warmth of the sun rays, he can know in his heart that the baby is with him. We get the baby out Tuesday... Pray for us. Honestly, I can't wait to be able to hold our baby. God has been good to us and I am so thankful for the time we got to spend with this baby. But now we are faced with the next journey. Where to go from here. Stay Tuned!
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