The Extremely Winding Road of January and February

Well, I guess I am finally letting out what I'd been holding in. If it seemed as if the blog, and Mat and I in general, were incognito in January and some of February it's because we were. What a crazy, emotional, stressful month it was. At the time I just couldn't talk about it, and although it's still hard it certainly seems much more bearable by now.

It seems as if I were just sitting on my parent's couch on New Year's Eve blogging about what a consistent, quiet year I hoped for 2010 to be. After MJ's health issues at birth, a huge move, finding a new job and adjusting to a new city, and then the declining health and death of my grandmother, I was just ready for a year of no changes! Little did I know that I was about to receive the biggest surprise EVER!

A few days after we got home from St. Louis I began feeling rather weird. I was just getting really sleepy and my body was requiring a nap everyday, I had a strange appetite, and a few other symptoms that reminded me of my early pregnancy feelings that I had experienced not too long ago. To make a very long story short, we found out on January 8th that we were pregnant! I could let myself get totally caught up in the excitement of finding out or telling Mat or our family members, but it seems pointless now to dwell on those happy moments. You can imagine our shock though. We've been told we have a less than 3% chance of conceiving on our own, and it took us over 4 years of trying before going through with IVF to conceive Mathew. A pregnancy on our own was never something we even imagined so this came as the biggest shock I think I've ever experienced. At first we had the "Oh crap! We're going to have 2 babies under the age of 2!" reaction and then it quickly turned to elation and excitement. Where as I was so cautious when I was pregnant with Mathew not letting myself get too emotionally attached or begin planning anything too soon, I seemed to just throw caution to the wind with this pregnancy. After all, I assumed this was surely a miracle that was just meant to be in our lives, and never really doubted it. I was already looking at baby furniture and bedding, making a list of names, etc. etc. We went to the doctor at 6 weeks, just a few days after we found out, and the pregnancy was confirmed. But, when we went for our first ultrasound a little later on things suddenly didn't seem so good. There was no heartbeat. We were told that a miscarriage might be on the way, however we could just be a little earlier than we though and to come back in a week and see if there were a heartbeat then. Talk about a long, agonizing week! I had planned to be in FL that week and I had to cancel my trip because I certainly didn't want to experience a miscarriage while away from home and Mat. So, we waited and waited, and nothing happened. So, I was feeling hopeful when we went to the doctor a week later, but unfortunately once again it was the same news. The pregnancy was definitely not viable. It was devastating.

I'll stop with the details there, because the rest becomes rather personal, but it became a very long drawn out process. It resulted in a few weeks of waiting, pain, and in the end surgery. It wasn't a pleasant experience physically but even more so emotionally. I never realized what a personal experience was. I've always had a lot of sympathy for those that have experienced one, but I guess like anything until you experience it yourself it's hard to really understand. I didn't really feel like talking to anyone and just wanted to crawl into bed and stay there. I felt like a bad mother, because it was really hard to even focus on Mathew, and I felt so guilty that his mama was so sad and unplayful for awhile.

In the midst of all this happening, our entire household became sick. Right before finding out the bad news, Mat had become really sick with a bad sinus infection. About a week later, I became sick, and then within a couple days MJ started presenting symptoms. Of course that was our worst fear for him to catch it. We waited it out about 4 or 5 days thinking it was just a cold, but the more and more congested he began to sound, we started to worry a bit. We took him to the doctor for a very unpleasant appointment of suctioning and xrays and in the end he was diagnosed with RSV. He's been receiving Synagis shots all season in order to try to prevent him from contracting this, but it still got 'em. Thankfully though the shots had still done their job and kept it from becoming the full blown, hospital admitting type RSV that he certainly could've faced. In the end it just became lots of a poor, sick baby who just wanted to sit in our laps and be loved on for several days. He'd lost his playfulness and desire to drink a whole lot. He was started to antibiotics to keep pneumonia at bay. It was just a tough time, because this was the first time that he had been really sick since birth and I was certainly not at the top of my game. In fact I ended up having to have surgery the night after his diagnosis and it broke my heart not being with him when I knew he really needed me. It brought back lots of memories! :( Thankfully my mom came to the rescue and helped us out for about a week. I'm not sure what we would've done without her! The day after the surgery, even our dog had become extremely ill and we had to find a vet to get him into ASAP.

Needless to say by mid February, I was shaking my fists at the heavens and saying "seriously??" I just felt like I couldn't take another thing! I was so weary and feeling depressed.

I know that life could be so much worse though, and I did my best to keep that perspective. As hard as it was to lose the pregnancy, I can't even begin to imagine how much worse it would have been if it were the first time around. We were so emotionally, not to mention financially invested in our first pregnancy that a loss would have been just heartbreaking and hard to recover from. This was hard, but we are able to move forward while still finding so much joy in our original miracle, MJ. Plus, it's pretty hard not to find some joy in the fact that we even conceived on our own! The doctors are encouraging and tell us not to be surprised if it were to happen again. Who knows what life has in store for us! I've learned to stop even trying to predict the future.

I want no pity. That's why I was hesitant to share in the beginning. I don't like people feeling sorry for me/us. But, as always is the case with me, I've learned that my best form of healing is writing. It's so much easier for me than speaking. So, I write and I share my heart with my family and friends in hopes that the Lord will continue to heal us and help us move forward from this very rough start to 2010.