Today my baby boy turns seven months
old. This past year has gone by in the blink of an eye and I can
honestly say it is the happiest that I have ever been. Archer has
started trying solid foods... Avocados, bananas and sweet potatoes
all mixed with breast milk and looks like such a big boy sitting up
in his high chair at dinnertime. My little love still wakes up
around 4 times per night to eat and for snuggles, but we co-sleep so
I don't mind it one bit. I think a lot of the patience that I
feel with some of the less convenient parts of parenting is a healthy mix of sleep deprivation and overwhelming
gratitude. I really never thought that I would get to be here. A
real life mommy in the flesh.
Because I had to try for so long to
get pregnant, I can tell you anything you want to know about
reproduction. Progesterone? Estrogen? Luteal phase? I could teach
a class. It's the proverbial those who can, do; those who can't,
teach scenario. I don't mean to brag. All I'm saying is I know
my way around a fallopian tube.
When you have tried to get pregnant
for a long time without success, the idea of actually being pregnant
becomes very abstract. You want it, but you can't really picture it
anymore. It's like winning the lottery. You buy your ticket, you
would love to win, you hope that you'll win, but you certainly don't
live your life in anticipation of it. You don't spend a million
dollars because you know you are going to win enough to cover it eventually. It
is more of just an idea that is out there on the periphery of your
actual plans, outside of your real life. Unfortunately, because I stopped really expecting to
be able to get pregnant, I learned very little about being
pregnant in anticipation of the event. I was too obsessed with just
getting there. Whatever happened after, if it ever even happened, I
was just gonna wing it.
When I finally did see that big fat
positive on a pregnancy test I was obviously overjoyed. I walked
around on a cloud for a while. Well, for a day. As I began to read
about early pregnancy and the countless things that can go wrong, my
cloud promptly drifted back to Earth with a thud. I became terrified
that it could be a blighted ovum, something that I was not even aware
was a thing until I came across it by accident looking for something
else. Basically, it is when you get a gestational sac that contains a yolk sac, but no embryo. As soon as I saw that this was a possibility, I was certain
that I had one. I became convinced that I was doomed to go to my
first ultrasound and be told that there was nothing actually there.
You see, when you struggle to get
pregnant, that beautiful pink line is only part of the battle. The
actual pregnancy becomes terrifying because you are finally so close.
I couldn't imagine what I would do if that was taken away from me. I really didn't think I would be able to handle it. I am in
awe of women who have lost children either during pregnancy or after
they have been born and have held them in their arms. I counsel many
of these women and their strength absolutely humbles me. They are a
true testament to the human spirit and I feel honored to know each
and every one of them.
In anticipation of bad news, I began
to reel myself and my excitement back. I wouldn't allow myself to
plan for the nursery or think of baby names. I wasn't going to let
myself look forward to a future that may never come. I felt that
mentally, I needed to be ready for a major letdown.
The day of my first appointment with my doctor
I felt the kind of butterflies that you feel before a trip to the
dentist to have a cavity filled. Definitely not excitement. I just
wanted to get it over with. I spoke to my husband on the phone on my
way to the office. He knew how I was feeling, although I don't think
he was aware of how sure I was that would be getting bad news. He
was nervous too. I went into the office and was weighed, peed in a
cup, which I must say after years of practice peeing on small,
plastic strips I am an absolute champ at. I could do it in the dark. No messes here. Walking
back to the exam room I passed pregnant women and nurses in the hall.
I wondered how they handle bad news. Would a few nurses come back
at once or would the doctor come in to give me the news? Do they
walk you out to your car or just tell you in the room and leave you
to yourself after? Would they ask me to call my husband to come get
me or does it depend on how distraught I am? I played through every
scenario that I could imagine.
As is the case for most gynecological appointments, they had me take
my pants off and sit on a “bed” that is really just a glorified,
padded table for the next 45 minutes. Just me, my naked butt on cold
plastic and my thoughts. I thought about how much I wished that I
was pregnant. I thought about how I would react if I wasn't. I
thought about wanting to call out into the hall and find out if they
forgot about me but I was afraid that as soon as I stood up and had
my bare ass exposed in my stupid paper gown that someone was going to
walk in. I sat and sat and sat and thought and thought and thought.
Finally, the nurse practitioner came
in. She was very nice and I immediately felt comfort in her
demeanor. I thought that she would probably be very good at giving
bad news gently. Right away I told her of my concerns. I told her
how long my husband and I had been trying and how fearful I was that
there was nothing actually there. Her response was perfect. She
didn't blow off my concerns, or flippantly say that she knew it was
going to be fine. She listened, she made eye contact, nodded in
understanding and simply said, “well, let's take a look then.”
My first surprise of the day was that
instead of pulling up a little scanner looking thing like I had seen
on television, she pulled up a huge, long wand. My first thought was
that “I hope she is just moving that out of the way.” But no, no
she wasn't just moving it. Apparently, that early into a pregnancy
this is what is necessary to see inside the womb. So, I learned
something new there...
I held my breath, waiting for her to
begin the inevitable, uncomfortable task of looking for something
that wasn't there. “That is your yolk sac,” she began. “And
there is your baby. And it looks perfect.” She smiled down at me
and I felt my entire body get warm. As her words sunk in, I allowed
myself to look up at the moving black and gray screen. Through tears
my eyes searched for what she was talking about. I asked her to
point out to me again which shape on the screen was my baby. At the
end of her slim finger, was a small little blip on the screen, shaped
like a kidney bean. It was the most beautiful sight that I had ever
seen.
I practically skipped out of the
office that day and called Jim immediately to share with him the good
news. Finally we could get excited. I downloaded an app for my
phone that would walk me through my pregnancy. It asked me to give
our little one a name or a nickname. So I went with “little bean”
since that is what he looked like. We called him that up until we
chose an actual name, but to this day I find myself still referring
to him as “Bean” on occasion.
I
would like to tell you that my worries stopped with that ultrasound,
but that would not be accurate. I think that when you struggle with
infertility, you can't help but wait for the disappointment of a
miscarriage or other issue. It all just seems too good to be true.
I walked on air again for the first few weeks after that appointment,
then I began to fixate on fears of a miscarriage until I was past the
12 week mark, then came the fears of down syndrome. After that test
came back clear I became fixated on a cleft lip until I learned that
they could detect those from an ultrasound and he didn't have one. I
worried about heart defects, I worried that he would be born with a
weird birthmark of some kind, or an issue during delivery... The
fears were never ending. The good news is that I learned to not let
these worries get in the way of my excitement or enjoyment in the moment. This is
a skill that is coming in handy now that my lovie is outside of the
protection of my belly.
Now that my little guy is here I worry about SIDS,
accidents and then illness. I worry that as he gets older there will
be kidnappers, rapists and bullies, and then car accidents when he
starts driving, and drugs when he is a teenager. I worry about him
finding love and having a happy marriage. I worry about him finding
a career that he loves. I worry about neglect in his nursing home
when he is an old man... The worries never do end. But when I feel
fearful now I just hug my little bean even tighter and focus on how
grateful I am that I have him to worry about.
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