What a beautiful thought- our very own rainbow baby.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, I'll let the wonderful all-knowing internet define it for you:
A “rainbow baby” is a baby that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss. In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.
Next week, we should receive the results of Kevin's final post-op ASR. Those results will tell us if the amount of fragmented DNA he carries has improved again into the "normal" range or if he has continued to stay in that "borderline" category. Still, the borderline area is a great place to be considering how far abnormal he was last year. Basically, our chances are either going to be good, or better. That is welcome news! Which means, either way, it's time to try again. It has been a long, drawn out year, full of waiting of every kind since our 6th loss.
For the first time in a long time, we have real hope that we've fixed the major cause of all our losses. It might just be that our doctors were so focused on all of my contributing risk factors, that we missed the actual cause all along. Still, I'm grateful for the journey because we now are able to treat all of my risk factors too.
Real hope is a beautiful, uplifting, exciting, and terrifying thing. That joy we're starting to feel just imagining a light at the end of this tunnel is deathly afraid of reality creeping in the corner- reminding us of our "statistical chances." Fortunately and unfortunately, it is completely out of our hands and we get to turn it over to God and hope He chooses to bless our best efforts. We have given our all every step of this journey. And more. I have given more than I even knew I had in me.
I love my support groups because I can post something like this and drown in the support and love given back immediately.
Ovulation should be in about three weeks. I'm so impatient and also so scared for it to actually happen. Sorry if any of that is TMI- but fertility blogs tend to have a lot of that! Conceiving becomes so clinical sometimes it's easy to forget it makes people uncomfortable! Haha!
I can take all of these medications faithfully and do everything right- but I know I have no actual control of the end result. I’ve learned the key is just accepting it, and doing your best in spite of that fact.
What a roller coaster of emotions I have been experiencing this month! I'm no longer taking any medications for sleep, anxiety, or depression. Since my anxiety has been mounting it has been difficult to even get out of bed most days. I'm without that help my body has been used to. But I'm finding the strength to do it. I actually thought I was going crazy because I've been feeling these horrible "electrical surges" going through my head all day every day. I didn't even know how to look it up or if I needed to ask a doctor about it. Turns out it's a real thing. Brain zaps. Yep. Side effect of quitting the meds. That's been fun. I keep telling myself they won't last much longer. The nausea and aches were unbearable the first week but they have finally started to subside.
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Hooray I'm not crazy! |
I wish I could explain the immense amount of stress that comes just thinking of going through a pregnancy again. But I also know I am not ready to give up and I have to fight through that fear. The best analogy I can explain it with is imagining your child is in the PICU after an accident- and you're forced to wait for weeks- not knowing if they will live or die. Even though it’s NOT the same, this is the closest I can come to describing the feeling as a mother, carrying life, and not knowing if they will survive. It is all consuming all the time, no matter how much you try to talk yourself out of it. So when I’ve been told not to stress, because it hurts the baby, it just makes me feel guilty, because not feeling stress in that situation is actually impossible. But I do my best.
I've been working really hard to keep my "triggers" under control, and to breathe through them when they happen. Just for funsies I looked up birth rates per capita and wouldn't you know it, Provo has the HIGHEST birth rate in the entire country. Hahahahah. Of course it does. It didn't surprise me at all. The irony is fantastic. The birth rate is obviously explained with the huge concentration of a Mormon population in the area. The church has a huge focus on families, and large families have always been a part of Mormon culture. It's not something I'm ashamed of- it's something I love. I love when I'm surrounded by big families. Since I'm from a blended family, I'm one of ten kids, and there is nothing better. It's just a tradition I wish I could be a part of. When Kevin and I got married we imagined six kids, and at LEAST four. It's no surprise that life doesn't go as planned- but Provo is a hard place to live if you are dealing with recurrent loss. Reminders are literally everywhere as the community tailors to the needs of so many mothers with young children. Again, not a bad thing. Just a hard thing to escape when I need to.
I felt God's love and comfort when I found this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQJX4QWO74I
This fitting tribute reminded me that even if this next little one doesn’t make it- that God holds them in a perfect place. They are in His hands- we are all in His hands. He will carry us through this.
Once we are pregnant- I know my whole job will be keeping baby alive, whatever it takes. So I'll have to cut myself some slack in all other areas of my life. My next baby deserves to be loved and celebrated, no matter how long I get to keep them. Perhaps even more so because we don’t know how much time we’ll have together. Our hearts are broken and humble, and our fingers are crossed. I hope that within a couple months I'll be sharing the news that a rainbow is on the way to our family.