Linus is nearly 8 months now and I’ve been wanting to share
his story for a while. It’s taken me some time to gather my thoughts and
feelings of this part of our journey of parenthood. I think it’s an important
story to share, though, especially after losing Bluberry. After sharing our story of Losing Baby Blueberry, I spoke with literally countless ladies who had their own story of loss. I noticed
that many (not all, but many) of us had the same knee-jerk reaction to a miscarriage…FIX IT…meaning, get pregnant again and get pregnant again quickly.
I think for me it was probably wanting the sense of control back in my life. If
I got pregnant again, I was righting the wrong that just happened. Maybe it
would be like it never happened, or at least make it feel like it never
happened. Maybe I could shift my focus on something living, not dead. Yes, we
would be pregnant as soon as possible, I thought. Being pregnant again will fix
this.
At that point in my life I was 35 years old. Being 35 is
kind of like reaching an invisible brick wall at which you are supposed to stop
having babies. Clearly time was of the essence, especially according to the
internet. But month after month after month I was not pregnant. Wow, maybe that
invisible brick wall isn’t so invisible? If you’re 35, and after 6 months you
are not pregnant, you are supposed to consult your doctor about infertility. At
the 6 month mark I stopped and evaluated my feelings. At this point it wasn’t
about fixing my broken heart. My heart had to heal in other ways and a baby
would not have sped that up. Ok, do I really want to be pregnant? I’m over 35.
What if, what if, what if? I would look over at Arlis playing by himself and my
heart would shred. He needs a sibling. A buddy. The shared experience of
growing up with 2 absolutely insane parents. Ok, yes, I do want another child.
But I don’t want to be tested for infertility. I don't want any more bad news. Denial is such a comfortable
place for me. But denial is the stupidest place for a person to be. Yet I sat
it in it for another 6 months.
At the end of the year, I reluctantly called my doctor’s office
and made an appointment. They couldn’t get me in until after the holidays. So
the first week of January 2015 I was scheduled to go find out what was wrong
with me. I was convinced having to have a repeat D&C had ruined my body and
I just cringed at the things that I was certain I was going to find out about
myself. Of course I was still hanging on to the very tiny thread that this one
last month I would conceive, but I shoved it to the back of my mind-- since
disappointment and I don’t get along very well. I had ordered some very cheap Chinese pregnancy test strips through Amazon (because my pregnancy test budget was
already well in the red) and about 9 days after Christmas they came in the
mail. Those of you who have been through the incessant early home pregnancy
test routines will understand when I opened the batch of tests up and decided to take one just so I could see what it looked like when it was negative. If you know what
it looks like when it’s negative, you can later detect the slightest changes that might indicate an early, early positive.
I knew it would be negative because even if I were pregnant I was only what
they call, 9 days post ovulation (yes, Linus was conceived on Christmas for
those math whizzes out there). Most ladies who are actually pregnant would test
negative at that point in pregnancy.
I yelled out to Jonathan as I went up the stairs….got my
pregnancy tests in, I’m going to go test one out! He just looked at me from the
couch as if I were speaking a foreign language. He is used to my neurotic behavior, but I'm sure to this day he struggles to understand it. I opened the bag of strips and
did my thing. As I was washing my hands I looked at the strip on the counter
next to me. Was that 2 lines? Clearly these cheap Chinese strips were
defective. Or maybe I was hallucinating again. Sometimes when you take a lot of
pregnancy tests and you wish SO HARD for that second line….you actually hallucinate the
second line. You have to kind of close your eyes and shake your head and look
at it again to actually see there’s nothing there. Ok these things are cheap
AND I’m hallucinating. I need backup. I called down to Jonathan to come look at
it. Yep, he said. There’s 2 lines. It’s faint but it’s there. He then texted my
poor sister-in-law (who by then had the pleasure of receiving many, MANY texts of my
questionable pregnancy tests over the year) a picture of the strip, for more backup. Emily said that’s how it looked this
early with Amelia, my husband called from the bedroom, it’s positive. In that moment, I was in
denial yet again. Protective denial but still stupid denial. I can’t believe it’s positive until I KNOW
for SURE it’s positive. So I squeezed out another sample and this time there
was no doubt that the strip had 2 lines. Two very distinct lines. So, according to the instructions it was positive. BUT, it was a cheap Chinese test, so just to be sure, I sent Jonathan to the store to get a First Response Early Response test, the expensive gold standard of early pregnancy tests that are probably also made in China but are scientifically proven to be the earliest detector. If that was positive, I'd believe 100%. He returned with several of them. Sure enough, 2 pink lines. Days before my infertility appointment, I was pregnant!