Tag: Resolve

Count down & the new norm

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Where do I start?  Every day I think about being pregnant and “quarantined” I think about how weird of a time it is to be pregnant. I mean, it’s a weird time for everyone right now but I’m going to just speak as a pregnant mama during this Covid19 world.  Did you know some states aren’t allowing spouses or a support system to be in the same room during delivery?  Did you know most or maybe all states by now are ONLY letting 1 spouse/support system in the room? Or that no visitors whatsoever are allowed in?  No siblings, grandparents, friends or family are allowed to visit the baby in the hospital. It’s a change to keep us all safe, obviously, so I have no qualms about it, but it’s a little sad too.  In addition, we are limiting grandparents or anyone in the house to no one, unless they’ve been self-quarantined for 14 days themselves.

Daily, I go through a range of emotions from worried, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, baffled, and the emotions go on and on.  Of those emotions I experience regularly, very minimal times do my emotions reflect excited, happy, upbeat, and peaceful. Blessed, absolutely, I feel that every single day.  However, this current environment is stripping my excitement and peace as each day goes by.  We’ve gone through what we believe is every possible scenario of how this delivery could play out that we can think of.  I know we don’t know what’s to come but we can attempt to be as prepared as possible.

Scenario 1: We have baby girl easily and without a hitch! Jason is in the room, baby and mom are healthy and get sent home quickly.  Zayden is taken care of by my sis while we’re gone.  This is the scenario we are praying for!

Scenario 2: Jason isn’t allowed in the hospital room and misses the birth of his 2nd child. I labor/deliver on my own.  Jason takes care of Zayden, mom and baby girl are healthy and released home quickly.

Scenario 3: One of  us tests positive for Covid-19.  We are isolated from baby until she tests negative/positive. If negative, we isolate positive person at home, while the negative person(s) isolate elsewhere.

Scenario 4: Z gets sick & tests positive, none of the rest of us do.  We quarantine baby sis and me elsewhere while Jason quarantines with Z at home.

Scenario 5: All of us get it besides baby sis.  My mom and sister will hopefully be healthy and take turns caring for sis til we are allowed to see her.  This is the scenario I am fearing the most.  Not that my mom and sister aren’t fully capable of loving and handling baby sis on their own, but it’s more germs to be exposed to and to be forced away from your newborn child is a very unnerving thought.

Scenario 6: We all get sick and test positive for Covid-19 and we all quarantined at home.  Honestly, if we are all healthy enough to not have huge issues with the virus, I would prefer this over isolating any of us from another.  So I guess surprisingly this is the most ideal scenario after 1 & 2.

Scenario 7: Our hospitals become overwhelmed and I’ll not be able to birth in hospital.  Let’s not even go into this one because it’s so far out of my head at the moment.  A possibility, yes, but not something I want to think about at the moment.

Scenario 8: We have labor & delivery complications with me or baby sis.  I’m not allowing myself to go down this road mentally, so we’ll leave it at that.

I truly despise that my mind even goes to any of this….but in this world, we have to go through these scenarios and create plans and back up plans.  We simply do not know what to expect and it’s way beyond what we had to think about last time around.  With Zayden, the only thing we planned for is making sure our dogs were taken care of while we were in the hospital.  I’m sure some may think this is all extreme, honestly I don’t care what they may think, because we’re just doing what’s best for our kiddos and until you’re in this situation then I don’t know you’ve fully grasp it.

These scenarios continue to weigh heavily on me day and night.  Being isolated from Zayden or baby sis will be one of the toughest things we’ve ever had to do, and let’ me remind you we went through 6+ years of infertility, multiple surgeries, miscarriages after miscarriages and IVF twice, so that’s kind of saying something lol  To be isolated from either of them is what scares us the most..

To end this, I’ll give you a little update on where we are baby wise.  Baby sis still doesn’t have a name yet, but we are considering Zayden’s latest suggestion of Princess Sissy. She seems to be doing good with a healthy heartbeat and moving a ton still.  Dilated to a 3 (whoa – we never got this far with Zayden without being induced), and we have an induction date scheduled for 04/06 unless she comes before.  🙂 Finding this out earlier today brought tears to my eyes because it makes this all just a little more real.

Here’s to this new norm that we’re adjusting to and hopefully just a little more than  a week before little sis arrives!  And while we wait, we continue to soak up every minute possible with Zayden.  Jason has been thankfully capturing photos every single day and sharing them on our facebook in case you want a cute little pick me up. 🙂

Praying for all those expecting mamas out there that are experiencing the ups and downs of their pregnancies.  Hoping for peace and safe & healthy deliveries!

30 weeks & toddler life

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I feel a little guilty, which is exactly what most of this pregnancy has felt like. From what I hear, that’s just what mom life is all about, trying to find balance and dealing with the guilt that comes with unbalanced lifestyle. You’re either too tired to play with your very excited toddler or you’re busy trying to do things and can’t take a second to just breathe for yourself.  It’s a continuous battle with yourself, but I’d rather do this battle every day than what we were doing for 6+ years prior to having Z. Here’s how life has been going so far!

I’m 30 weeks.  Baby girl is measuring on time, appears to be healthy and has a good healthy heart rate, so we are praying she continues to.  She’s ACTIVE.  I’m talking about the good Lord has combined my energy (pre-pregnancy) and Jason’s ridiculousness and created this little being that kicks and punches all day and all night long. Zayden was a very chill little boy in the womb and she’s the opposite.  Ha, as I typed this I got a good jab, as if she knows I’m talking about her.  Thankful for those little (and big) jabs every day though.

Zayden is finally over the thought of us having a baby shark vs an actual baby.  He also gives baby sissy kisses almost daily but REFUSES to feel her kick.  When I try to pull my shirt up over the belly and show him kicks, he covers my belly back up and says, “No Mama.” Maybe he’s not quite ready for sissy to get here yet.  Speaking of “Sissy” we have yet to decide on a name.  Feel free to give your input with the ones we have picked out or new suggestions! 🙂  So far, we’ve narrowed it down to Ryken, Becklee, Becklenn or Brexton and we have a middle name of Spree already picked out (thanks Aunt B for sharing your middle name with us).  Ryken is Zayden’s favorite or he’s open to the name “Sissy Beck” but that’s about as much as he’s willing to compromise on the name, so we shall see!  Like I said, feel free to throw your suggestions out there as we’re just not sold on anything yet.

As far as our little Zman – he’s still as awesome as he’s ever been.  He’s a little smarty pants for sure.  Since he’s mastered his ABCs awhile ago, he now likes to just say them as fast as possible before someone chimes in and if we interrupt him, he likes to start all over.  He also can count to 50, which Jason is not the happiest about as he does push ups with Zayden and when Zayden decided one day to go over 30, Jason just wasn’t fully prepared to keep doing the pushups lol. I fully plan to get him to 100 by age 3, but we have plenty of time for this.
*Puzzles & Books he still loves.  That kid can seriously race us with puzzles and likely win every time.
*PJ Masks (Catboy, Owlet, and Gecko), Ninja Turtles, Spiderman & most recently Daniel the Tiger are some of his favorite shows to watch.  And I’m going to be honest, I don’t even have any shows anymore because when we are watching shows, it’s usually something he enjoys.
*He still loves Wall-E, Frozen and Polar Express movies.
Jumping, running, crashing, building, running, jumping and hide & seek are some of his favorite things to do.
*He has moved from calling me Mom-Mom to Mommy and occasionally when he’s trying to be funny, he calls us Mom & Dad.  It’s too grown up for me to take seriously.
*Lima (aka Liam, his cousin) is his bff. We recently went on vacation with them for a week and he started calling him Lima which likely will stick with him for life and he now asks to hang out with him every day. 🙂 Love that sweet cousin love.
*Speaking of vacation, we’ve added Bahamas to his list of places he’s visited and knocked off another stamp on his passport, making that 2 out of the country travels in 2 years!
*He’s really interested in this Kid Bible app on my phone – I only let him play on it once a day for 2 Bible stories and I honestly thought he wasn’t retaining any of the stories at all, but after you listen to the stories so many times, he surprisingly knows them and that just warms my heart to know he’s willing to listen and take those stories in.  His favorites at the moment are Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Samson, Noah’s Ark (aka the “rainbone” story) and the house being built on the rock vs the sand.  I’m pretty sure the last story he only likes because he likes that the wave crashes and destroys the house on the sand  – ha, but it’s pretty great to watch him listen to those!
*His daddy is starting to win the favorite award every day.  He used to be all mommy, but mom’s a bit more tired than normal and can’t put him on my back all the time, so dad’s been winning the favorite award more than I have recently.
*Zayden got a big boy bed, that he seems to be loving.  I do sleep in it half the time with him, but it’s much more room than sharing King bed with Jason, baby girl and Charlie lol.  So we will get what we can take.
*His favorite pup has changed from Della to Ollie, because Ollie actually likes to play with him and Della is just not as fast as she used to be.
*Water guns & Rawrs (aka dinosaurs) in the bathtubs are still our go to every bath.
*Food is still a toss up. He loves things one day and doesn’t the next – this is a constant struggle, but we’re rolling with it.  I’ve attempted every tip, but I just have to remind myself it’s a phase and this too shall pass.
*He still loves to cook with his mommy, especially if it’s something he can taste as we go.  He loves to ask me, “Momma, I like it?” lick his lips then looks at me like can I try it yet. Brownies, muffins, and waffles have been some of our favorites to make..or anything that he can mix basically.
*We have nightmares and I think that’s something that we just will be dealing with for awhile. He wakes up at least once a night scared of something that he’ll try to tell me about – it usually has something to do with a toy or someone he knows but never can get a full story from him before I get him to calm down and fall back asleep.  We have active imaginations in our family, so I can only imagine it’ll stick around for awhile.

We are loving every minute we can soak in with little man.  He’s really pretty chill and calm mostly, but has his moments but they are pretty few and far between and usually because he’s hangry or tired. Yet, I take these moments over anything we’ve had pre-Zayden.  Life is different, much different but so so good.  We are going to embrace all we can in the next 10 weeks before sissy gets here. Thankful for prayers for healthy babies and thankful for this place we are in life.

Leaving with you with a few favorites from vacation:

Seven. ❤️

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Seven, that’s how many heaven babies we have. To some that may seem like a drop in a bucket to their several more losses. To others it may seem like too many to still be sane (my sanity is still in question), and there are countless others that will say to themselves, atleast you were able to get pregnant. I’ve thought every single one of those thoughts over the years and today I just am grateful for the littles we have.

A couple of months ago I was at the Dr office and I was asked if we’ve had any miscarriages and I huffed and said “uh ya,” and she asked me how many and my reply was “alot.” However, she needed more information, she needed a number before she would look at my first ultrasound this pregnancy… So I counted. I managed to come up with 5 losses, unfortunately what I hadn’t counted yet was the 2 we lost during our IVF processes. Maybe those don’t qualify as miscarriages but embryos that we lost
They were viable embryos and I did carry them, even if only for days. I don’t say this to strum up past, sad feelings but I say it to explain just how mentally exhausting infertility is. It takes a toll on you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually and to think I hadn’t even begun to register the last two losses we experienced. It’s been almost 2 years since one and about 11 weeks since the last…you would think that would be enough time, but the reality is you never “get over” a loss. If it’s the loss of not having a positive pregnancy test, miscarriage, a phantom pregnancy, ectopic, or loss of a child you have had the privilege to hold in your arms. The loss is always with you.

This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month. I usually share our story, my video I created last IVF process or the blog I put together with 12 other strong ladies about our losses. But this year I encourage you to share your story. Tell me about your beautiful little one you were able to meet even if only via ultrasound. If not me, share with someone the loss you experienced and remember those sweet babies in Heaven. I’ll be remembering our seven a little extra this month.

One more day

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I titled this post one more day, but then I laughed to myself because I’d like to say one more day til we know if IVF is successful but it’s not just one more day. It’s one more day to see if there are any embryos that made it then 8 more days to see if it was successful, then 2 more days to see if it is still successful and then 2 more days to see if it’s still still successful. And then it’s the rest of the pregnancy waiting on pins and needles to see if little one(s) is developing as he or she should or if something is wrong, etc etc. One more day is just the beginning of it.

Tomorrow is transfer day. I say that cautiously optimistic because we haven’t had an update on the embryos since the day after retrieval which actually has been quite a relief. Last time we got an update day after retrieval and on day 3 and day 5 (day of transfer). Last time around we started off with 18 egg, 13 fertilized, and ended up with 2 “poor” embryos but we got our sweet Z man from those and that is more than I could have wished for. This time around we got 19 eggs, 13 fertilized and we will see what tomorrow brings. I’m a bit overcome with emotions as I think about tomorrow morning. I recall last time the dreaded call we recieved, letting us know there were only 2 that made it and they were “poor” and needed to know if we wanted to proceed. Ehhhhh. Not the call you’re wanting to get the morning of transfer but I rudely said, “I mean, ya….were already this far, what’s it going to hurt.” And a moment we dreamed would be filled with excitement was torn into pieces and we began our IVF journey with low expectations. Boy was I beyond wrong. Zayden proves that to me every single day. ❤️

But tomorrow, I try not to think of it but I’m dreading that morning call and nervous what they may say, but I pray I take whatever news with grace. I have to admit, I’m a little sad that I’ve been a bit distracted this IVF journey. I’ve been a little distracted on all aspects from my faith to being consumed by every aspect of it. I’m not real sure why but I feel a little guilty but maybe it’s me letting go of the control because I know I have no control. I never did, but sometimes it’s easy to think that you do, like if I eat this or that, drink more water, do all the IVF tips, take my meds or shots exactly at the right time every day but that’s not how it works. It’s not in my control, or Jason’s and although all those things may improve chances, it really is out of our control. So whatever happens tomorrow, no matter what they say on the call, I know there is a bigger plan!

❤️ Thanks for the love and prayers friends! Also, continue to pray for my sweet friends B & C, they have big moments coming up and could use prayers!

Little prayer

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I can’t sleep, maybe from some nerves or may be from not having Bubs by our side. Either way, I’ve been laying in this big King size bed and not getting any sleep (while Jason is in sweet Dream land of course) 😂

So I decided to do something different and write out my prayer.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this beautiful quiet morning and the opportunity you’ve given us to be here. We know so many don’t get the opportunity to do IVF once let alone twice and we are so grateful for this. Thank you for my family taking care of our awesome little man, and all the support we get from family, friends and strangers that just have heard or read about our story.

Please give me peace dear Lord. Please help me to feel calm and confident that you have this in control. And please help me understand that no matter the outcome, you’ve got this covered. I also ask for wisdom for the Dr, anesthesia and nurses to do their best and make the best decisions for us. And my body to do well with the procedure and come off anaesthesia easily. And please give Jason strength to put up with me 😊

I pray for tons of healthy eggs Lord. Healthy everything in fact. And that they find their home this weekend. Please keep those embryos strong and growing as they should in preparation for next week!

And dear Lord, please take care of bub while we are traveling and keep him safe and let him feel all the love that we know he’s getting! We pray for safe travels and good healthy outcome today. Thank you for being there, always. Thank you for being our rock.

Oh and, please please help B & C to also have an amazing outcome. B’s retrieval is tomorrow and I know she’s traveling with a small one and that has to be hectic. Please keep her calm and give her an incredible outcome. And give C patience and not to overthink results but have an incredible outcome next week as well. Give their Dr wisdom and help their bodies to produce the best and healthiest eggs possible. You know they deserve this and I pray they will be so successful this time! ❤️ So please healthy bodies, eggs and good levels! And if things are not in the cards for any of us, please give us peace and help us to understand you have a plan.

Thank you for everything. I love you, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

In the back of my head I hear Zayden quietly saying, “I luv you dog” and pointing to the sky as he does after most prayers. Translation: “I love you God.” Hoping He appreciates being called a dog in this instance. ❤️

Procedure at 8:45 am 🙌

Momma guilt

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Mom guilt. That dreaded feeling can be the worst. I’m currently feeling a few different emotions, mostly out of sheer exhaustion and uncomfortableness (physically) but I have pinpointed back to Mom Guilt.

I’m sitting here in Starbucks parking lot typing this. Just sitting in the parking lot because my stomach is swollen and uncomfortable so have feet up on dash and probably getting looks from passerbys but I don’t really care. 😂 I had every intention of going inside, getting a decaf coffee and working a little while I wait for Dr results today. Waiting to see if I need to drive back up here tomorrow (which would be the 3rd trip to KC this week) aka 21 hours of driving to and from KC THIS WEEK. Y’all, it’s exhausting, but love the reason we are doing it.

Anyways, sitting in the parking lot, debating with myself, if I need to drive back to Arkansas or not, just to come back tomorrow at 7:30 am. The answer is no, I don’t NEED to drive back to Arkansas. I’m tired, I’m uncomfortable, I have tons of work I could be doing or housework I could think about doing, but more importantly Zayden is going to miss me and what if I end up missing something important in the next 30 hours or what happens if he falls and just needs his mama?? Here’s the deal I don’t need to go home today.. Only crazy people drive 21 hours when they can easily stay in town and see friends, get a pedicure, maybe shop, right? But the Mom Guilt is real. I know he is fine with an extremely capable and awesome I might add, nanny, and hubs is there to take care of him when she leaves. They will probably have Mac n cheese or order pizza because those two things Jason is a pro at doing 😂. Zayden may ask where I am or be a little sad, but he will be ok! But the Mom Guilt is just weighing extra heavy on me today. I feel bad every morning this week that I had to sneak out of bed at 4 am and he woke up crying to see me leave. 😭 Part of my brain is saying, you’re leaving your child for just a potential child – and then my silly brain goes down the rabbit hole on how unfair that is. Arghhh. Does the Mom Guilt ever leave? Do you ever know you’re making the right decision when it comes to your kids or do you always question things?

Alright, Mom Guilt aside, things in IVF world are going good. I have a killer support system, from family doing what they can to cover Z shifts as needed, friends staying the night to take care of pups last minute, friends letting crash their house last minute, and just neighbors or friends saying they’re there for us if needed, and friends from literally across the US sending us cookies just to brighten the day 😭😭😭❤️. It may seem like a small item to them, but the love that is pouring on me when I’m feeling a bit down is overwhelming. All this love just makes me want to adopt and have all the babies we can so share this love with them! Killer support system is so so important and have been blessed in that arena. Speaking of support system, I have two other friends going through the exact process literally right now (say a prayer for them too please, B & C).

Tests have been going pretty good, just slower than planned, which means more drugs. Tentatively, we are looking at Friday retrieval and next Wednesday transfer. So prayers are appreciated (for me and my two friends if you have an extra prayer for them, they definitely deserve it). ❤️

To all those mammas (or dads) that are experiencing the parent guilt – I feel ya. You’ve got this though. If not, holler at me and I’ll talk you down from it. 😊

Here we go again…

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This blog began a few years ago as my infertility journey and has slowly changed to Zayden’s journey. At first I felt a little guilty that my depressing, sad blog turned into an over abundance of cute little things Z does. But then I realized he’s such an incredible gift…he IS the journey and I’ll continue to document his life.

Today, I have a little deja vu as I tell you we are attempting IVF again. We still are actively pursuing adoption and it’ll happen when it’s supposed to. We thought we wanted to try IVF once more and if it doesn’t happen, then we understand that’s God’s will.

I’ve been on a few pills and one injection for the past few weeks. Everything was looking good until last week, I wasn’t “suppressed” like they would like me to be so they decided to push our entire plan back a week. If this Wednesday my levels are still high, we will stop and reevaluate (whatever that means). In the meantime, they doubled my meds. It’s a little frustrating but I know God has perfect timing. Actually, the delay my Dr has made has put me on a similar schedule as two of my lifefriends going through IVF. Talk about having a good support system! ❤️

Today was the first day I’ve struggled with the medication. Two different times today I’ve felt dizzy, serious headaches, nauseous, hot and overall just crummy. It’s all normal and apart of the journey but it is just a gentle reminder that infertility is not for the faint of heart. I question if I’m strong enough to do it again, but we’re going to try so I need to be. Luckily, today is also the day Zayden has been overly sweet (he is almost every day, but today he just knew I needed some extra sweetness).

I’ve so thankful for the opportunity to be able to do IVF and thankful God thinks I’m strong enough to handle this.

Moment 4 | Understanding Our Infertility

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The most recent moment to our infertility journey you may think end with having Zayden. But infertility is not something that just disappears after having children, it sticks around, haunts you some days, traumatizes you some and tucked in your heart forever.

Throughout my pregnancy, I was a bit of a hot mess. I was surprisingly calm through most of it but I worried every single day what was going to go wrong, when I would lose Zayden, if I was going to die during delivery. Literally I thought about every possible bad scenario and would replay it in my head. I did everything I could think of to not think like that but it was inevitable.

When you walk through life with infertility, it sticks around, haunts you, traumatizes you forever. Granted, I thank God every day for that sweet baby that He gave us but I worry. Will he fall and hit his head, will we get in a car crash, will a pop fly hit him one day when he’s old enough to play baseball? I’m sure my parents used to think the same thing about me, and guess what – the answer is ya, probably. We can’t control what they do or what happens to them. But we can be thankful for every moment we get to share with him.

When I started this 4 piece blog about understanding our infertility journey. I initially thought Moment 4 was this big epiphany I had after having Zayden, but the more I thought about it, I don’t think I’ve had my moment 4. I don’t fully understand why God chose us to go through this journey…

Maybe He wanted us to not take any second for granted.

Maybe He wanted us to be a rock for someone else going through a struggle?

Maybe our struggle was preventing us from more heartache, someway somehow.

Maybe He needed us to be a voice to someone else going through infertility.

I can’t really speculate because our journey is ever-continuing and will be something we struggle and question every day. So we will enjoy every moment He has given us, the sad, the bittersweet and chaotic moments and continue strong down our journey. ❤️

Moment 3 | Infertility Uncovered

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“Chasnie, none of your embryos are going to make it.”

We got around this morning and the hotel room was pure silence. We were both anxious and cautiously excited about that day. Today was the day for transfer. Last we heard 4 days ago we had 13 healthy embryos! 13!!!! Then we got the call. See they told us at our last appointment they wouldn’t call unless they had bad news. Instantly my anxious, excited mood changed and I started to break before the call came through.

(Paraphrasing bc I don’t remember the exact words due to my mind set) “Chasnie, none of your embryos are going to make it.” WHY was this happening to us again? I get it, it doesn’t happen the first time for most people but I had 13 embryos, I knew it was going to work. She continued, “There are a few that are currently here, but they are rating so poor that we can’t rate them but you can put them in if they survive. Do you want to move forward?”

So many thoughts racing through my head, but I didn’t hesitate to say, “Uh ya… I mean, we’ve gotten this far, if they’re still alive when we get there, we are doing this.”

I text my family and a handful of close friends and just asked for prayers. Prayers for strength for those sweet babies and prayers for peace for us. We needed them, we needed the prayers. We felt alone. We were in an empty hotel (construction was going on and literally we didn’t see anyone besides the front desk when we were there). And we felt like He had been given up on us. Once again, we felt like God was telling us, your time isn’t now. But how could this be? Hasn’t it been long enough? Haven’t we lost enough? Haven’t we fought enough? What we’re we doing wrong? We literally followed every instruction to a T. We made sure I rested and didn’t get stressed out. I gave up working out like I was instructed when that’s all I wanted to do. I gave up fun events and get togethers bc the timing didn’t mesh with injections or I was tired. This may all seem like measly things we gave up (and they are) but we started to feel like ALL of this and ALL the hormones were for no reason.

So we prayed alot, cried some and got our minds right. Then we went into the doctor a couple of hours later and transferred 2 embryos. The doctor told me she wasn’t going to talk to me about the ones that didn’t survive nor would we talk about how poor these 2 were, because stressing about it that day was not what we needed. Grateful for this, we agreed.

We transferred those two poor little embryo that day and God (yet again) showed us just how powerful He is. Below is a reminder.

I could sit here and tell you how I mourned that 2nd embryo and how I still mourn not having my two tubes to have just a surprise pregnancy, but the truth is we received a miracle. Not all stories end on a positive note like ours did. IVF doesn’t work for so many families and it’s important to remember it never happens like we plan or think or pray for. There’s a bigger plan that we may not see now or even in 10 years but there is a plan. Be thankful for what yo have been given, but also don’t give up faith while waiting to see what He has in store for you! ❤️ My heart goes out to all the families struggling and will pray for you all!

Moment 2 | Infertility Uncovered

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This week is National Infertility Awareness Week!  If you’ve been following along the past couple of days, I’ve been sharing 4 moments in our infertility journey that have opened my eyes to the bigger picture.  These moments are a little more personal than I care to share, but I think it’s important in sharing our story, not just to mend ourselves, but to help others on their journey.  I know sharing their stories isn’t for everyone, but I feel like God placed certain situations and certain people in our lives to help us grow and to help others grow.  So…I’m sharing, no matter how difficult the stories can be at times, I just remind myself, there’s a bigger reason for our infertility journey.  I’ve come to understand it more over the past 9 years, and leads me to Moment #2.

Moment #2:

I heard a heartbeat.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder at the nurse and she said oh, that’s not a heartbeat, that’s just your blood pumping and she quickly turned the sound of the machine off.  She was lying to save my sanity.  

Ughhhhhhhhhhh. Where do I even start here?

This day was one of the scariest days of my life, literally.  Probably for Jason as well and we’ve both done some crazy scary things in the past but this day took the cake.  I woke up about 4:15 and was headed to hot yoga. I felt fine and ready to start the day, sat in my car and I felt a little sick to my stomach.  I thought to myself – you’re fine, just indigestion or something – keep moving along.  I made it about 3 miles down the interstate before I turned around and came back home.  I layed on the couch from 4:30-8:00 waiting for this “indigestion” to go away.  I debated going to the doctor but figure nah, you’re fine.  Looking back now, I was just being stubborn and a little stupid.  I was in the most pain I’d ever felt as I layed there curled up in a ball on the couch, this was not a stomach bug. Jason finally asked me what my gut was telling me, do I need to take you to the ER.  Yes. That was it, yes my gut (or the pain in my gut) was telling me something was wrong.  I needed help.

The ER was a typical ER & always so many people.  We waited for over an hour and finally they took us back.  In the same breath we found out I was pregnant, we found out it may be an ectopic pregnancy (again).  I’ve done research on this, the chances of someone having 2 ectopic pregnancies in 2 different tubes is pretty rare, but I  honestly wasn’t surprised.  We knew what was coming next.  I thought they’d take me back to surgery right away and the tube would erupt and we’d be no longer able to have kiddos the way we wanted to. However, they took me back to do some bloodwork and an ultrasound to confirm it was an ectopic.  I was sitting there waiting to hear the yup, it’s an ectopic, let’s go back to surgery.  Instead, I heard a heartbeat.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder at the nurse and she said oh that’s not a heartbeat, that’s just your blood pumping and quickly turned the sound of the machine off.  She was lying.  I knew what she was doing, she was trying to save my sanity.  Shortly after, the doctor came in, told me it was unusual that an ectopic pregnancy would have a heartbeat but we needed to go into surgery to remove the tube right away.

“Wait.  Wait a second.  I need some time.  I want to keep my tube.  Wait…there’s a heartbeat?” – Me

“Sure. We have all the time here. No, we need to do this surgery now and you always have the option of invitro.” – Doctor 

So many thoughts were going through my head in that moment.  Can an embryo survive as an ectopic pregnancy?  I mean, I know it can’t because I’ve been told that, but can it really and they just don’t want to do it?  How does it have a heartbeat?  Wait, how am I even pregnant?  I want to celebrate and mourn all at the same time.  WHY AM I STILL SITTING HERE IN PAIN?  This is the second everything started to make sense.   I didn’t really know the extent, but I knew that little embroyo was gone and my tube had ruptured.  I had bled a little over a liter of blood into my abdomen. No, this was not indigestion, this was me fading fast.

I honestly don’t remember much else from that day or week or really that month for that matter.  I was mourning, pissed, annoyed, exhausted, basically all the negative adjectives I can think of, I was.  I was physically sick and weak. My entire stomach area was covered in bruising.  I questioned everything, I pushed Jason away, when all he wanted to do was support me.  I threw myself into whatever would keep me busy, and I “seemed” fine.  But…I was not.  I was broken.  And here I was at a point in my life (yet again) where I couldn’t understand why God was letting this happen to us.  Why was it necessary that I experience this. Hadn’t I gone through enough?  It’s GREAT that He thinks I’m strong enough to handle this, but news flash – I am not.  I was pretty mad for quite some time.  Eh, I may still be upset when I think about it from time to time.

What I didn’t know…. Our story wasn’t over.  It was just another step in this journey.

Ps. I’ll never forget that sweet heartbeat that I got to hear for a few seconds.  That was the little bit of miracle I needed to push through.