Due Dates and Chunks

I'm probably going to tell our story in chunks - jumping back and forth between our first pregnancy and our current pregnancy. I hope you'll forgive the disjointed, non-chronological fashion in which I tell everything. So much has happened in the last few months that at times I find it an accomplishment to just get up and get going in the morning.

We recently passed our due date for Sweet Pea. It was September 6th. I wish I had never known when Sweet Pea was due, but we found out the due date on the same day that we found out we would never know our baby. Mercifully the day passed by rather uneventfully. In fact, it wasn't until much later that I realized our due date had passed. I think this is a blessing in disguise for me, only in that had I realized what the date was I probably would have never made it out of bed.

This is another chunk of Sweet Pea's story...

My first prenatal exam was Friday afternoon of January 11th, 2013. According to my period, I should have been 8 weeks along although I secretly doubted I was that far along as I had been having REALLY long cycles. When I say really long, I mean REALLY long... as in 40 days long. I have no proof of this, but I think much of that was contributed to the fact that I had been on a birth control for a year where I had no periods at all and my body was still trying to regulate. Since we got pregnant so quickly, I sometimes wonder if part of the problem was that my body had not regulated at all. Like I said, I have no scientific proof of anything, these are just my musings. We were so excited to go to the doctor for the first time and get our due date. They didn't give us one that day...

The bomb began going off about 4 days before our first appointment. I started spotting on Monday, January 7th. It scared me to pieces. I frantically called my doctor only to be told it was probably implantation bleeding and not to worry unless is became worse. They were wrong. It wasn't implantation bleeding. And oh if only I knew how many more times I would hear those incredibly not comforting words in the weeks to come.

I attempted to put the spotting out of my mind with no success. Every time I went to the bathroom, I would pray and pray the most fervent of prayers for the bleeding to stop. It never stopped. But I just held on to knowing we would be at the doctor soon and they would fix everything.

Our first appointment was beautiful in every way possible. We saw our sweet baby. We saw a heartbeat, a fetal pole, everything looked exactly as it should. It was the most amazing experience - knowing God was knitting our Sweet Pea together in that moment. I was in awe and in love so thoroughly with this little being, the little being I would never know. According to the ultrasound, we were about 6 weeks along which made sense considering my long cycles. Our midwife was affirming and informative. She answered all our questions easily and put our worried minds at ease. She told us she anticipated the spotting would stop over the next week... But you, my dear reader, now know that it didn't stop.

I wish I had known then to request blood work to check my hormone levels (HCG and progesterone). But I didn't know to do that... If I had known, I think that our story would read differently. Not in that, I think Sweet Pea would have survived, but in that I think we would not have been strung along for 2 weeks waiting and our expectations could have been managed better. It would have still been heartbreaking in every way - literally the feeling of your heart being ripped out of your chest. But it would have been less of a roller coaster as you will soon learn as the rest of Sweet Pea's story unfolds.

So my dear readers, I encourage you to continue to get up and keep going in the morning... And know that sometimes that in and of itself is the greatest of victories... And that is okay...

Love,
Jess