I remember that first lonely loss – after years of infertility… a loss.  It was a devastating heartbreak with reverberating pain.  A pain that has come back to us 5 times now and never truly goes away.  I so desperately wanted to find others that were going through the same thing, so I didn’t feel so alone, but this was right before so many people found the voice to share their experience.  And so, I was alone.  I had Thomn, who in is own way was fighting through the pain of the miscarriage, but I wanted to have another woman… I wanted to have a hundred other women to talk to.

My anger, rage, sadness, and extreme emotion on the losses of our babies isn’t what it used to be.  Last year on this day I spoke about the inner calm I had found, and I am happy to say that I still feel that inner calm.  I wholeheartedly expected the pregnancy we are in to be a loss. Our odds would have given us a loss and yet here we are in week 21 of a healthy pregnancy.  My inner calm is in control while I only minorly obsess that something will alter the course we are on. 

Nothing is quite the same after you are one in four.  The world has a different filter on it.  One with slightly jagged edges yet the rosy glow of love.  Because no matter how long you were pregnant or had your sweet baby to cuddle there was love.  I choose to find the love in my jagged picture these days.  I know that there are 5 more souls that are filled with the love of Thomn and I, and someday I will be amongst that love again.

No matter how jagged your edges feel these days, whether or not you can see that rosy glow, know you are not alone.  Not only are there a hundred women out there for you to speak to, there are millions and I am one of them.

All the love.

Christina

When I arrived at the doctor’s office and settled into a room with the nurse, I agreed to see a medical student.   For the most part, I feel that they need to have every opportunity to learn – just not when I am on the operating table.  The medical student came into the room and began to go through the routine of asking questions.  How am I feeling?  Am I taking anything for my nausea?  What questions do I have for her?  Etc.  Until finally she got around to the fetal doppler to listen to the heartbeat.  I laid on the table just waiting to her the fast thrum of a heartbeat.  The one that catches your breath and brings a tear to your eye because in that moment its hard to fathom that your body created this musical sound.  But the sound never came.  Textbook style the medical student nonchalantly told me that she would have the doctor come in to find it for me and that she was sure everything was just fine.  But I wasn’t fine.  If she would have read through the pages of history in my chart, she would know that I wasn’t fine.  Going back just a few pages in my history you can see loss after loss and also years of infertility.  With the recent birth of T4 – the fear and heartache of losing a child during pregnancy is not erased.

And in that split second the world fell away.  Have I been so caught up in my day to day life that I chose to look past my own history?  Would I find out today that this is my 6^th miscarriage?  My heart began its own dreadful thump as I waited to hear footsteps approach. 

My doctor came in and began searching with the doppler, and to say I trust her with every bone in my body is an understatement, so when she asked the medical student to get the ultrasound the tears began to fall. The familiar ache that I have felt too many times began in my chest, as the river silently streamed down the side of my face.  Until I heard it.  The faintest of thrumming – too fast to be own thudding heart.  She assured me that was our baby and we were going to look on the ultrasound just so I could see them with my own eyes.  And there they were – wriggling and flipping too fast to catch the heartbeat well on the ultrasound either.  But it didn’t matter – our baby is alive.

I drove home wondering if I have taken this baby for granted – and the answer is probably.  After we saw a heartbeat for multiple weeks in a row I began planning for their arrival and pushed aside the feelings of caution that typically accompany my every step in pregnancy.  It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day life with two toddlers, but Flicker, I promise you this; we will never take you for granted again.  You may not be the true definition of a rainbow baby, bringing light to our world after a loss, but in so many ways you will still be our rainbow baby.  We have had enough loss in our lives that the light you will bring us will be unending and something we will appreciate for all the days of our lives.

However, in our house, the real two week wait is the two weeks AFTER a positive pregnancy test.  Positive pregnancy tests are easier to come by here than being able to carry and grow the baby, so for this reason, I find the two weeks after to be the longest, hardest weeks.  There are always a series of 3 blood draws spaced exactly 48 hours apart each to check HCG, the pregnancy hormone, and an intake call with a nurse that reviews my fertility history.  Most recently when I was speaking with this nurse she said to me, “oh is see, this is your 8^th pregnancy – you have been through quite a few of these calls so I will try to make this as swift for you as possible.”  Finally, I felt like she got it – typically they make me review everyone one of my pregnancies and thank goodness she didn’t make me relive all of those.  BUT it’s not like my losses are ever very far from my mind.  In fact, they just circle every one of my thoughts until by the end of the two weeks I am so convinced that I am not going to be having a baby that I feel ill.

That’s exactly what led up to today.  The earliest I can go in for an ultrasound is 7 weeks, when it is highly probable that we will be able to see a baby on the screen.  So, for the last 3 weeks and 3 days (much longer than two weeks this time around!) I have been doing my best to stay positive for my own sanity but also for the health of the baby.  Slowly that went downhill the last few days.  We had a celebration for Thomn on Saturday and after that was over, I no longer had a million details that I was trying to coordinate and take up my brain space.  So instead, my brain began analyzing how I am feeling and if it is any different than when I had S and T.  By the time I reached this morning the knot was so large in my stomach that I didn’t have much of an appetite and I thought we would never reach the time for my appointment.  But alas we did.  Thomn and I waited as patiently as possible for our appointment after being shown into the room.  There waiting for us was the ultrasound machine, our ever-present friend that determines our fate in a matter of moments.  In walked the doctor and after both a transvaginal ultrasound and an abdominal ultrasound it was determined that the shadow from my bladder was too large to see anything.  So, more waiting.  After getting dressed, using the bathroom and returning back to the room we were able to see a tiny baby – measuring 6 weeks 5 days and the flicker of a heartbeat.  Everyone in the room agreed – this baby should be named Baby Flicker.

A follow up appointment will hopefully confirm what we are wishing for in our hearts…to be a family of 5, complete with a baby flicker.

So, another course for life began while we continued to wish for a baby. Little by little, our life majorly changed.  If you haven’t earned a PhD or been in a relationship with someone that has it is hard to understand from the outside what life is like, but I will attempt to help you see some of the big picture as even those that are close to us had a hard time really understanding.  Big picture – all free time came to a sudden halt.  Thomn attended classes in the evenings from the comfort of our dining room, worked on papers and group projects late at night and all weekend long. The life that we had known together evaporated.  I picked up slack around the house when it came to the dog, cleaning, eating, all of the normal things that make a home function.  And on top of it, we were both working 50 hours a week with jobs that had long commutes.  Our friendships suffered, we stopped going to many family functions (although that has never been our strong suit), and our yard looked like we had abandoned our house.  Two weeks into his second class I had my third miscarriage and it rocked me to my core.  In the fertility world it seems like most things work with threes.  Try for three months before you feel concerned (although that seems a bit off – in general it takes most people a full year to conceive), whoa – your third miscarriage: now we need to do more testing…. etc. So, we encountered our third miscarriage and it meant a whole lot more testing for me.  Basically – does my uterus work and if so, why isn’t it?!  On top of this, the schoolwork didn’t end for Thomn.  He now had late nights and group work to do all while consoling a partner and suffering through his own loss. 

Fast forward through those five years and you will find a life completely unrecognizable from where we were that day when we were planning our vacation to California.  We had two more lost babies for a total of five miscarriages, two babies, and two job changes and with all of this he has persisted and fought like hell to become a doctor.  There were nights when both Scarlett and Thomas were newborns that he would work well into the night while still helping me with diaper changes and feedings only to wake 30 minutes after coming to bed because one of the babies woke up.  His determination to finish this and to finish it well is a trait that I hope both of my children inherit.  Someday I hope they are able to look back and understand the complexity of what he accomplished during their early years and that he did it for his own personal growth but also for them.

Last week, I had the honor to watch him be hooded as a Doctor.  I had so much pride and love in my heart as I could feel his heart beat wildly and feel the tears of his eyes when his advisor placed the hood over his shoulders – even half of an arena away we continue to be connected.  They say there are not many relationships that survive a PhD program – but somehow, we have come out even stronger on the other side of this.  Could it be our lost babies that continued to refocus us as a family?  Could it be the two little Bells that clapped and cheered for their Dad along with me in that arena?  Whatever it is, I am so happy to have made it to the other side with you.  Congratulations, Thomn.

So, for the past three days, I have done my very best to keep our life together.  There has been an extreme show of emotions while our kids process Thomn being away.  Have you been around a toddler who is testing boundaries lately?  I can assure you that it is tough and heartbreaking at the same time as you can see them struggle with the difficult time they are having.   I am incredibly grateful to my mom who spent some time with us over the last couple of days – giving me moments to regroup and pull myself together for them while also providing an emotional support for all three of us.

When it comes down to it, I will be the same Momma that they need all of the time, so as challenging as the days have been, it is the nights that are always the worst for me.  There is a loneliness that fills the house after both kids are asleep and it is deafening. Regardless of where Thomn is at in the process of his dissertation, the time after the kids are asleep is always time for us to talk about our day and more often than not have dinner together. That loneliness gives way to a sense of dread in so many ways and my mind starts to turn with all of the things that can go awry.  Did I lock the door?  Did I shut the garage door? When will the baby wake up?  Will I hear the baby when he wakes up (full disclosure, I rarely hear the baby…Thomn almost always wakes me up)?  Will I be able to sleep because I am unsure if I will hear the baby? When will Scarlett wake up to come into our room? What is my plan if the house catches on fire?  Could I really jump from the two story window with the kids?  The thoughts and fears get out of control and lead to a restless and sleepless night.

Last night was pretty rough…and that was with my Mom staying the night which made it a thousand times better than it could have been.  Here’s a small example for you:

7:15 Thomas asleep

7:30 Scarlett asleep

8:30 Thomas starts whimpering in his sleep

9:30 Thomas wakes up 3 hours earlier than his typical first wake up

10:11 Scarlett gets in my bed

10:20 Scarlett wakes up as I am texting Thomn goodnight

11:04 Thomas wake up screaming uncontrollably (I think there is a new tooth coming in) I go in and comfort him which he does not want.  I change his diaper just in case there is a stray hair in his diaper and it’s wrapped around his penis. (Note another fear unraveling that I have probably thought about at least once since getting him out of the bath)

11:07 Mom goes and lays with Scarlett as she frequently wakes up when Thomn and I leave the bed.  She knows it is not me and is fully awake when I return.

11:12 All attempts to comfort Thomas do not work and when I ask him if he wants to get into his bed he indicates yes and then whimpers himself to sleep.

11:13 Mom switches with me and I attempt to help Scarlett back to sleep

11:40 “I miss Daddy” After laying in bed flipping back and forth and trying to get comfortable, Scarlett quietly whispers this.

11:40.1 Silent tears fall down my face.

11:40.5 I let her continue to talk and work through her feelings.  At which point she asks me if it is Sunday and I tell her it is still Friday night.  “Is tomorrow Sunday?” No, tomorrow is Saturday.  The next night is Sunday, I tell her. 

11:42 “When it is Sunday, I will be so excited because Daddy will come home!”  She has found the moment of peace she needs and falls into a somewhat restless sleep.

At this point I lose track of time and have hopefully dozed off before midnight.

3:42 Thomas wakes up to eat.  I sneak out of the room and by a miracle Scarlett does not wake up.

3:56 I climb back into bed

3:58 Scarlett wakes up and wants a drink of water

5:44 Thomas wakes up for the day and I foolishly think he will go back to sleep and when he doesn’t, my mom offers to get up with him, so I can go back to bed with Scarlett

5:48 Scarlett wakes up and starts crying uncontrollably because I have left the bed.

Solo parenting is f’ing hard work…and before anyone calls me out on it, please don’t confuse my statement for single parenting.  There is a whole different level of respect that I have for people that are single parents…their job is f’ing hard work too.  As I sit here and type this, I am doing the countdown of how many hours of potential sleep I will get tonight, which means it is long past the time that I should be in bed.  More importantly, I am on the countdown until the man of my family’s dreams walks back in the door.

The thing about perspective is that I must remind myself fairly regularly to bring everything back into focus.  Maybe it is the kids ages, maybe it’s just me.  More than ever, I find myself needing this shift in focus when it comes to toys.  Long before everyone out there began #TidyingUp I have wanted to purge 75% of the playroom toys.  There have been quite a few boxes of toys that were donated…so much so that when Scarlett can’t find something she is looking for, she asks me if I gave it away to another kid.  And the truth is that I am DESPERATE to watch Tidying Up, but I won’t let myself watch it while Thomn is working on his dissertation.  I know that five minutes in, my house will be out on the front lawn ready to be donated…and if I currently don’t have time to go to the bathroom by myself, I definitely can’t purge an entire house by my lonesome.

This day, in particular, started to give me the toy sweats:

But when you glance at the picture and see an endless smattering of toys, I choose to see the pretend beach day picnic that Scarlett dreamt up as we longingly talked about this summer and her creativity fired from every angle.

I choose to see the friends that she chose to invite to the picnic, wanting to invite all of them so none of them felt lonely and her kindness shone through.

I choose to see the castle that she insisted we bring so we could have a toy just for her brother to play with and her thoughtfulness was displayed.

I choose to see the bowl of food she set aside for her daddy, so he could be included when he got home from work and her loving heart became even more apparent.

I choose to see that each place setting was made for an individual person, giving them each their favorite foods (“in real life, not pretend”) and her own growth and perception continued to soar.

I choose this life. 

I choose to see that my sink full of dishes means we have far more to be grateful for than just the breakfast, lunch and dinner shared.  I choose to see that picking up toys in a mad rush before bath time means we had hours upon hours of fun that day.  I choose to see that all of the books off of the shelf means that I have two kids that adore reading and it will forever challenge and push the limits of their own minds.  I choose to see that every time I have a kid join me in the bathroom, that it is one more story that I got to hear that day or one more hug I received as we walked back to the playroom.

I choose this life.  Every crazy, magical, funny, loving moment.

Daddy is home from work, hooray!  I won’t let you squeeze your brothers neck that tight when you are hugging him.  You dropped your yogurt on the floor and that upset you.

Our house has had a lot of questions about death lately.  Every day we talk about Grandpa Tom whom S has never met in this life, and about Ella, our pup who died just two months after she was born.  The questions really began when she started asking us if she could call Grandpa Tom on the phone.  Calling her grandparents on the phone is one of her favorite things to do, but she could not understand why we couldn’t call him.  We fielded the questions to the best of our ability…and with the truth. But tomorrow we will lay Thomn’s grandma to rest and I feel an utter loss on how to help her understand that Grandma Doris isn’t here anymore. As we laid in bed reading books tonight, S saw a picture of Ella and asked me if she was dead.  When I replied yes, she very calmly asked: Grandma Doris is too?  A wave of grief and emotion overcame me so deeply that I could hardly move. Every fiber of my being feels like I should protect her from finding out what this grief can feel like.  In all reality, maybe it’s not so much the explanation that concerns me as it is trying to protect her.  I find myself questioning basically all aspects of life now that I am a parent, but it seems what will be, will be.  I can’t change this for her, although I desperately wish we could have Grandma Doris back with us.  Just as we regularly talk about Grandpa Tom, we will keep talking about Grandma Doris and what a wonderful, sweet soul she was.  And in true toddler fashion, we will have pendulum style swings of emotion that will accompany these moments.

But, if you follow my blog you probably already know that October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and specifically October 15^th is the day we remember and love the babies lost too soon.  If you are new here, welcome.  National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month was one of the first ways I found to give volume to the voice that was shouting from inside my heart and demanding to be freed.  Each and every October that I use my voice maybe someone else will feel free to unleash their own voice.  This November marks six years since my first loss.  The years have tumbled by so quickly that it is hard to believe that this is where we are today.  Two rainbow babies at home and five sweet souls amongst the stars.

I am one in four. This is something that hasn’t changed since that first devastating loss in November, many moons ago. I am one out of four women that have experienced this exact same thing.  All of my losses have been miscarriages, but it is women across the world that have had miscarriages, stillborn babies, even babies lost as young infants that wear this stripe of heartbreak in both their eyes and on their hearts.

In this very moment, I can say that I have found peace with my lost babies.  I still think of them often and wonder what my life would be like to be parenting a five-year-old, but really, I have found an inner quiet.  It has taken years of anger, sadness, frustration, reflection and finally openness to reach this calm.  And I don’t think that it would have possible if it weren’t for the cyber world listening.  Each and every time someone took the time to reach out to me after having shared our journey, I felt a little less alone.  If I think about the pain, it is such a horrific cycle that starts all over each time I have had a miscarriage.  That thought in itself is terrifying as I would love to have another baby.  I don’t feel like our family is complete, but given our odds, it is highly likely that we end up in that same horrific cycle of pain, anger and fear.  Is it worth the risk?  Probably. But there is always the chance that I would wake up and never be able to find this same place of calm that I am in now.

Are you in a horrific cycle of anger and frustration?  Have you been there before?  I see you, and I feel for you in every way.  Today, let’s honor our lost babes and give a voice to each one of the women who so desperately need it.

All of the love.

Christina

It is still a bit surreal to me that we were able to go.  An evening walk through the misting rain in downtown Chicago made for the perfect date night.  We have been listening to the music of Hamilton for a better part of a year in our house as it fueled Thomn in many ways while writing his prelims. Dear Theodosia has been my favorite song of them all since I first listened. Having two small children at home makes this song more than a little relatable and as it was being sung on stage, the tears streamed down my face. Take a listen and I am sure you will understand why.

Dear Theodosia, what to say to you?
You have my eyes. You have your mother’s name

When you came into the world, you cried and it broke my heart

I’m dedicating every day to you
Domestic life was never quite my style
When you smile, you knock me out, I fall apart
And I thought I was so smart

You will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you
And you’ll blow us all away…
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday

[HAMILTON]
Oh Philip, when you smile I am undone
My son
Look at my son. Pride is not the word I’m looking for

There is so much more inside me now
Oh Philip, you outshine the morning sun
My son
When you smile, I fall apart
And I thought I was so smart
My father wasn’t around

[BURR]
My father wasn’t around
[HAMILTON]
I swear that
I’ll be around for you.
[BURR]
I’ll be around for you.

[HAMILTON]
I’ll do whatever it takes

[BURR]
I’ll make a million mistakes

[BURR/HAMILTON]
I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…
…will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you

If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you
And you’ll blow us all away…
Someday, someday
Yeah, you’ll blow us all away
Someday, someday

S and T4, I am dedicating my life to you and every day you blow us both away.  We are doing our best to lay a foundation and you will never really understand how we have bled and fought for you. Someday, someday.

Thank you, Nichole and Jeff, for our date night and for loving our kids as much as you do.