when i think about it, my last post now seems ironic. today i had an ultrasound for my 11 weeks visit. unfortunately this little one in me was found without a heartbeat and measuring only approx. 8 1/2 weeks. tomorrow i will go to the medical center here in bowling green and have a d & c. like i said in my last post, i've been asking God to prepare me for the future regarding this baby, good or bad. while i don't feel like i've been blind-sided by this outcome, i have a lot of questions for God. i'm struggling to keep from being angry at Him, so if you could say a prayer tonight that i will be able to hold up my end of our relationship, i sure would appreciate it. God is in control. God is in control. i have to wonder what He's trying to teach me when the lesson hurts so bad. and i wonder what did i miss the last time that He feels like He needs to teach it to me again. i know it's human nature to wonder what i did and how i could have changed it when i'm not the one in control of the situation, but my humanness is having a hard time combating the question, what did i do wrong to make this happen again? while i may not have done anything physical to make my baby's heart stop beating, what did i do wrong as a person to cause God to take another baby away from me? deep down, i know it's not what i did or who i am that caused this, but i wish my humanness could understand.

Ten weeks. Ten weeks ten weeks ten weeks. That's how far along I am in this pregnancy. I'm at least 1/4 of the way through it. That's what i'm telling myself. however, should it end early, i'm farther along than 1/4 of the way finished. isn't that a morbid way to think? let me answer that for you: yes, it is.

not many people know this, but i'm putting it in a public place anyway, mainly because i feel safe putting it here since only four of you will see it, and i think at least one of you already knows anyway. last february ryan and i lost a baby. i was about 6 weeks along, so there weren't any invasive procedures that had to take place. i bled for a few days and the baby passed quietly at 6 weeks 1 day. it was on feb 12th of last year, and we found out two days later via ultrasound on valentine's day. so you can imagine how this past weekend went for me :)

there are all these saying and statistics that go along with miscarriage and subsequent pregnancies that are supposed to bring comfort, but mostly get on my nerves. things like there is no reason a woman can't have a successful pregnancy following a miscarriage or once a heartbeat is detected on ultrasound that the chance of miscarriage decreases significantly. let me address this latter statistic:

with my last pregnancy, i saw a heartbeat. so did my dr and the nurse that was in the room. all three of us saw it. we watched it. it was a good, strong hb, a sign of life in a tiny human being's body. i have a picture of it. seeing it does not mean that it will not stop beating at some point. seeing it means that one saw proof of life, and when that hb stopped, it means that the human being died. it died. that life ended and that person no longer lives. game over. i'm not sure what seeing has to do with it, but seeing ultimately doesn't make a difference. looking at something doesn't increase survival rate. i think this statistic is pure stupidity.

as for the first statistic, the one about having a perfectly normal pregnancy following a miscarriage, it doesn't really help with the actual miscarriage. i know that people who try to get pregnant, or have no/few previous children, and suffer a loss may find comfort in this, but what about those of us who weren't trying? we were surprised by a pregnancy when we didn't necessarily intend to get pregnant anymore. then we did. and we made a conscious decision to be happy about it (well, i did) because, even though things weren't planned, each child is a blessing (ahem, natalie) and is to be valued. and by the time we were worked up about having another baby, accepting the reality that we were going to be parents again, it was over. and we (i) am left wondering, 'what just happened? and why? what was the point of this? now what?'

i cannot express the shock of seeing a baby on a tv screen that is an image of the baby in one's womb on a thursday, then looking at the same tv screen the next monday at the image of an empty hole. it was just there four days ago. i saw it. where is it? when the dr said, 'i know you're seeing what i'm seeing,' there's a want to say, 'yeah, keep looking,' like it's been misplaced. it's been misplaced, but not in there. it's somewhere else. i'd rather not think about where that other place it, but deep down i know. looking back, i know when it happened. i called the dr when it happened and he told me it could be something else. naively, i chose to believe him, but after seeing an empty womb, i know what happened in retrospect.

what makes all of this harder is that i really trusted God to give me that baby. unfortunately, He said no. i don't know if He ever responded to me before the baby was gone, but if He did, i don't remember. i was trying not to ignore Him, but maybe i did. i'm not sure. i thought if i told Him that i wanted the baby and claimed some promise in His name that my wish would come true. clearly i knew then like i know now that that's not how it works, but something was off and i didn't get a message if one was sent. however, i really believed that that baby was going to end up in my arms, and when he/she didn't... well, there's the rub.

now on to this pregnancy. shortly after our loss and in the following few months, i wanted another baby. before i found out i was pregnant last year, i was perfectly content with the three children we have; natalie makes a good baby of the family. but over the summer, all i thought about was having another baby. i scoured the internet for information on when the right time was to have another. when would i be emotionally ready? when would i feel like i wasn't trying to replace the baby i lost? would i ever feel like i wasn't trying to replace the baby i lost? then i started to think, do we even want to have another baby? that was the question of the hour, almost every hour. i can't count the number of times i asked ryan that same question. every answer was, 'i don't know.' i tried to be decisive and make an executive decision, just saying yes or no, one way or the other, to put myself out of my misery. that didn't work either. the next day i'd be on the opposite side of the fence.

there were a few occasions (3-5 i'd say; never good enough to do it just once, right?) in which we decided we'd let God decide (as if He's not in control already). that was probably in october. this was not easy as i continued to wonder if we would have another baby. i honestly would have been happy either way. we have been blessed with three healthy, happy, beautiful children who have enhanced our lives. while part of me doesn't want to disturb that balance because i love these three children so much, i have been taught to never take a pregnancy, another little one, for granted. regardless of all that, i guess God decided to pick up the control i had so struggled to lay at His feet. and it was a struggle, because it was wrapped in all the hurt, pain, anger, and brokenness that was left after our loss. it was a big package to carry, and He has been faithful bear my burden. like He promised He would.

and here we are!

this is God's Will for us. when i look at my 'charts' i know it is. i don't take birth control. it makes me crazy. and with my current level of crazy (i take antidepressants to stabilize my mood and keep me from being mean and weepy 23/6 out of 24/7) i need no more hormones in my body to compete with. however, for the last three years, ryan and i have strictly practiced natural family planning, which includes temp charting and analysis of...bodily functions, plus scientific research to predict safe times to.. be...intimate. and it's pretty rigid and we've been rigid with it. we were taking precautions with our last pregnancy and it still happened (yeah, trojan owes us), so it wasn't a lack of effort on our part. the same is true with this pregnancy. if you follow the link above, and as we all learned in biology, a woman with a typical cycle ovulated on day 14. i've always been late, ovulating on day 15-16, but because an egg only lives for 12-24 hours, if i ovulate a day or two late, this particular system should compensate for that because unprotected sex is supposed to be delayed until day 20.

when i went in for my first ultrasound, i measured six days late based on the typical 28 day cycle with ovulation on day 14 (because everyone is so different, it's necessary for drs to have some sort of average). i had another ultrasound done a few days later, still measuring six days late. another ultrasound a couple of days later. consistently growing...at six days late. if you haven't done the math yet, guess what day that would have been. what's 14+6?

i ovulated on day 20.

tmi:

i also had sex with my husband on day 20.

i know all this because i chart. twenty days is late even for me. tell me that wasn't something...divine.

well, now that that's out there, i think i feel a little better. i haven't sat down and said these thoughts to any one person at any single time. now that i've had a year to process, look back, and re-evaluate, i can see the process in its entirety (at least up until now). with this pregnancy i have been able to go to God and say, 'whatever happens, happens. and whatever happens, please give me the peace and strength to encounter it. please guide me through it, because i know i cannot do this without You.' maybe that was the lesson in all of this. i believe time, and the Lord, will tell.

There are two kinds of moms in this world...

from my experience (or at least in my head), i've always considered two kinds of mothers because, as we all know, there can only be two kinds of people out there and they are always pitted against each other. there's your classic over-achiever with her perfectly clean apron that she dons while making the perfect cupcakes with the perfect amount of icing, all perfectly prepared the day before the class party. she has a purse with a remedy for all childhood ailments, including boredom, her house and car are usually spotless, all her children are smudge-free and every hair on their head is in place for fear of being removed upon disturbance. this is a picture of what the classic over-achiever is capable of on any hoe hum, any day of the week occasion:



then, there is the mom that flies by the seed of her pants. she only brings items to school if she is asked, and usually they come out of, and arrive in, a box or bag. she only carries her keys, cell phone, and debit card without the aid of a purse because all three of these things fit in her pockets. her remedy for ailments is to walk it off, including boredom. her car is full of fly away papers marked with crayons and covered with stickers, and her house has trails of clothes, shoes, sporting equipment, cheerios, costumes, etc. no child leaves her house unsmudged, and their hair is in desperate need of a cut and style as she has not made it to the salon with them, or by herself, in quite some time. this is what the mother of chance presents when forced to participate:



both of these came home in meredith's valentine box from preschool. and we aren't even talking legally obligated school yet, this is PRE-go-to-school-every-day-so-as-not-to-end-up-in-jail school. i have come to accept that i will never be an over-achieving mother, and in my heart, i can live with that. frankly, i don't want to be; i'm too lazy. however, after seeing the lowest possible standard for a valentine's day card, i can say that i honestly feel better about myself as a mother. so thank you, mother of chance, for showing me that my store-bought hello kitty valentines, with temporary tattoos included and secured to each car, and the giver and recipient's names BOTH written in, were in fact sufficient for the occasion. you have redeemed me by proving that i haven't fallen out the bottom quite yet.

welp, i wasn't kidding about coming back, lol! still haven't deleted fb, but it's just a matter of hours, or even minutes, before the conversion takes place.

i forgot earlier that i have another vent, albeit not noteworthy, but still...

since this winter (if you can call it that) has been remarkably warm, i only had a few weeks of leisure before my arch nemeses returned. who, you say? who would dare to cross me? that's right, folks. ants. i. hate. ants. they're constantly marching around, looking for food like they own the place. which they don't. we paid a chunk of change for this house and it belongs to US! and it doesn't matter how many you kill. it's like they regenerate to keep sniffing around, making a person itch all over. and you can't kill some of their buddies and leave their mangled, squished bodies laying around to deter the others from coming back for more. no, there are ant corpses all over this table (well, not all over it. i have cleaned most of them off) and those little freaks keep coming back! i've GOT to find a way to get rid of these tiny beasts, if only for my sanity and my itchy skin.

i hate ants.

really.

i loathe them.

starting over

alright, i glanced over some of my old posts on this page and didn't care for them, so i figured i'd try again. today i am deleting facebook b/c it has consumed too much of my time (and i don't like people anymore. i only care what i have to say these days, lol, and even then i sometimes find myself intolerable, but...whatevs). now if i feel like i need to put something out there in the universe, i can do it here ") Don't lie, you love it.

so for today, i'll start with this. HELLO!! i have nothing of much value to report. i will mention, however, that since there probably are zero people currently reading this which means that no one will actually know it even though i'm announcing it, yes, i am once again pregnant. shock and awe, i know. that's okay! i've got my trusty smart remarks and responses readily available in my pocket and am ready and willing to pull them out to use on innocent bystanders that make inappropriate comments such as, "don't you know how that happens?" "was this one an accident or were you actually trying?" etc. try me. i dare you.

past that, i got nothing. but don't be surprised if i end up here again later this evening with some other random remarks about who knows what. be vigilant.