8 Weeks Later
It was 8 weeks ago today when I rushed out of work to head to a doctor’s appointment for my first ultrasound on week 8 day 5 of pregnancy. This day was one I had been looking forward to since the moment I got the positive test. It’s hard to believe 8 weeks have passed since learning that my pregnancy was not viable. It feels like both a lifetime ago and like it was just yesterday. The passage of time seems so uneven lately… either time is crawling or flying by. I haven’t fully gotten back to normal yet, but as 8 weeks have passed, my body has recovered. I am grateful that my hormone levels have dropped to the negative range within the 8-week limit.
The journey I have been on has been so surreal from day one. On a rainy day in mid-January, I was driving around to various building departments for work after having had my pregnancy blood test done earlier in the morning. My protocol was to go in for the test 2 weeks after the insemination procedure. I had been texting with friends about how impatient I felt, so at their encouragement, I bought a pregnancy test while I was out running around for work. I was scared to take it because I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the disappointment if it was negative - until I read the digital word “pregnant.” I was sitting in my car with the radio going, it had started raining pretty hard, I glanced down and uttered the words “wait...what?” Then tears of joy began forming and I took a picture and texted it to the friends I’d been talking to. Life stood still. Life would never be the same.
During the weeks to follow, blood tests had confirmed a healthy level of pregnancy hormones, and I began to prepare myself for the changes ahead. I stocked up on ginger ale and ginger candies to get myself through the nausea, and I had to revert to an earlier bedtime because I was so tired within a couple of weeks. I began telling friends and family. I had a hard time hiding my (mostly bloated but larger) stomach because I apparently don’t own any loose clothing. I began planning on how I’d tell my colleagues. I had planned a cute St Patrick’s Day themed announcement for social media (but I’d refused to buy anything for the cute photo I had in mind until after my ultrasound confirmed I was healthy - for once, I’m grateful for my paranoia).
I started this journey a year ago - at least, the research began a year ago. By early summer, I had selected a donor and begun to research doctors and costs and options for how to make it happen. I created a 5-year budget and got a roommate to give myself a financial cushion because it turns out the cost of trying to conceive on my own was going to be really high! I had a plan, and after only a few months of working with my amazing doctor, it had all worked. I was pregnant to start the new year...until I wasn’t. For the second time in the first few months of 2019, the world stood still 8 weeks ago today.
Much like the day I found out I was pregnant, it was rainy on the day I found out it was over. Again, I sat in my car in the rain with tears in my eyes. The night of my ultrasound, after dinner, I drove over to the lake in my neighborhood to stare at the rain over the water (water soothes me). I looked out as the rain poured down, and then a song came on the radio that reminded me of that first day - the same song that had been playing when I read “pregnant” for the first time was now playing again. I turned it up as if God was telling me to listen: “Cry to Jesus” by Third Day. Ok, so I cried… a lot. I had been given permission, so I cried. I stepped out of my car, I stood in the rain, and I cried to Jesus and it was both the most painful and healing moment I could have imagined.
Moments during both of those two days will probably stick with me forever, and I’m okay with that. Both the joy and pain are a part of who I am. Healing requires feeling...and I have spent so much of my life trying to control my feelings. I thought that I had to maintain the illusion of strength by never letting my weakness show. These past few months have taught me something extremely valuable. This practice of feeling and healing is one not of dwelling in negative emotion but rather acknowledging the emotions as they arise and allowing them to exist. To be my most authentic self is the strongest thing I can do - and sometimes that means randomly crying while at lunch with a friend (even though I will apologize as I try to wipe away the tears). I had to learn to let myself feel both the good and the bad, and that’s the thing...it’s not just bad. I can experience the good feelings more deeply when I let myself feel the bad.
I can’t say that I know why I’m going through this or that I totally see God’s plan in the chaos. I can say that I am becoming a better, more self-aware, version of myself through the pain. Maybe this will create in me a better ability to love and parent when the time comes. Maybe there is a reason for the pain and the timing after all. I don’t know what comes next or if even more difficult challenges lie ahead. All I know is that I know nothing, and I just have to be okay with that.
The journey I have been on has been so surreal from day one. On a rainy day in mid-January, I was driving around to various building departments for work after having had my pregnancy blood test done earlier in the morning. My protocol was to go in for the test 2 weeks after the insemination procedure. I had been texting with friends about how impatient I felt, so at their encouragement, I bought a pregnancy test while I was out running around for work. I was scared to take it because I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the disappointment if it was negative - until I read the digital word “pregnant.” I was sitting in my car with the radio going, it had started raining pretty hard, I glanced down and uttered the words “wait...what?” Then tears of joy began forming and I took a picture and texted it to the friends I’d been talking to. Life stood still. Life would never be the same.
During the weeks to follow, blood tests had confirmed a healthy level of pregnancy hormones, and I began to prepare myself for the changes ahead. I stocked up on ginger ale and ginger candies to get myself through the nausea, and I had to revert to an earlier bedtime because I was so tired within a couple of weeks. I began telling friends and family. I had a hard time hiding my (mostly bloated but larger) stomach because I apparently don’t own any loose clothing. I began planning on how I’d tell my colleagues. I had planned a cute St Patrick’s Day themed announcement for social media (but I’d refused to buy anything for the cute photo I had in mind until after my ultrasound confirmed I was healthy - for once, I’m grateful for my paranoia).
I started this journey a year ago - at least, the research began a year ago. By early summer, I had selected a donor and begun to research doctors and costs and options for how to make it happen. I created a 5-year budget and got a roommate to give myself a financial cushion because it turns out the cost of trying to conceive on my own was going to be really high! I had a plan, and after only a few months of working with my amazing doctor, it had all worked. I was pregnant to start the new year...until I wasn’t. For the second time in the first few months of 2019, the world stood still 8 weeks ago today.
Much like the day I found out I was pregnant, it was rainy on the day I found out it was over. Again, I sat in my car in the rain with tears in my eyes. The night of my ultrasound, after dinner, I drove over to the lake in my neighborhood to stare at the rain over the water (water soothes me). I looked out as the rain poured down, and then a song came on the radio that reminded me of that first day - the same song that had been playing when I read “pregnant” for the first time was now playing again. I turned it up as if God was telling me to listen: “Cry to Jesus” by Third Day. Ok, so I cried… a lot. I had been given permission, so I cried. I stepped out of my car, I stood in the rain, and I cried to Jesus and it was both the most painful and healing moment I could have imagined.
Moments during both of those two days will probably stick with me forever, and I’m okay with that. Both the joy and pain are a part of who I am. Healing requires feeling...and I have spent so much of my life trying to control my feelings. I thought that I had to maintain the illusion of strength by never letting my weakness show. These past few months have taught me something extremely valuable. This practice of feeling and healing is one not of dwelling in negative emotion but rather acknowledging the emotions as they arise and allowing them to exist. To be my most authentic self is the strongest thing I can do - and sometimes that means randomly crying while at lunch with a friend (even though I will apologize as I try to wipe away the tears). I had to learn to let myself feel both the good and the bad, and that’s the thing...it’s not just bad. I can experience the good feelings more deeply when I let myself feel the bad.
I can’t say that I know why I’m going through this or that I totally see God’s plan in the chaos. I can say that I am becoming a better, more self-aware, version of myself through the pain. Maybe this will create in me a better ability to love and parent when the time comes. Maybe there is a reason for the pain and the timing after all. I don’t know what comes next or if even more difficult challenges lie ahead. All I know is that I know nothing, and I just have to be okay with that.
Wonderfully said. You amaze me more with each passing year. You are such a blessing and I know God will bless you!
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