The Struggle Is Part of the Story

There is something so painful about the moment a doctor tells you that you will never have another baby. There is never a right moment for it, but somehow the moment where you are dressed in a paper gown, all by yourself, lacks the dignity that wish you felt.

Our older daughter was three years old that day. I am not even sure how to describe the devastation that I felt. I felt like all hope had been ripped from me. I felt selfish, because I already had one. I should be grateful, not devastated and just when I thought I couldn’t sink any lower, I realized I was going to have to go home and tell my husband that there weren’t any other children in our future. It was truly one of the first times in my life I have been doubled over from emotional pain. My husband is pretty much the most amazing man on the face of the planet and he spent that entire night making sure I was OK.

The Struggle is part of the story necklace, Cents of Style

Fast forward a couple of years, I haven’t accepted that our sweet 5-year-old is going to be our only one, but thinking about it doesn’t devastate me the way it once did. She is beautiful and we are lucky, I am not feeling great, so on a whim, I take a pregnancy test. I will never forget the elation of seeing two lines on that test. I called my husband to tell him that the doctor was wrong and that miracles happen. I told my best friend, who was pregnant that we were going to have babies around the same time. I was ecstatic. Right in the middle of the ecstasy, I start bleeding. Badly. I called the doctor, convinced they could do something to fix this. Miracles aren’t supposed to go away. The nurse on the phone explained I was having a miscarriage and that I need to come in the next week to make sure everything was OK.

I laid in bed and cried for most of the week. It felt like it would have been better to never have the miracle at all then to have had it ripped away. I went in for the ultrasound and the ultrasound tech was surprised to find that it still seemed like I was pregnant. I was told not to get my hopes up but to come back in a week. How do you not get your hopes up? The next week I was devastated once again to be told that they couldn’t find a heartbeat and did I want to schedule a D&C. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to hold on to the dream for just a little while longer. When I finally came back in a week later, they did a routine ultrasound to not only find a baby, but a heartbeat as well. After being told that I couldn’t have a baby, to being told that I had lost one twice, I was suddenly given my miracle back.

The thing that has caused my doctor to tell me that I would never have another baby led to an incredibly painful and terrible pregnancy. With a build up of scar tissue and uterine varicose veins, every step was painful. I spent most of the pregnancy in a fog and in a lot of pain. It seemed impossible that I was going to end the experience with a baby in my arms, but at 39 weeks, the most perfect little girl was placed in my arms.

She is two now. She gives me a run for my money every day. She is hard and wonderful and truly the child that healed my broken heart. Getting her here is the hardest thing I have ever done, both emotionally and physically. I can’t imagine going through it again, but I would if I needed to, to get her here.