Finding Out... {part 1}

I interrupt my normal slew of DIY and Crafts to bring you a little bit into my life today.  I have pondered for months whether or not to share this information publicly on my blog, but due to recent events in our lives I have come to feel very strongly that I wanted to write about this and I wanted to share it with you.

The last 11 months have been a whirlwind of ups and downs, of joy and tears and after much contemplation, I finally feel it is time to share a bit of our story with you.  I share this as my experience, and I know many have gone through much worse.  But this is my life, real and raw over the last 11 months.

It was about 11 months ago when we knew it was time to try for baby number three.  We have two amazing, beautiful children, but we knew we were missing a precious baby in our family and we knew it was time to start trying again.

Our first child was a cinch to conceive, I am not even totally sure how we got pregnant when we did, but she came instantly.  The pregnancy had its ups and downs.  I was quite sick during the first trimester, suffered from many severe migraines during the second trimester and was put on bed rest for pre-term labor my third trimester.  But at 39 weeks, after about 8 hours of labor and 40 minutes of pushing, we had a beautiful healthy baby girl and we couldn't have been more happy!

Two years later when we decided to try for a second one, we were hit with a bit more challenging time.  It took us almost a year to conceive our son.  That proved to be difficult at times, many emotional ups and downs.  I know so many others have an even harder time conceiving, and I don't mean to try to compare, but it was a little trial in that period of our life for us.  There were many tears shed when every month for nearly a year, I had a negative pregnancy test.

Finally, though, we found out that were expecting!  We were thrilled!  But this pregnancy proved more difficult, I had sickness (and this time lots of sprinting to the bathroom) until 22 weeks.  Migraines.  And then at 27 week, I started bleeding and contracting.  I spent from 27 weeks on in and out of the hospital and on 24/7 medication to keep the contractions, and hopefully the bleeding, at bay.

It was determined that I had marginal placenta previa, which was the cause of the bleeding so it was a "me" problem, not a problem with the baby!  Whew.  I was so grateful for a healthy stable baby.  But my dr was so concerned about me bleeding out and excess bleeding during labor that I was on really really strict bed rest.

It was very stressful and I wasn't able to take care of my 3 year old daughter due to the strictness of the bed rest.  I was so grateful to have amazing parents who came out and stayed with us to help take care of my little family during this time!  We also had some amazing friends who helped out during this time.  I will never be able to express to friends or family how much their support and help meant to us during this time.  We were so lucky!

Thankfully, we were blessed and our dear son arrived at 38 weeks, after only an 1.5 hours of labor (ouch!) and two pushes.  Gratefully, he was as healthy as could be!

January 18, 2013, after four months of trying, I decided, partially on a whim, to take a pregnancy test.  I was sure it would be negative but to my surprise, and joy, it was positive!!

And then, one week later, I started to bleed.

I knew, I just knew I was going to lose that baby.  I had so much going on that day that I literally had to drag myself in the shower and to leave the house to go speak at a MOPS group.  And then do several other things I couldn't get out of.  I anxiously called the dr who sent me to do blood work, which I managed to fit into the crazy day.  And then I went out that night to celebrate a friend's birthday.  All while knowing I was most likely losing my baby.

The news you never want to hear.  My hormone levels were all way too low.  Laughably low.  My progesterone was lower then most non-pregnant women, and my hcg level was about what it should be the instant you conceive.  There was no doubt that I was miscarrying.

I had never had a miscarriage before.  And I had no idea how much it would hurt.  Not physically, physically it wasn't very painful at all (I wasn't very far along).  But emotionally, it was so hard.  No one knew we were pregnant, no one new we were trying, and no one knew we had lost a baby.  I could barely tell my husband the news.  We were both devastated.

He suggested I tell a friend.  I didn't want to.  All I could think about was how awkward that would be, "Hi, so I was calling to tell you that I am miscarrying, and oh ya, btw, I was pregnant.  Oh, and I know we didn't tell you, but we actually have wanted baby number 3 for a while...so uhm, yeah."  Awkward.  And in my tearful stage, there was no way I was making that phone call.

So my dear sweet amazing husband called a friend of mine and told her for me.  She was over within an hour with flowers, a big hug and took my son to play at her house.  Her kind sweet actions made all the difference in the world.  And having a friend to talk to, a friend who had been through it, proved to be more of a comfort to me then I would ever know during the following days and weeks.  And we can never express to my friends and family who helped us through this time, how grateful we are for them!

We knew it would be a hard road to grieve from our loss, but each day became easier, and days turned into weeks.  And eventually we were doing ok.  We still had our ups and downs, but overall, after some time, it got easier.

For me personally, serving others and finding ways to help others helps me get outside myself and helps me heal.  Serving others has proved to help me heal from difficult times often in my life and I knew that I needed to serve others in order to help myself heal  So I looked for ways to reach out to others and help whenever needed and that helped us both heal.

So it took us a couple months to decide to try again.

And when we did...we simply were not prepared for what would come next...

{to be continued}

Read PART 2 HERE