Friday, March 11, 2005

The Wisdom of Heather

My online friend Heather said this today... Loving kids is easy, it is the teaching them to grow that is hard. Wow - that statement stopped me dead in my tracks....I couldn't agree more. I never had any problem loving Hannah. The day they put her in my arms, I fell in love. I love being a mother, although my journey to be one was very difficult. When I got married, I just always assumed that poof! I would get pregnant because, well..that's what I wanted. As the years went by and nothing happened we began going to the doctor to see if they could find what the problem was. To make a long story short, the problem was/is a combination of the two of us (how lucky can a person get huh?). Gary with his mid to low count and poor motility (the fuckers can't swim right) and my hostile mucus (killing whatever it can get it's nasty hands on). Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Hostile mucus...it sounds like some sort of biological warfare that could be released upon unsuspecting troops, bringing them screaming to their knees in horror.

"Ok, we'll deal with this" we decided. We talked long and hard about child-free living and decided that we could/would/have to be happy with that choice. Adoption, at that time, wasn't an option for us or one that we discussed much past the "I want my own kid, not someone else's" statement.

Twelve years go by and I'm not feeling so good. Gary is recovering from a heart procedure done after his heart attack and doesn't do much but lay around, eat healthy, not smoke and grope me as much as he can. Needless to say (and to our utter delight) , I take a HPT and it is positive. WTF is this??? I take another and it is positive too. "Alright" we say, "calm down and call the doctor". "oh come right in" he says " I'll do a test for you although you don't need to if you've done 2 and they both are positive". After peeing in a cup there and they do basically the same HPT test, the nurse announces "You're definitely pregnant!" " Well, I said "you don't know my luck, so maybe you'd better do a blood test to be sure." So she did and I was. I was pregnant and on top of the world. Everyday that went by was excrutiating waiting for the day when our baby would be here. How lucky were we that this miracle could finally happen to us? We talked about that baby constantly, dreamt of him/her and what kind of parents we would be. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went to our little sayings of "Can you believe this will be our last...as a couple? Next year we will have our child here!" Along came the end of January. I was at the 14 week mark, well past that dreaded 12 week cut-off for miscarriage. Actually m/c never crossed my mind because I'd never had one and was blissfully going through this pregnancy unaware of the absolute terror a previous m/c can cause to a subsequent pregnancy. I started cramping...I started spotting...I called the doctor. "If you are m/c, there is nothing we can do" he said sadly "If the bleeding gets profuse, please go to the emergency room". Oh how I cried, cramped and bled. The pain was nothing like I could describe....constant and shooting in my back and huge waves of cramps in my lower belly. But the pain in my heart was worse. Much worse. My poor, poor baby, who I wanted more than anything in the world had slipped silently away and there was nothing anyone could do. All through the night I bled and in the morning I couldn't stand it anymore. I called Gary at work crying for him to come take me to the hospital and make this pain go away. I guess I wasn't completely able to 'pass' everything and I had to have a D&C. When I woke up in the recovery room, I was still crying but the physical pain was gone. The emotional pain was full blown and all consuming. My body recovered quickly but I was so sad and miserable. I couldn't understand WHY this had to happen to me and no one could tell me. When you think of all the amazing things that happen in the development of a baby in the womb, it's a wonder any children are born at all. One little chromosome can do it all. It truly is a miracle.

The one remarkable thing that came out of this was that now Gary and I realized we weren't going to be 'alright' with being childless....or at least I wasn't and Gary would be driven insane by me in my quest to have a baby. We talked about adoption and discovered that birthing a child wasn't nearly as important to us as becoming parents...however that may happen. We began to pursue adoption........


Coming up next....the adoption.

3 comments:

Liz Moore said...

Those of us who may have too easily had children could take a lesson from your difficulties. We all must love and cherish our kids at all times and through all the trials of raising them.

Thank you for your inspirational sharing of a part of your life that must have been very difficult.

I wish you and yours all the best.

Tammy said...

Amazing how similar our stories are... dual infertility, miscarriage, adoption... blessings to you for sharing your story. The loss of innocence that comes with the loss of a pregnancy will always live with me. I, like you, take courage from the fact that our children DID come to us, by another miracle... All the best from me and Bug...

Anonymous said...

Your friend Heather is very profound....just wait until you have to start letting them go....it's even harder. I really miss the baby years. Melody