Still Pregnant! Yay!

Today we received our results for the 2nd blood draw of HCG. It is excellent! We couldn’t ask for better results. My numbers more than doubled which is what they were looking for. I must say the waiting today to find out was hard. You see today we waited 4 hours for the results (and this time I didn’t ask that they wait)! It made me wonder if the reason we were delayed was due to a bad result. Luckily this was not the case. Today I am still pregnant! YAY! My levels are so good that I don’t have to go back for another week! Double YAY!

Today is a good day for us but it is also a day that the mommies all over the world who have lost children remember them. It is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This is not a day that I like to “celebrate” each year. It is a day that makes me hold my son closer and a day that I think of the 8 angels we have in Heaven waiting on us. I picture a reunion with them one day… Oh how sweet it will be.

Many say that since I never held the baby, “at least it isn’t as bad.” I cannot imagine the pain of holding your child that you have to bury. It is hard enough hearing a heartbeat that never beats outside the womb or bleeding and knowing in your gut that the life that was inside of you is no longer living. It is crushing! It sucks! It is hard! It is a feeling I would NEVER wish on anyone! The look when your sweet nurses and doctor know you lost your baby, the pain of the dreams that will never come true. The life that was planned for not coming to be. It is crushing in a way that no mother can ever describe. That is why we are all a part of the special “club” that we never signed up to be in. Those moms who have been there understand the feelings that we all have on days like today when remembering those babies not with us hits hard. It is a part of my journey that I wish wasn’t there.

One group that I don’t think ever get to be a part of this day are those mothers who suffer through a “failed” adoption. This usually means that they bring a baby or child into their home for a time, only to have that child taken back and placed with the birth parents. Please know I am not saying having a child with birth parents is necessarily a bad thing! What I am saying is that the pain hurts the mom left with empty arms just the same. You see I am a part of that club too. I don’t want to be in that club but I am and I want to give value to those women who are like me for a minute.

Those of us mothers who have rocked a baby to sleep or brought a child into their family and had the chance to plan a new life but then have that taken from them in a moment of changed mind. We experience a different kind of grief. You see our “adopted” child didn’t die. That child who, for my husband and I lived with us for 5 precious days. The child we took 1st week pictures with and introduced to friends and family didn’t leave us in death but rather left us alive. She in no way was able to be ours ever again. We don’t get to lay claim to her and yet she isn’t an angel… so how do we speak to her role in our lives? How do we grieve someone who is still alive? That is the hardest place to be in. It is never easy to lose a child. Losing a child in a failed adoption can be just as difficult as losing a child to death. You see it is sudden and never feels right. It is the death of a dream of walking a little girl down the isle. The death of months of planning for her to be in your family and having her there… then boom it is no more. This type of loss is hard.

I don’t talk a lot about the adoption. It is something that is still raw and hard to know how to talk about. My husband and I were sought out by the birth parents and we took a leap of faith. We prayed and followed God’s call to be there for this little girl. I know in my heart that we served a purpose in her life for a reason and that we fulfilled what God set out for us to do. Having said all that… It still hurt. It hurts on days that I hear her name. It hurts on days that someone innocently asks, “would you ever want a daughter?” It hurts when even though I have tried to have all her things in a box, I see something that was left out or see the pictures in an old text message. It makes your breath catch and you feel the loss all over again.

I want to tell you something about all the losses we have experienced. If it wasn’t for our faith and knowing and trusting that God has a plan, we wouldn’t have survived it all. Our marriage is a miracle to most experts when they see that we survived all that we have and can still love each other! If it weren’t for our faith and the love of our village, we would not have made it. That darkness would have overtaken us and the bond we had wouldn’t have been strong enough to last. We know and trust that God has the most beautiful plans for our lives and for the life of our son (and hopefully the lives of our babies-hoping it is 2). Just as the glassmaker must sometimes put the glass into the hottest of fires so he can shape it into something beautiful. So does God sometimes have to have our lives in “fire”of the hardest moments so that we can come out shining brighter and looking more beautiful!

I have hope for the future because I know the One who creates it. My faith holds me together on the dark days when I wish I could see my babies in Heaven and when I wish for a moment that our adoptive daughter was in our life. My faith also makes me so thankful for my son. Yes, I sometimes spoil him. Yes, He gets extra love and sometimes more than enough chances. It’s because I know that he is my miracle. I hang on to faith and hope that in 8ish months, I will have at least 1 more miracle to call my own. I pray that on this day next year, I won’t have a larger number of babies to remember but rather more babies to love here on earth!

Pearl of Wisdom: You are a parent even if the only child you ever had isn’t with you anymore! Love on those who have lost!

Request: Pray for continued growth of our baby (babies)! This is still a critical time for us and one where in the past I have begun having problems. Pray for only positive results. Also pray for all the mommies out there with missing pieces of their hearts!

Many thank yous to you all!

Love and Pearls, ~ Me