Week 26: A spot stopped my heart

Next week marks the beginning of my third trimester. No wonder I’m feeling so uncomfortable…

This week baby has hijacked my appetite. When my friends and family ask me how I’ve been feeling, I tell them I’m hungry. I was joking with my mom and I said, “I’m trying really hard to be healthy but sometimes I just feel like, whatever, I’m getting huge anyways, might as well enjoy this tasty cinnamon roll!” She laughed and then said, “Well, sweetie, the thing is…if you eat like that then it’ll be harder to lose the weight once the baby comes.” …I consider myself a relatively smart person, but my common sense definitely escaped me on that one.

Seth and I started talking about our future hopes of having children before we were even married. We dreamed about names, how many we wanted, and of course, when. After a few months of trying we saw a dark pink line and a slightly fainter but very present second line. All our dreaming could finally be put into motion. However, it wasn’t long after our celebration of running around the living room screaming and crying that a startling reality set in. We thought the hard part would be trying to conceive. What if it didn’t happen for us? Now that we were pregnant we realized the hard part wasn’t over. Just like we had no control of if we could conceive a baby, we had no control of whether or not this little life survives. I could contribute by being healthy and taking care of myself, but beyond that it was totally out of our control. That’s a very sobering thought when the thing you want control of the most in your life is completely out of your hands.

A week and a half ago we had our first real scare. I went to the bathroom and found out I was spotting. I’ve heard that can be pretty normal so even though my heart stopped for a moment I quickly recovered and thought it was probably nothing. I looked up a couple creditable pregnancy websites and both said in big bold letters that if you have any spotting after 24 weeks to take it very seriously and call your doctor immediately. At that point I was 24 weeks, 4 days.  While I was waiting for the nurse at the hospital to call me back I frantically tried to get baby to move. My doctor had told me that active movement actually rocks the baby to sleep and when you lay still baby will most likely wake up. I stopped my erratic pacing and gently lay down on my side. I stayed there frozen for a few minutes, waiting, hoping, praying. Nothing. I started poking my belly trying to urge him/her to just give me something. Finally, I felt the tiniest little bubble. It was enough to calm me down a little but not enough to make all my worry go away. When the nurse called back she recommended I come in just to make sure everything was ok.

By the time we left the hospital we were incredibly relieved and undeniably grateful. We got to hear baby’s heart beating, baby had woken up and started doing cartwheels, I had gotten a cleared urine test, and we found out (the not-so-fun way) that my cervix is still closed. Those of who read my post from Week 21 know exactly what was going through my mind when the nurse said she needed to check my cervix. I blankly stared at her for a moment while the reality set in. Then I said, “ohhh..that doesn’t sound very fun..” She paused and then replied, “You know, unfortunately, there really isn’t a way to make this enjoyable. You just…have to breathe.” So breathe is what I did. And squeezed Seth’s hand so hard I’m pretty sure he lost circulation to his fingers.

One of my friends told me the worry about the safety of your children is always something you have to work through. It’s not over once you finally give birth and see your child breathing for the first time. So I guess Seth and I have embarked on a life-long journey of learning to put our trust in God, especially with the things we hold most dear. I say that like it’s easy, but it’s really not. One of my best friends lost a baby about a month before her due date. The pain and sorrow I felt for her was intense. I remember praying and actually yelling at God. It made no sense to me. Time has passed and I know my friend and her family are still learning how to cope with their loss. Last Christmas marked the one-year anniversary. They sent out a card that said, “A year ago our son joined His Creator in Heaven, his joy far outweighs our loss.” Wow. Trusting God with the things we hold most dear can be extremely challenging when we look at it from our Earthly perspective. But a lot of the time, we don’t know how to look at it any other way because this is all we know. My friends have continued to trust God through the worst of circumstances, and that’s pretty powerful.

Mommies and Pregnant ladies: Did you ever have to go to the hospital because something was wrong? Were you as freaked out as I was?

Blessings,

Shantastic