Raise your hand if you have ever felt like you live your life in a bubble? A bubble where you and only you know how you are feeling and the things that you are thinking. That's me. Today in my language class I read a story aloud to the class that I wrote. You would have thought I was the next great Harry Potter writer. The kids cheered...not kidding. One of them asked me if I like to write. "Duh", I said. I am the most awesome writing teacher on the planet :) I told them, yes, I like to write so much that I have a blog. A blog that is allllll about my favorite little boy!
SKKKRRRREEEETTTCCCCCHHHHH! Correction. I HAD a blog about my most favorite little boy. Right then and there it hit me. The blog has stopped. Not because Boo has stopped being his most precious self. It has stopped because I have stopped. I am trapped in my bubble.
I can count on one hand the number of people who knew I was pregnant. I can count on two hands the number of people who know that I miscarried. There. I said it. It's out there. And it's the reason that I have subconsciously abandoned my blog. The past few months I have been living in my bubble. A bubble where the majority of the people around me did not know my sadness, and the ones who did thought that I must have moved passed it. I think it is the reason for my writing/memory capturing/blogging ROAD BLOCK, and to get passed it I must talk about it. So, her is my talk ;) Read at your own risk...I have a lot to get off my chest ;)
This summer was magical. I traveled to TX with my boo and my sis to surprise my mom. Successful 4th of July memories...check. I spent every day loving on my booboo and not worrying about 24 other kids who where not mine....check. I spent time with friends and pretended I was the perfect stay at home wife/mother...check. Extending our family was not on the priority list or on the radar. I know the exact moment when I knew I was pregnant. It was about 4 days after the fact :) I was sick at my stomach. I remember thinking to myself if I am pregnant im going to die. The next day I blew it off as just some sinus stuff. Who knows they are preggers that soon? A week or two passed and I still felt a little sick. Before my family came to visit, I took a test just to be sure. It said negative and I remember have the feeling of "THANK GOD". Our visit was good and eventful. Nolan locked me in his bedroom...yep. There I was in the bedroom with a broken door knob and Boo was almost 2 and roaming the house ALONE. I panicked. I opened the window of his room and jumped out. Its about a 7-8 food jump. No biggie. I ran to the neighbor and called brad to COME HOME NOW. I got the ladder and climbed back in the window and talked to Nolan under the door. What a mess. Funny now, but NOT FUNNY then. A few hours after that jump, I started cramping a bit. I didn't think much of it because it only lasted a few hours and it was gone.
After my family left town, it was almost the first day of school. The days before school started I started feeling SICK. Like stuck on the couch OMG sick. The pregnancy thoughts returned. I didn't know if I was making myself sick, or if the unthinkable had happened. The night before school started I laid in bed. I tossed for an hour or so knowing in my head what was going on. I jumped up, walked to the closet to get the left over pregnancy test from a few weeks before, and I took it. Man, I did not even have to wait the 10 minutes. It was clear as a bell. Two lines.
At that moment, instincts kicked in. I called the one person who could calm me. Leeah. I cried on the phone with her for an hour. The average person would cry to her husband I guess. Not me. I was devastated. Does that not sound awful. How many women would find it unthinkable to be pregnant with a child they created. Ironically, I remember earlier in the summer crying on the front porch with my husband. Soooo many people had begun asking me when I was having baby number two. It was almost as if there where a timer that was going to go off as soon as Nolan turned two that meant BABY NOW BABY NOW. I didn't want a baby. It made me feel like a bad mother...a bad person. Why did I not want what some many others have...want?
The two weeks that followed were awful. Brad and Leeah were the only to people who knew. I cried on the way to work, I cried at work, I cried on the way home from work, I cried making dinner, I cried in the shower, I cried falling asleep....I cried. Financially we were not ready to pay $1,000 a month in childcare. The thought of that made me want to vomit. I was not ready to give up my time with my first born. He was the only baby I wanted to spend time with. My body was not ready to be pregnant again. My pregnancy with Nolan was a nightmare. I was not ready to have sleepless nights again. Boo didn't sleep though the night until he was almost a year old. Notice all the "I's" in there. I was not ready.
I told my 5th grade team, and as the words came out so did the tears. They must have thought I was crazy. There were lots of encouraging words, but none of them made me feel like I was excited. They did however help me see the positives. Nolan would be close in age to his sibling. I would have an awesome maternity leave with a due date in April. I would grow to love the fact that I was pregnant again.
They were right. A few weeks into it the thought started to grow on me. I was not thrilled, but I was no longer crying myself to sleep at night either. The one thing that thrilled me was the thought of having a child so close in age to my best friend's child. Leeah, after waiting years and through the grace of God, was finally pregnant. Who would not want to have babie besties with their bestie?
I purposefully do NOT announce pregnancy early in the game. I have a strong enough history of miscarriage on my mom's side of the family to realize that anything can happen in the first trimester. Besides CLOSE friends and family, no one knew I was pregnant with Nolan until I was 12 weeks and after the ohh so important "hear the heartbeat" appointment. I did not plan change that decision with this little tike.
The morning of my 8 week ultrasound I was excited. I was excited to see my little peanut, and I was excited to get confirmation that there was something growing inside of me. The ultrasound tech did her thing and there it was...right there...in my belly. She measured the baby and cheerfully said it measured a little over 6 weeks...congratulations. Right then and there I was concerned. That did not sound right to me. After asking my doc she didn't seem too concerned, but she suggested we do another ultrasound in a week to make sure there is a weeks worth of growth. I left there in tears. These tears where different from the tears I was having in the weeks past. The were tears of fear. The same tears I cried when I bled while pregnant with Nolan...every time. The same tears I cried when Nolan had to go to the cardiologist to check on his heart. The same tears I cried when Nolan had his ear surgery. They were "worry and concern for your child tears". They were "I want this baby and what was I thinking tears". I was upset with myself for wishing this baby away and I was furious with myself for spending weeks in sorrow when I should have been in happiness.
Before the next appointment, I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking and on the verge of tears. When I looked a the screen and I saw that little baby jumping up and down I instantly started tearing up. Not only had it grown, but it had grown almost two weeks growth. I was elated. Happy. On cloud nine. I allowed myself to dream and to pick out names. I allowed myself to get excited. I did not feel as sick and I had not started bleeding as I did with Nolan. It seemed like it was going to be a great pregnancy.
A few weeks later, I noticed that feeling. If you are a girl, you know what I am talking about. Instantly, my heart sank. I went to the bathroom and confirmed that I had started bleeding. In my head, I told myself that I did this with Nolan...it was okay. In my heart, I knew something was just not right. Two days later, laying on that ultrasound table I remember having my eyes GLUED to the monitor. As soon as the picture appeared I knew. So did Brad. The fast fluttering heartbeat that was there the two previous ultrasound was no longer. Tears were instant and the rest of the day was a blur.
The decision to get a D&C was a pretty easy one. Miscarrying a baby naturally at 6 weeks is one thing, but doing it at 11 weeks is something different altogether. I am a life happens at conception kinda lady. The morning of my surgery I was emotional to say the least. Right now is the time to give the BIG shout out to Kellye Gross...Nolan's other mama and a very special friend. She took care of my boo when I could not and I will forever be grateful...LOVE.
This is when I started to live inside my bubble. What do you do when 5 total people know you where pregnant. Those people loved on me and made me feel better, but there is only so much love they can give. I didn't want to be their problem. I didn't want to cry to them, or tell them I feel strangely empty. So, I did what any other great wife would do. I took it out on my husband. I was moody. I was emotional. I was crazy. I was nuts. I was a woman who hated herself for not wanting her baby. I was a woman who went from unhappy, to scared, to IN LOVE to distraught. I was mad at God for putting me through that range of emotion just to have it all taken away. Brad thought I was crazy. He literally did not know what to do with me. He did not say the right thing. He did everything wrong. He did not understand, and when he said he did it made me even more mad. About a month of the miscarriage, he laid in bed with me and told me that I was going to have to come to terms with what had happened or we need to go see a professional to talk about how I was feeling. At that moment, I went further inside my bubble.
I did not want brad to think I was crazy. I didn't want anyone to think I was crazy. I was not crazy. I was sad and more than that I was hormonal as hell. I put on my happy face. We pumpkin patched it. We were busy. We did not sit. When I sit, I think. When I think, I cry. I saved my crying for the shower where he could not see me, or on my way home from work when I was driving. Everywhere I went someone was pregnant or just finding out they where pregnant. It was a epidemic. Jealousy would build inside me...stupid...right?
Because I was mad at God, I kinda stopped going to church. Brad was not happy about it and neither was Nolan. He loves going to chuch :) In late November, I reluctantly went to church mainly to get 1 hour away from my crying two year old. Nice reason, yea? In that service, God softened my heart. It was a baptism service. Tons of people telling why they came to love and know Jesus; some though pain and suffering. Pastor Pete's service was about letting go and letting God. Not an uncommon sermon, but one that touched me so that it brought me to tears right there in church. That was step one. Step two happened in my car in the middle of December. I was backing out of the drive way to run to Target. I stopped for a moment to watch Nolan and Brad play chase in the front yard. At that moment, I realized. I was spending so much time focusing on me...I forgot to focus on them. The two men who make me whole. At the same time as that realization, a song came on the radio. "I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH". It was all I needed to hear. I sat in my car and sand and prayed that song. I prayed for Christ to free me of my sadness and to help me see that my miscarriage was not a punishment. It was a way for me to see that I can weather any storm with my boys and God by my side.
I have felt so convicted the past few weeks to write my story down. I guess because I felt that it would help me get to that third step of LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD.
