For Mother’s Day in 2009, Joey gave me an adorable green onepiece from Baby Gap with a panda on it that I’d noticed a few weeks earlier when we were walking around, dreaming.  I was just barely pregnant, and our excitement was a little bit premature.  Because the very next Sunday I was in the hospital, and we weren’t expecting a baby anymore.

When I got home from the hospital, I stuffed the little outfit and the card Joey had given me deep, deep into the back of one of the drawers in my dresser.  Six months went by, I found it again.  I sat there on the floor in our apartment, trying to decide if it was cruel to keep the outfit if I was never going to have a baby to put in it.

I decided to keep it.

Even though, at that point, there was a big black blob of nothing on the horizon.

Just in case…maybe there would be a miracle someday.

So I put it back in the drawer and folded up my first Mother’s Day card inside.  I still haven’t read it again.  But today that card is framed and hangs on my wall, and my sweet little girl is wearing a green outfit with a panda on it that I had almost lost hope would ever be on a baby that belonged to me.

Next Sunday, Mother’s Day, we’re going to have her dedicated.  I have so much to be thankful for.

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give [her] to the LORD. For [her] whole life s[he] will be given over to the LORD. 1 Samuel 1:27-28

Today’s appointment was more interesting than normal.  I got to have my Group B Strep test (please come back negative, PLEASE!!) and then the doc decided to check to see if I was dilated any…just for fun. (Fun for HER, that is.  Not for me.)  Nope, no dilation.  Just a tiny bit effaced.

Whatevs, I am just glad she’s not coming TODAY!  She’s not full term until Wednesday.

Then we got to talking about fetal movement.  A couple of months ago, my primary OB had told me to count fetal movement twice a day, and I needed to feel 6 kicks, etc within a period of an hour.  Well.  I was seeing a different doc today, and when she asked me if I was feeling five bits of movement every hour I was like, “Um, no…but I do notice her at least twice a day.”

The eyeballs on this doc got real big.  ”OH.” She said.

And then I was like HOLY COW, DID I MISUNDERSTAND MY PRIMARY OB?!?!  HAVE I BEEN DOING THIS ALL WRONG?

The doc leaned back on the counter and looked thoughtful.  ”Can I have you do a fetal non-stress test, just to be sure?” She asked.

I was all, HECK YES.  Test whatever you want to.

“I’m not convinced she’s moving enough,” said the doc.  ”I just want to be good and certain that there are no bad surprises around the corner.”

Yeah, me too.

Worst Case Scenarios began flurrying around my brain even as I tried to act totally chill about the whole thing.

The doc left for a few minutes, then came back in.  ”We’re out of monitors over here, do you mind if we take you over to triage?”  Translated: can we push you over to the hospital in a wheelchair, have you go through the admitting process, give you an ID bracelet and THEN hook you up to the monitor.

“Sure,” I said.  But I didn’t know about the wheelchair yet.

They pushed that puppy past me and I got all nervous.  ”I don’t get to walk?” I asked the nurse.

“Nope,” she said.

I know, I know, liability.  But srsly.  Wheelchairs are an extra layer of freakiness.

So, off we went.  Turns out wheelchairs are kind of fun if there’s nothing much the matter with you except for a bad case of nerves.  Joey and I went through admitting (which, conveniently, basically pre-registered us for when I DO go into labor) and the clerk slapped an ID bracelet on my arm.  I didn’t feel that was truly necessary because, like the wheelchair, it just made it more freaky.

I was wheeled into a room with a strange bed, a monitor setup, and a TV showing Dr. Oz.  A few minutes later, I had two large circle monitors strapped to me and a clicker in my hand, and I was instructed to click that clicker whenever the baby moved.

She had been still for quite some time.  I was convinced she wouldn’t move and then they’d make me have a C-section.  I really don’t want a C-section.  I know other people have had them and they survived just fine, but I just would really rather not do it.  I don’t need two tummy scars, I already have a nice big one from last year and it’s way more than enough.

Five minutes into the test, the child awoke.  And she was MAD about the monitors.  They weren’t pressing very hard, but they were definitely impinging on her space, and she wasn’t having it.  She laid into them both with a vengeance, and pretty soon the monitors were jumping around on my belly as she’d kick one then punch the other.  I couldn’t keep up with her on the movement clicker, but I figured it was better to under-represent her wildness than overshoot it and miss a potential problem.

Joey had fortunately brought his iPad, so he was playing Angry Birds and checking email while I lay there getting pummeled by our child.  I felt bad that this little detour was delaying his afternoon plans to blow some of the leaves out of our yard, but I was also super thankful that we were here in the first place, making sure that nothing was wrong with our kid.  (Well, nothing aside from the DNA she received from her parents.)

Her kicks were often very well-placed so they’d make it onto the doppler thingy they had strapped to me, and the whole room would fill with a WHUMP sound that drowned out her steady little heartbeat.

After ten minutes of this, the triage nurse came in.

“She’s moving around quite a bit in there,” she said.  She could hear all those WHUMPs out at the Nurse’s station.

“Um, yes,” I said.  ”I didn’t think she would!”

Obviously she likes her space just like her mama.

The nurse repositioned one of the sensors.  I’m not sure if this was to quite the WHUMP noises, or if it was to get a different reading.  It did slightly quiet the WHUMPs, but not entirely.  And then, the little girl got tired of fighting about another ten minutes later, and she buried herself somewhere deep inside her amniotic fluid and only made the occasional jab at the sensors.

After what seemed like ages, but was probably only 30 minutes, I was unhooked from the monitor and the nurse told me I was free to go.  ”She sounds great,” she told us.

Whew.

Ugh.

I am really getting ready to have this whole thing over with.  Not that I haven’t enjoyed being pregnant, which is not the truth, I don’t really mind any part of it.  (Not even the fact that my right foot swells twice as much as my left foot.)  I am just tired of being afraid all the time that something will go wrong in there and there won’t be anything I can do about it.

Like I said.  Miscarriage and infertility baggage.

YAAAAAAY.

Anyway, all this to say, that’s why I have a hospital bracelet.  And why Joey is only just now getting a chance to go at our leaves with the leaf blower.

ANYWAY.

We had to drive separately to the hospital this morning because Joey’s heading up north for a day or so (lucky), and I kept having to tell myself to SIMMER DOWN WOMAN as I drove in.  Except this year, we got to turn left into the parking lot instead of going straight down to the Labor & Delivery entrance.

We walked in, sat down, and I fidgeted like a crazy woman.  Right after we signed in, though, I discovered a CANDY JAR.  I took like fives pieces of candy and sat down to look at a magazine.  Joey handed me a baby magazine and I looked at it like it was covered in mold and smelled like peanut butter (I hate peanut butter right now, it’s so sad) and said, “I don’t look at baby magazines, remember?”

But he put it on my lap and returned to flipping through Time.

I figured, what could it hurt, it might actually be GOOD for me…and I cracked the cover of the magazine.

It was pretty lame, mostly ads.  But I did it.  And you know what?  It did not kill me.

FINALLY the sonographer called us back.  I was terrified, my heart rate was through the roof.  We’re so used to IVF sonograms that we were totally thrown for a loop when she whipped out the regular pregnant-lady wand, THE KIND THAT GOES ON YOUR STOMACH, and I almost cried just from the sheer relief of being far enough along to have a real pregnant-lady sonogram.

And the sonogram?  It was just fine.  It was great, actually.  The little munchkin is really wild, it was flipping around and doing the worm, and kicking and punching all over the place.  We even got a DVD, which I am so excited about.  Joey’s going to edit out the “boring” parts and I’ll be sure to post the wild child’s highlights.

Oh – did I mention we have a thumb sucker?  We do.

I have never been so relieved in my entire life, and I really don’t think that is much of an exaggeration.

After the sonogram, we went over to my OBs office to get my labs drawn before we could go.  Another guy about our age was sitting in the waiting room, and he struck up a conversation with us, which totally weirded Joey and I out.  We’ve spent the last 6 months in the waiting room of an infertility clinic, and TRUST ME, you do not talk to the people in that waiting room.

Your conversation would be something like this.  “So…what’s wrong with you, why can’t you have kids?”

“Oh, well, I have Stage 4 Endometriosis and some other things too.  How’s about you?”

Depressing.  So you learn early on that infertiles don’t speak to one another.  It’s a silent code that everyone just abides by.

Anyway, this guy was like “ARE YOU EXCITED! DID YOU HAVE A SONOGRAM!  WAS IT CUTE?!  MY WIFE IS 10 WEEKS!  IT’S GREAT!”

And we just looked at him with big eyes trying to figure out if HE was abnormal, or if WE were abnormal.  We were also having a hard time politely returning the questions because we are so used to not asking that it was hard to figure out what normal people talk about.

Both Joey and I were kind of relieved when he got called back to go with his wife.  He was making us tired.

We walked out of the hospital today much different than when we walked in today; we survived.  Our baby is still in there and alive.  I think we’re all gonna make it.

I’m still getting used to the idea of Joey and I actually going to see an OB every few weeks instead of our RE.  (For you who are new to this blog and/or infertility lingo, an OB is an obstetrician and an RE is a Reproductive Endocrinologist.  That’s Infertility Specialist in Average Joe speak.)  I never really thought we’d actually get to swap the RE initials for OB.  And now that we’re here, it’s weird.

I still don’t easily spit out the “I’m pregnant” phrase.  I don’t believe in jinxes, but some crazy boogeyman in the back of my mind always yells DON’T SAY IT, DON’T SAY IT, you’re not the pregnant type of person, this is all a hallucination! whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Totally awkward.

I fought the boogeyman all morning today at church.

We tend to have doctor’s appointments every two weeks.  After an appointment, I do great for about a week.  You know, we saw the baby, its heart was beating, my levels were good, all that jazz.

Well, the SECOND week.  The second week is when it gets interesting.

I get jittery.  I stop sleeping well because I have miscarriage nightmares.  I get irritable due to jitters and lack of sleep.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Last night’s miscarriage nightmare was particularly scary.  I woke up and actually thought I had just gotten released from the hospital and was waking up from pain meds.  It took me a second to sort myself out and realize that, as far as I know, I was still pregnant.

Ugh.

Pregnancy after infertility/miscarriage is so much more complicated than I thought it would be.

One week at a time.  Heck, one DAY at a time, really.

Lately, I have been running my airplane verse in my head over and over and over again when I get all freaked out.   For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind…

I need the sound mind part right now much more than usual.

After we finished up our round of IVF in winter 2009, Joey and I were just bone-tired from giving (and receiving) shots, having a jillion ultrasounds, and worrying about whether or not it was going to work.  And when it didn’t work, we were so, so sad.  It was awful.

We wanted a break.

We NEEDED a break.

So we said, let’s shelf this and come back to it in April or May…we might want to try again then, we might not.  But whatever we decided to do, it was going to be secrety this time.

Well, neither one of us could stop thinking about it.  Nosiree.  Not at all.  So sometime at the end of January, we both looked at each other at the same time and said OH MY GOSH LET’T TRY AGAIN AND GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY!

We had realized that if we did wait until March, as originally planned, if IVF did work we’d wind up with almost the exact same due date as our miscarriage…and that sounded like it was about 5 levels of trauma more than we could handle.

So I called up Dr. Babyplease and blurted out that we’d like to try again, and we’d like to try again RIGHT NOW, could we please skip the month of birth control prep?

Surprisingly, they said YES.

And five days later, an enormous box showed up with a massive quantity of injectable drugs, and – bonus! – a whole bunch of 1 1/2 inch, 28 gague needles because she had ordered me progesterone in sesame oil, y’all.

She was not taking ANY chances on this round.  And we were so grateful.

It was honestly really hard to not process through IVF via blogging like I had last time.  I didn’t realize how much that had helped.  SO many funny things happened, like we’d go in for a scan and she’d take a look at my poor ovaries (sorry, boys) and say “OH, those are GORGEOUS” and Joey and I would look at each other and try not to bust out laughing.

Because you don’t laugh when you’re getting an IVF sonogram.  It’s just not done.  It’s not wise.  Take my advice.

Retrieval went off like a snap, and transfer was amazingly easy too.  We had some really good embryos this time, and Dr. Babyplease originally guessed we’d be having twins.  As I was laying in the hospital bed following transfer, feet tipped up in the air watching Law and Order, I mentioned to Joey I wanted Burger King and Dr. Babyplease laughed and said, “Oh it’s DEFINITELY twins.”

And then she told Joey to take me to Burger King already; I’d just had a really uncomfortable procedure performed upon myself and if I wanted Burger King, by Jove, I should have Burger King.

Joey obeyed.

Two days later, at 9:00 p.m. as per our instructions, we broke out the first of the 1 1/2 inch needles for the Progesterone in Sesame Oil injections.  Those would have gone a lot better if I hadn’t had some kind of amazing panic attack as I saw Joey approaching me with an uncapped, fairly thick needle filled with OIL that was to be INJECTED INTO MY MUSCLE.  I started flapping around and hyperventilating and crying, so Joey packed me up into the car and drove me off to my friend Kendall’s house because she is a doctor and very good at giving scary shots.

After a week, I summoned the courage to actually shoot MYSELF in the hip with that needle.  And you know what?  It wasn’t so bad.  When I told Joey what I had done, he got real pale and looked wobbly and said, “You really did that to yourself?”

Ten days into the Progesterone in Sesame Oil and two days before our pregnancy test, I broke out into hives because I guess I’m allergic to sesame oil.  They got all worried about me and scooted me right on in to the clinic for an early pregnancy test.

It was positive.

But we had been 90% sure it would be positive because I had cheated and not obeyed instructions and taken a home pregnancy test the night before.  The nurse just rolled her eyes at me when I admitted that I had cheated.

Everybody cheats, even though you’re not supposed to.  They just don’t want you to with IVF because it’s possible to get a false positive.

Two weeks later, we waltzed back in for our 7 week sonogram, and I was so nervous I almost passed out.  All I could remember from the year before was looking at the machine and seeing NOTHING….nothing.

But it was fine.  Everything looked great.

And that’s when I realized that being pregnant after infertility and a miscarriage is extremely complicated.  Because pregnancy for us isn’t fun and innocent anymore.  Our only experience with it rocked our world and changed our lives.  We can’t be those happy-go-lucky pregnant people again…and we are learning that that’s OK.

We don’t get to be giddy, but we do get to have a deeper relationship because of where we’ve been.

And maybe in a few months, when we are pretty close to having a healthy baby, we WILL be giddy.

But if we’re not, that’s OK with me too.

We’re excited in our own way, and it’s a much quieter, more private way.  But every week we get a little bit more confident.  And we’re just really, really thankful.

Maybe next week we’ll allow ourselves to LOOK at the baby aisle as we pass it in Target (oh, not actually go in, just look at it with our eyes) instead of crossing on the opposite side of the path and looking at the floor like we’ve been doing for, oh, months.

Told you we were weird.

Last night, Joey and I got to talking through the past year kind of with the “what if we hadn’t” perspective.

• If we hadn’t put in the work, we could have grown apart easily.
• If we hadn’t been actively looking for each other’s strengths, all we would have seen is weakness.
• If we hadn’t been careful, we could have started to blame each other for what has happened.  (And this terrifies me, because I really still do feel like it’s all my fault if I let myself.)
• If we hadn’t gone to church when we didn’t want to, we could have quickly lost our perspective and lost our faith.
• If we hadn’t tried to pray, we may never have started again.
• If we hadn’t looked for things to be thankful for, we could have grown bitter.

Our list really could go on and on, and as I look at what I’ve written…it kind of looks like we’re more awesome than we really are.  Truth is, we aren’t.  But the what-ifs that come out of a really hard year are enough to scare me.  Nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed.  We know that now more than we ever did.  Rough, awful spots can sneak up on you and hit you with all the force of an 18 wheeler going 60 miles an hour…and then what.

Here’s what I know:

I never want to be unprepared again.

I’ve learned from my last year that I am not who I need to be, that I’m not ready for another year like 2009.  I’m not ready for another year where I try and try and try to keep it together and put on a brave face and hope that this HAS to be over soon…right?

The only reason that Joey and I didn’t implode on each other this past year is because of our faith, of Who we believe in.  I definitely couldn’t see it then.

But I don’t ever want to be the same.

And now that I can at least see one thing I’ve learned, that I don’t ever want to be the same, I don’t want to settle for status quo in the way I follow Jesus, that I don’t want to settle…I can start to change.

Because I can’t handle another year without it, no matter what happens to me in 2010.

Sing to the LORD all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day.  Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among the people – 1 Chronicles 16:23-24

We wanted you for so long.  You were our miracle, and I don’t understand why God gave you to us just long enough to take you away again.

I will never forget you, I remember every single time I see my scar.  At first I thought having such a big, obvious reminder would upset me every day, and sometimes it does.  But I never have to worry about losing your memory, because I carry you with me everywhere I go…in my heart and on my stomach.

We called you Samuel because we asked the Lord for you, but he asked for you back. And we still don’t know what we were supposed to learn from you, but you can bet we’ll learn it so we can always look back on what you taught us.

I love you.  We miss you.

Mommy

I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give him to the Lord.

For his whole life, he will be given over to the Lord.

1 Sam 1:27-28

So, it’s weird; when I look back on the year I realize that yes, this is the worst year I can remember and it will probably be the worst one in a long time.  But let’s be honest, the only other rough year I can think of (during our marriage, that is) was probably the last year when we lived in Iowa and I worked with those nasty people who hated me from the moment they snitched a peek at my resume and thought “gosh, I think this one is a Christian” based upon where I went to college (and I know this because they told me). Those two made me cry on a regular basis.

But in perspective, I’ve had a pretty easy life.

So let’s flash back to 2009, month by month.  Come on, it’ll be fun.  Well, it’ll be fun until May, that is.

JANUARY

I noticed that somehow the phrase “picture of a cow’s head stuck under a fence and along comes a bull” was bringing a lot of traffic to my blog.  (I still can’t figure it out.)  So I told Brother, and he drew this picture using Microsoft Paint and that post is now the #1 most-viewed on this blog.  WEIRD.  Also, we got a new shower head.

FEBRUARY

We got new glasses and, fortunately!, Joey did not choose this pair.  I thought I finally saw an armadillo but it turned out to be a skunk. It was a major disappointment for me.

MARCH

The Kid came to visit us for Spring Break.  We had fun.  I quit watching The Office because it wasn’t funny to me anymore.  We went to Branson for a five days with my parents, and after they left Joey and I had crazy adventures. As usual.

APRIL

I flew to Chicago to visit Sister and Stephen over Easter.  Joey and I planted tomatoes and herbs on our balcony and were successful.

MAY

We tried to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary, which fell on the same day we found our our baby was gone.  (Re-reading these posts to link them here is killing me.) Then I had crazy surgery because there were abnormalities.  Mom came to take care of me for a week, and after she left, Sister came.

JUNE

It drove me crazy to think about our baby as an “it”, so we named him Samuel. I overdid it post-surgery and had painful relapses more often than I should have because I can’t sit still.  I discovered that going to church can be difficult.

JULY

For Independence Day, we jetted home to IOWA! see some fireworks.  I remembered how to smile again.  We went to Mexico and had the absolute best vacation ever.  Being together.  And let us not forget the smacking Iguana from the Tulum ruins, which was a highlight for me of course.

AUGUST

Joey had sinus surgery and he looked fully awesome afterwards.  I had a birthday and I survived.

SEPTEMBER

We tried to go backpacking, but there was no water in any of the creek-beds so we had to turn back; we had a great time at Beavers Bend working Plan B.  Then, Joey decided he wanted to a coffee experiment, which ended with him deciding he liked coffee.

OCTOBER

My awesome friend Michelle handed down their Grind & Brew coffee maker to us, which we named Jeeves.  It’s such a handy machine that has changed our lives in so many ways.  Oh, and we decided to do IVF to treat my infertility.  Um, that was HUGE.

NOVEMBER

I started my first round of medicine for IVF and hated it.  A few days later, we received a ginormous box of IVF injections and began the shots.  Joey is awesome.

DECEMBER

We had ten healthy embryos which we transferred and then..our IVF procedure failed.  Ugh.

I realize that nobody will probably click through those links to read those old posts, but it was really cathartic for me to look back on this year and remember that, YES, there were good times.  We did enjoy parts of it.  (A few parts.)

Happy New Year, Internet!!  May it be so, so much better than 2009.

He just raised his eyebrows at me like, OK…I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about but sure…compound fracture.

“No, I mean how I’m feeling right now.”  Obviously, right?

I’m trying to put words on it.  I’ve been unnaturally quiet for about the last four or five days; I just don’t want to talk about It.  I don’t want to talk about any of it.  I just want to push through the holidays, survive our baby’s due date, and get January over with.  So I turn my cell phone off and don’t reply to emails and keep to myself.

It’s working OK.

We made it through Christmas and we managed to have a mostly enjoyable day.

My former due date is looming, though.  And I feel like I could shatter at any minute, and I just have to keep it together.  I’ve cried enough over the last six months, haven’t I?  I’m so over it.

But back to the compound fracture business.  (Yes, yes, I’m circling this plane so I can land it, y’all.)

I feel sequentially broken right now; it’s gross and disgusting and deep, sticking out of my skin and disfiguring.  And the only way to get my nasty compound fracture to heal is to go through more pain to get it set.  Maybe even more intense pain, but I SURE HOPE NOT, INTERNET.  Once it’s set, eventually I’ll have to do physical therapy and whatever.  That will hurt and stretch, but it will be healing, even though it sounds awful.  And eventually, it’ll be whole again.  But never the way it was, and never without a dull ache when the barometric pressure changes, to remind me of what once was.

I’m in the morphine for pain stage right now.  Maybe in a few weeks I’ll be ready to try walking on it.  But oh….not yet.  It still hurts too much.

Enough tears.

Enough hurt.

Enough infertility.

Enough everything.

Enough, already.

Sometimes, I just feel like I’m awake every day for long enough to get cage matched by a professional wrestler.  Then I go to bed, sleep for a few hours, and wake up and do it all over again.  I’m so weary of it all.  Carrying around the weight of grief is really, really exhausting.

Joey and I were talking the other day.  We were talking about The Question that people ask us a lot; the one we really hate.

“So…rough year…what do you think God is trying to teach you?”

We never know what to say.  We don’t know the answer and we’re not sure we want to yet.  But a couple of days ago, Joey said he thought maybe he knew what it was.

God’s trying to teach us that He is enough.

UGH.  What a lesson.  I don’t want to learn that.  I don’t want Him to be enough, I want babies.

See?  I haven’t learned it yet.  That puts the fear of God in me, too, because I’m like, better hurry up and learn your lesson, Jenna, before He does something else nasty to you.

That’s called having an incorrect view of God.  I know in my head that he’s not up there being the professional wrestler in the cage match I feel like I’m losing daily, but I can’t convince my heart.  I’m not sure how you fix that, either.

Somehow, I have to learn to be satisfied with God.

He is enough.

We just got the phone call that my sister is in labor.  Every other person in my family is glittering with excitement, and Joey and I feel like we just got sucker punched.

I don’t understand why she and I had to have the same due date in the first place.  I don’t understand why we couldn’t both get to have our babies.  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.

But I don’t feel like He is enough right now.  I just don’t.

I wanted to have my baby.