this post is a little heavy, but i think i finally feel ready to share. i want to clarify how beyond blessed i feel to be this little girls momma...its just been a long journey.
i know i talk a lot about how rough this pregnancy has been. it has been rough. to say the least. i have felt not well in one way or another since um, conception. nausea, head aches, giant jugs, insomnia, hot hands, hot face, depression, starvation, nausea, exhausted, migraine, short of breath, back pain, nausea. just feels like one thing after another, and sometimes mixed with another. everyday i wake up and just want to feel normal. not even great, just normal would suffice. and everyday, it is something. it has changed me from the person i was and want to be, into one i can barely stand some days. i am trying, but it is just so hard to constantly not feel good. my daydreams are now of doing, or saying, or laughing at things i used to just do without thinking. blech.
i know it is not forever. but it feels that way. and all for good reason. for one year i have been dealing with being pregnant. yes, one year. last august aaron and i found out i was pregnant. we were both so excited. everything seemed perfect. really, perfect. we were so in love. we were right in the middle of planning, well re-planning, (more on that another time) our simple wedding. we had no real extra stresses and life seemed to be so easy. we worked, we loved, we played, we really just lived. plain and simple. we celebrated this baby news over a sweet little date night and looked forward to meeting our baby. and for the first time ever, i felt how incredibly special and genuinely exciting it is to actually make a life with someone you truly love. we were on top of the world. some nausea set in, but never too terrible, mostly i was just tired. really tired. we took our first family vacation to disneyland when i was 7 weeks pregnant. we were married when i was 10 weeks. we told our parents face to face, with hugs and tears, at 11 weeks. and that following monday at 12 weeks, we lost the baby. i miscarried our baby. to say it was devastating would be a huge understatement.
although the miscarriage itself was fairly routine, it was still nothing short of awful. it was scary, fast, shocking, unexpected, and painful. really painful. inside and out. but the physical piece of loosing the baby had nothing on the mental and emotional destruction it caused. we had only been married two weeks. and then this. i fell into a funk. a deep funk. i was scared everyday. i was sad, really sad. i felt sick from the hormone overload. i cried all the time. everyday. but all of this was only at home. at work i really tried to keep my cool, even so, i am sure i was not myself. i felt so alone. i had one friend who had shared publicly she too had miscarried, and she was an old friend whom i'd hadn't spoken to in years. desperate for anyone to understand or talk to, i reached out. and she was there for me. but, i was still so terrified of the entire experience that i immediately insisted on getting on birth control. i was certain i could never risk this happening again. ever. the birth control sent my hormones into a tail spin. i felt nauseous constantly. i cried over everything. the things that always work to pull me out of a mood, didn't work. even when i was with dash, although i felt reason to be, i more just felt guilt because i was such a mess. it was a new low. i went to see a therapist as a last ditch effort to get back to a better place and it was there i was cued in that it is recommended a woman wait at least three months before taking any birth control due to exactly what it was doing to me. a hormone surge. i stopped taking the pills that day and within five days, i did feel better. not myself, but the get happy tricks were working. three months after the miscarriage i began to feel lighter. i appreciated my life again and was able to make a teeny bit of sense with what had happened. i laughed again. i lost the ten pounds i had gained. things were starting to seem ok.
then i found out at four weeks and one day, i was pregnant. this time it was different. i wasn't excited and elated to tell aaron. i wasn't automatically smiling and giddy. i was afraid. really afraid. and i hated that. shortly after came the nausea, the sickness. i spent many days just in bed. and then, the spotting, as they called it. you can imagine how any bleeding would send me into a tizzy. that is putting it mildly. and it happened three times in the first trimester. not fun. once i hit 14 weeks i swore i would let go of the past. i would let go of what was and i would jump in with both feet to what is. i would take this baby from medical to miracle. i would be brave enough to love. with my entire heart. and i did. maybe it was more like at 16 weeks, but still.
i am now in a place where i love this little girl with every ounce of my being. i have never wanted to meet someone more in my life. and not one second goes by without her crossing my mind in some way. i am so sick of being sick. and i cannot help but say so, with genuine honestly, when i am asked how i am feeling. but, after weeks of fear and questioning myself and insecurity, i understand its just rough growing this little lady.
and its ok. i'm ok. i feel ok with the fact that i do not love being pregnant this time. i feel ok with saying so. i feel that i finally understand that these feelings have nothing to do with my sweet baby girl. i feel that its ok to be sick of being sick. i feel that i still appreciate this experience with every ounce of my being. i feel that she is completely worth it. i feel that for me, this time around, pregnancy and actual baby are two different things. i feel that no one else may understand that, and if someone had said this to me when i was pregnant with dash, i'd call bull. but, i feel its ok to be honest with myself, and let my truth belong to me.
now you know. yes it is hard to deal with morning sickness, sore parts, growing, stretching, changing, for the first trimester. its really hard to stay upbeat and deal with it lingering for the second trimester. and its really, really, really hard to have been dealing with it for twelve solid months. but when all is said and done she is so worth it. and being honest in sharing is worth it. letting others who may experience this know i am here, they are not alone, is worth it. helping just one other person know they have not failed, is worth it. our family is worth it. and for me it is worth it because i will be a more complete, understanding, and compassionate version of me for having lived it.
so even though i am beyond over pregnancy, and it has been a long 12 months, i will gladly wait until november, continuing to pray everyday she doesn't come a minute before her own perfect time...
