April 26th, 2019
I took a test, I’m 8 days late…We're pregnant. A moment of joy for most was anything but that for us.
It's been three months after we lost our son who spent three days on earth with us, it was 6 months before we could try to conceive again, on birth control for 2 months...it was next to impossible that this happened. I was 8 days late, with no symptoms, I knew there was no way we could be pregnant, but I had to take a test to make myself feel better. I took one test -two lines popped up. Nope, it's impossible. I took the second - two lines. I was by myself. I fell to the floor and started sobbing. Why is this happening to us? It is too soon to be pregnant again. My anxiety and fear turned to anger. I screamed and yelled at the top of my lungs. The emotions and thoughts at that moment were beyond overwhelming.
Dan was at work, I wanted to tell him in person. I sent him a text asking if he could come home or if I could meet him. He knew something was going on and immediately called me. I was uncontrollably sobbing. "I took a test, I’m 8 days late…We're pregnant" I said to him. As calm as he could, he said "Okay, it's going to be okay. Call the doctor." Our doctor's office knew they needed to get us in and our doctor was on vacation, they brought me in for a stat blood test. I needed to know if this was real. Dan headed up to meet me. This was all too familiar… As I drove to our doctor's office, all I could think about was the day I drove there when our life was turned upside down.
Our doctor called us from vacation. "Justina, I just spoke with my MA, you're pregnant. How did this happen?" She said. "That's what I want to know!" as I started to cry again. She did her best to calm and reassure that we will put a plan together to get through this.
This is hard to write. It's hard because pregnancy should be joyous, a blessing, amazing… It was anything but that to us, that sounds terrible, but it's true. We just lost our son 3 months ago, how can we be excited, especially when we weren't supposed to try again for 6 more months. We went into the weekend awaiting the ultrasound for Monday in shock, scared, anxious, all the feelings - not knowing what to say or how to feel.
April 29, 2019
We arrived on Monday for our first ultrasound on Baby #2. I walked in crying. I'm so thankful for the girls at our doctor's office - they care so much. They haven't seen me not crying in many visits and here we go again.
It was time to check viability. The first hurdle. Dan couldn't look at the screen and I had tears rolling down my face. A heartbeat. We have a heartbeat! We were just over 6 weeks along.
We spent time with our doctor talking about what to do. We were automatically put in the high-risk pregnancy category and being pregnant 6 months too soon heightened our percentage of having a preterm birth more so. So now what do we do? She outlined a plan - every 2-week appointments until 12 weeks, see the high-risk doctor at 10 weeks, a double cerclage around 14 weeks, weekly progesterone shots starting at 16 weeks remaining the rest of the pregnancy, and at minimum every other week to one week appointments after the cerclage. This is going to be a long road for us … emotionally and physically.
I didn't know what to think or say after the appointment. How do you grieve and fall in love at the same time? How do you move past the anxiety of all the "what ifs"? My anxiety grew minute by minute. There are so many hurdles and milestones that it's hard to stay in the moment. All of the things you don't think of during your first pregnancy or if you've never known anyone who has lost a child… I think about every single thing that could possibly happen after miscarriage. We were worried about miscarriage in our first pregnancy because the statistics are so alarming and high. After you pass that milestone, everything is fine, right? It is, until it isn't, and no one prepares you for that.
Our hearts are guarded… they're so broken. The wall is up… we've been knocked down hard. The glimmer of joy is so faint… our biggest joy has been taken from us.
