Do You Want To Know A Secret?

I've been keeping a secret for many weeks now. But I think I finally have the courage to tell. John and I are pregnant. I'm over 20 weeks along now and I guess it's time to spill the beans.

Obviously, people in my in-person world know since I've been showing for a long time. But I have been reluctant to write anything about it because of everything we went through last year and what we've been through up to this point. It's been a tough road already. But I can't live my life waiting for something to happen and I deserve some happiness. I am hoping and praying that everything will be all right and I feel ready to talk about it.

We found out we were pregnant the day before the year anniversary of losing our baby. It was surreal. I had been taking tests all week and they were all negative. I wasn't going to take another one but since I had it, I might as well take it. It was faintly positive, which meant I needed to go buy 8 more tests. Which I took half when I got home (all positive) and half the next day (all positive). This was all on a Friday, so I didn't go to the doctor for a blood test until Monday. We had a nice family weekend and I went into the doctor's office first thing on Monday to have blood drawn.

The results came back in a couple of days and my hormone levels were high, which was a good sign. Then that Saturday we left for the beach. The vacation was fun, and I had a sonogram set up for the Tuesday after we got back. My doctor wanted to start monitoring me regularly because of my history.

Well, that Tuesday came and I had the sonogram. We saw the heartbeat and I was crying and it was wonderful. Then the technician saw something strange and was poking around. That something strange turned out to be another heartbeat...another baby. We're having twins. I was floored and in all honesty, here I am 3 months later and I still don't believe it half the time.

I was alone at the appointment since John had a meeting. But I drove right over to his office to tell him. He met me in the parking lot and here is a summary of our conversation:

I show him the sonogram pictures.
Me: Do you notice anything different than what we're used to seeing?
Him: No, should I?
Me: Keep looking.
Him: I don't see anything.
Me: John, we're having twins.
Him: You're shitting me.

And that pretty much sums it up. After a lot of exhaling and tears, we hugged and he had to get back to work. I called my parents and told them. They were shocked of course. In fact, I could hear my dad interjecting a "Holy shit" every now and then.

Needless to say, the past 20 weeks have been exciting, overwhelming, terrifying and worrisome. I had my cerclage surgery back in September and thankfully that all went well. I have a mack daddy cerclage. It's a permanent cerclage (most people get a temporary one that is removed before delivery). This is a crazy stitch that doesn't get removed (I have to have a c-section). The surgery was an insane 2-hour procedure and even though I was numb I was awake the entire time. I will not get into the actual experience of the surgery as it was quite awful. Thankfully the anesthesiologist talked to me the entire time or I would have been crying throughout the surgery. Recovery was tough on me and it was very painful. But my wonderful doctor is confident it was successful and after almost 2 months, it looks great. But we've still had our share of scary moments, including a trip to the emergency room a few weeks ago.

I won't get into tremendous detail, but I was having very similar symptoms to what I had when we lost the baby last year. Thankfully, all is all right and the babies are perfectly fine. I have what is called a subchorionic hemorrhage. It's common and I've had a couple throughout the pregnancy. But this one was dangerously close to one of the placentas and it was causing a lot of bleeding and cramping. So....I've been on bed rest since then (I'm in my 4th week of bed rest now). And thankfully it's working because it seems as though the bleed is either too small to see or it's gone. YAY!

So, I am still terrified that something will happen to prevent me from bringing home my babies. But I don't know if that will go away until I actually bring them home. All I can do is think positively, continue to pray and take care of myself. And that's what I'm doing. I feel like all of this has to be meant to be. To find out we're pregnant the day before the anniversary? And then to find out it's two? It's all too much to be a coincidence. I have to believe it's happening this time and everything we went through is behind us.

Pictures of You

I haven't written about this because writing it would mean that it actually happened.

On July 24th, we lost our baby.

I had been having bad abdominal pains all week. We had gone into the OB's office, had a sonogram, everything looked fine. The baby was perfect. But these pains just wouldn't stop.

Thursday evening they got really bad. And then I started bleeding. I knew it was not good. I went to the satellite ER that's near our house. John got one of our neighbors to come and stay with Keller and he joined me. We were there for a couple of hours. They did another sonogram and saw that the baby was in the birth canal and the placenta started to tear. I was in labor. The pain was unimaginable. I had multiple doses of morphine and dilaudid and it did nothing. It was awful.

They transferred me to Shady Grove Hospital. We delivered our baby in the early hours of Friday, July 24th. It was the single worst day of my life.

The last two months have been the hardest to get through. I have never experienced a hurt so bad before. I have never felt so empty and alone. We have had to try to be "normal" for Keller. He's definitely seen us upset and we've told him what happened. He understands to a certain degree, about as much as a 4-year old can understand.

I left my job. I couldn't possibly deal with this while working there. For the first time in my life I don't really give a damn about anything other than being true to my feelings and taking care of myself and my family. I just couldn't do that while working there. I left August 14th and haven't regretted it a single day. I working from home now, doing the marketing and promotion for Fleet Feet Sports, Gaithersburg. I've worked with them since 2006, so I feel good coming back full-time. And so far it's been good.

I can't really put into words how terrible this has been for us. Losing our child has been the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to us. We were almost halfway through the pregnancy. We made it through the cerclage surgery. We thought we were out of the woods. We thought we would be welcoming a new baby this winter.

We found out we had a boy. A little boy. Keller had a brother. My heart aches for what he has lost. I picture in my head what the two of them would have been like together. What trouble and fun they would have, what we all would have had. And now there will always be someone missing from our family.

We are doing the best we can. We take it day by day and some days are far better than others. I feel like I'm moving through life extremely slowly. I feel like I'm watching other people go on with their lives and I'm just sort of stuck here. Things go on, obviously, but in my heart, I'm stuck. I know I won't ever "get over" this and anyone that thinks you get over losing your child, born or not, is sadly mistaken. Just because we can have a conversation and perhaps laugh and smile, doesn't mean we're "better" and "over it." It means we are all right on the surface but deep down we're broken and trying to heal. There will always be a scar on my heart and this is now part of who I am. I am not the same person I was when I found out I was pregnant. I'm different, sadder, and a piece of me has died.

I'm writing this for a number of reasons. It helps me feel slightly lighter getting some of the emotion out. I leave pieces of my sadness everywhere. And that takes some of the weight off of me. I'm writing it so people will understand what a loss like this does to people. While everyone is different and how they grieve is different, losing a child like this is a multi-dimensional thing. It's different than other forms of grief and loss. It just is. And the term "miscarriage" just doesn't cover all the physical and emotional pain that comes with it. Miscarriage is an ugly word.

Lastly, I'm writing this to help other people going through this understand that they're not alone. While having friends and family supporting me has been extremely helpful, knowing other people going through this at the same time has also been helpful. Knowing that I can be sad and not explain why is more helpful than you would think.

Take care.

Sweet Child of Mine

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything here. Well, there has been quite a lot going on but nothing I could really talk about because we felt it would be best to wait.

I'm pregnant :)

Yuppers, that's right. Baby #2 is on the way. And it has been super hard not talking about it for the last 3 months (I'm 3 months along now). We had a lot of difficulties with Keller with premature labor and 3 months of bed rest and we have already started having some issues with this one as well. So, we felt we wouldn't announce it to the world until we at least got out of the first trimester. There it is.

We're not completely out of the woods. I have to have surgery in a couple of weeks where they literally sew things up (internally, of course) to prevent the premature labor thing. Sorry to those that feel this is too much information. But it is what it is. It's called a cerclage in case you want to learn about it. It is pretty routine, though there are risks involved. Needless to say, I'm worried. Which is why we haven't told Keller yet. Though we think he probably already has an idea since my ever-expanding middle is quite noticeable.

The surgery is July 8th and I'll be on bed rest for the week afterward. Hopefully it will be the only week of the pregnancy, though we shouldn't get our hopes up.

We've already had like 7 sonograms, so I'm pretty familiar with this baby already. I had one today and it's looking so much like a baby now. It's weird because it's only just over 2 inches long, and it looks like a baby. It was stretching it's little legs out and rubbing its face with a little hand. It's getting in shape to start its marathon career. Or to at least keep up with Keller.

Keller, our boy wonder, has started in a new classroom last week. It's the preK room and he's doing well. Granted, it's only been a week, but he's gotten less reluctant each day. Today he even walked in there excitedly. Good sign! He continues to amaze us with the things he says and does. He spelled 'butterfly' on the way to swim lessons yesterday. We're hoping next year he can help us with our taxes.

I promise to post more frequently now that I'm allowed to talk about what's going on. You know I like to talk. A lot. So imagine how hard it's been for me to be silent. It's been torture, quite frankly. Be prepared for me to make up for lost time. :) And look out for next week when I'm on bed rest and have lots of time to pass...

Welcome to the Jungle

I have come to the conclusion that all you have to do to find interesting things in the world is leave the house.

I'll start with last night. I got my haircut at yet another new studio. And the woman that cut my hair was very nice and I think I'll go back to her. But she was really short and when she was styling the top of my head, she couldn't reach it. Even with the chair all the way down. So, I had to slide down in the chair. I was basically falling off the chair. It was pretty amusing.

Then this morning I was out on my run with Connie. Because we essentially live in the same general neighborhood, we kind of run to each other and then run a route together. Before I met her, I was running along and this bunny was on the sidewalk. It didn't flee as bunnies normally do, but it was hopping along next to me for a little bit. I've never had a bunny as a running partner before.

On a side note, the weather was gorgeous this morning. It's days like this that make running wonderful. I think that, if you're not a runner, go for a little run on a cool morning like this and you'll be converted to a runner in an instant.

Anyway, once Connie and I met, we were running along and two deer came out of no where and were running straight at us. It scared the crap out of me. I jumped into Connie and grabbed her arm and screamed a little. I can't help it if I'm easily scared. My coworker scared me the other day because I was in the zone and she started asking me a question and it totally freaked me out. But that's another story.

The deer incident was about a mile into our run. So, we continued on and turned around after another mile. Then, as we approached the area where we saw the deer, we were at about 3 miles, so this was about 15-20 minutes later from when we saw the deer. Well, there they were again. Running full speed across the street. What the hell? This neighborhood has some crazy ass deer tearing through it.

After Connie and I parted ways, I was on my way back and my bunny friend was still hanging out where I saw him the first time. Do things like this normally happen? Ususally when I see some creature out in the woods or something they scurry off and I never see them again. But two incidents of animals sticking around? That's just strange.

Then, I get to the parking garage I park in near my office and I'm walking to the stairs and this poor very pregnant woman is also walking to the stairs. As I get closer to her, I hear her moaning and I see she's holding her belly. I mean, she looked like she was having 5 babies. I looked at her sympathetically and said something along the lines of 'poor thing' and all she said was "8 more weeks." She already looked like she was going to pop. Poor thing indeed.

So all of this happened to me by 7:30 AM. Pretty crazy, huh?

Live by the code

I am a closet Beverly Hills, 90210 fan. Actually, I'm not really in the closet because most of my friends and family know. It's my most guilty pleasure.

I don't know what it is about the show that I love so much. When it first came out, I watched religiously. I was the same age as they were on the show. Well, I was the same age as the characters, the actors were all old. I guess because it was about high school and hi jinks, it struck a chord. And then, as the years went on, the story lines got pretty bad. Don't get me wrong, I still watched. But it was more like to see how insane it could get. And once Brenda left, it just wasn't the same. I was one of the few that actually liked Brenda. And I hated Donna Martin. I certainly didn't want to see her graduate. When I was in college, we all got together in someones room to watch every Wednesday night. It was awesome. I still remember when we watched Dylan's wife of all of 2 days get shot by her own father's hit men! Oh, the irony. Those bullets were meant for Dylan.

That was pretty much when I stopped watching. Not because Dylan left the show, I was just over it. If you can believe it. I'd see it every now and then. I think it was on before Party of Five. Yes, I loved that show too. Poor Bailey. Anyway, fast forward 10 years, I discover that 90210 is on SoapNet. This is while I'm pregnant with Keller and on bedrest for 12 weeks. I rediscovered my love for 90210. It was on twice a day and it became the highlight of my day. Before you judge, imagine spending everyday of your life in bed hoping whatever movement you do make doesn't throw you into premature labor and jeopardize the health of you and your baby. You'd take what you could get too. Anyway, they started at the beginning and ran all the way through to the end. It was like being reunited with an old friend. When my parents visited, we'd all sit on the bed together and watch, because there was no way I was missing it (the TV in the bedroom doesn't have TiVo). And, as much as they deny it, they love 90210 too. How can you not?

So, now, three years later, I am happy to say that I'm still a faithful viewer. I can't watch everyday, unfortunately. Stupid life obligations! I TiVo it and watch it when I can. And I know I'm not the only one with the 90210 love because they're making a new one! Oh, it's going to stink, but I'm going to watch. Here's a preview. I think there will be a couple of old cast members popping in here and there, too. I can't wait!

You know you're humming the theme song now.