I've been told in Health class you were forced to watch a movie about the miracle of birth. However, one of my mothers crazier rules was that we were not allowed to watch it. She wrote a note to the Health teacher to get us sent to the library during this viewing. Obviously, since Sophomore year Health class, I've watched enough R-rated movies to understand that in six short months I am in for a lot of screaming, pain and possibly pooping in front of several strangers. I'm pretty sure if I'd ever seen the Miracle of Life, the following story would just say "I never tried to have kids. They're not for me. A kid is not coming out of me…ever." Thankfully, my mother kept me in the dark so although I'm scared of birth, I don't really know what I'm in for, so this story goes in a beautifully different direction.
When trying for kids, you get used to certain level of disappointment. Month after month you see negatives and you pretend that it doesn't bother you. You continue telling yourself that age old lie that "it will happen when it's meant to be". In reality at some point it almost becomes a crippling question in the back of your mind if you were just meant to love other peoples kids and never have any of your own. You stop getting your hopes up and never get a chance to learn the emotion that comes with the words 'Pregnant 2-4 weeks'. I had a thousand words for the way it felt when you saw a negative; painful, sad, disappointing, heartbreaking… But for me, the emotion I felt when I saw 'Pregnant 2-4 weeks' I can't exactly put a finger on. It felt like a mix of excitement, relief, and shock all at once. The type of news you can't wait to share with your other half and celebrate.
In my moment of overwhelmingly positive emotion I forgot that Jim had just left for a week long trip the previous morning. Meaning that I, the girl who shares every mundane detail of my life with the man I love, had to keep a secret for six. whole. days. Well let's just say the moment that Jim saw my face on FaceTime he knew that there was something up. Although, he assumed that I was up to something such as rearranging our bedroom or hanging up some new piece of artwork in the house. Ha! The look on his face when I flipped the screen onto two positive pregnancy tests instead of something small and insignificant. Not the ideal way to tell him but in this moment we both understood that our biggest dream was coming true and our little family was beginning.
Well I was at home just trying to pick out the right prenatal vitamins and make doctors appointments, Jim was trapped in Chicago for four days thinking about the next twenty years of our child's life, the college funds we would need to pile away, and if we'd have to cancel our trip to Portland this October (the answers no. it will just be baby Simon's first trip). I think blissful ignorance fueled his thoughts of the distant future while I was worried about just making it through the first doctors appointment with good news. Good news was not what we received.
The doctors and us had come up with a guesstimation of how far along I should have been. By the calculations we should have been around 8 weeks. However, when we did our sonogram there was only a gestational sac and no fetus present. This means one of two things, we were earlier than they thought or it was what they call a blighted ovum and I would eventually miscarry on my own. The plan was to wait a week and then have a more high-powered sonogram taken at the hospital. I can say that I have never felt a week that was so long. It consisted of a lot of debbie downer thoughts and tears. Jim held it together for me while I continued to think the worst. I usually don't resort to the worst thoughts but when you think of getting a pregnancy confirmation at a doctors, you expect them to congratulate you and show you your baby, not tell you that there's something wrong and refuse to actual confirm the pregnancy.
Early the next Friday morning we found ourselves at the hospital, where I may or may not have been shaking with nervousness. Our horrible technician, who told me things were wrong with me that were totally normal according to the doctor, did nothing to help. Maybe she didn't understand why I had come to her but she faced the screen away from me the whole time she did the sonogram and never announced to me that she had found the baby until several minutes into the sonogram. Jim was sitting where he could see the screen but he wasn't giving me any kind of signal that things were going in the right direction. The moment that she did turn the screen to me and I saw that little heart beating 153 BPM, I knew that this was real, this was my little Ginger Snap (this is what we call the baby since they are fated to have red hair like us).
I think your whole opinion of yourself and life changes when you see a second heartbeat inside of you. It's not just that you have something living in you but that an act of love and dedication is what brought it about. To me, no matter what else we accomplish as a family, this is the most important thing we will do. I will take all the hours I'm up sick instead of sleeping (I get night sickness instead of morning sickness), the awful acne, getting fat, and not being able to run knowing what is coming at the end of these next six months. Sure, I am petrified of actually giving birth, gaining weight, and letting a baby anywhere near my boobs, but the adventure has just begun and it's already the best of my life.
