Try and Try Again...

October

 

I feel like those days and weeks before we could start trying took forever, this was most likely due to the fact that I was still wallowing. It was easier at work because I had started a new job, the people there just knew that I was pregnant when I was offered the job, and when I started, I wasn't anymore. It was easy because hardly any questions were asked. No one knew me well enough to say much about it. I was grateful for that little escape. Then it was time to try again... I remember my mother trying to reassure me by saying "Don't worry, you'll get pregnant again." My response was, "I'm not worried about getting pregnant... I'm worried about STAYING pregant." Oh how silly that sounds now after all we have been through, but we had no idea. So we began to try again, we were both ready. We wanted to be pregnant ASAP!! So we told ourselves, it happened so quickly the first time, it will happen like that again. (The first time around we discussed trying to have a baby in may, started trying in june and got pregnant in july, finally getting that positive UPT August 5th). I remember all the little kids trick or treating at our house that month, thinking... that will be us soon.

 

November



I started my next cycle the beginning of November. Strike 1. I was tracking my cycles the same as we began, by taking my basal body temperatures and charting it on an app called fertility friend (an excellent free resource if you are trying to conceive). I wasn't devastated that we weren't pregnant that first cycle. I knew my body needed time to heal. My mind needed time to heal as well. My heart was mending. I prayed a lot, probably not like I should have, "God, please let us get pregnant... please give us a baby... please let us be parents." Lots of begging going on in that house. So we would try again.

I didn't spend much time with my brother and his wife in those days. It was hard. It was hard seeing her belly grow... while mine stayed flat and lifeless. Sometimes I would do the old pillow under the shirt trick when I was home alone to see what I would look like too. I missed my baby terribly. If only I could have my baby back... I don't know what I would have done if they weren't as sensitive towards me as they were. My sister in law's name means "full of grace"... and that's what she is. She is full of grace towards every person she meets. At this time, she was particularly graceful to me. If she was ever offended about not seeing us as often, she never showed it. She checked on me occasionally, carefully as most people did... not knowing what to say... but she was SO loving towards me. She was so careful with her words and actions when I was around her... never rubbing her pregnancy in my face, not even unintentionally. That gesture helped me so much. I prayed for her every day. Although it hurt to see her, I loved her and that baby fiercely. I prayed that they would never have to experience what we did. Unfortunately, they would get a taste of what it was like... she had an episode of bleeding while on a trip with my brother... who immediately called me and made my heart stop... but her experience was not like mine... Praise the Lord. It was brief. And the baby was perfect.

A few weeks later, at the end of November... It dawned on me how far along she was. It was time to fulfill a promise that I had with my brother. When they found out they were pregnant as well as us, I made him promise to let me be the one to tell him the sex of the baby. I asked them if they still wanted me to do that and they left it up to me. I did. I knew it would be hard for me, but I wanted to do that for them. I wanted to show them how much I loved them and their baby. So, I did what I would have to do many times in those next few months... I disconnected myself as much as I could, I was the sonographer and she was the patient. They came to my office after I finished up that day's workload... and I scanned her. Showed her every part of him. It was a boy. My brother would have a son. A perfect beautiful son. I searched and searched making sure there was NO bad news, and there wasn't. I was so grateful. They were thrilled. I was thrilled for them. I cried all the way home. I cried tears of joy for their happiness... tears of grief for our baby in heaven wondering if it was a boy or girl... tears of loss... tears of emptiness. Lots and lots of tears. But I don't regret one second of it. I cherish the fact that I got to do that for them, that they honored me by letting me do that, for being the very first person to know, I would have a nephew.

 

December

Still no baby. I started my next cycle on the 1st of December. We would try again. Christmas came and went... I wanted to be pregnant. That's all I wanted for Christmas. I wanted a baby. I wanted my baby. I prayed. I begged God. It didn't happen. I started my next cycle before the first of the year.

 

January

We tried again. Still no baby. And my cycles were getting shorter. Though I knew a lot anatomically about ovulation and pregancy and such... there were signs that I should have been seeing... and that was one of them... my cycles were getting shorter. And this "stupid app wasn't working". At least that's what I told my best friend. "It's not showing when I ovulate"... there MUST be something wrong with it. Right? So I started my cycle early. I was growing irritated with the constant disappointment. I felt like a failure as a woman and as a wife. But we would try again.

February

Time to take some time for us... we planned a trip to Nashville... We would celebrate valentine's day and our first anniversary (which was in March) on this trip... we would shop and spend time away and have the most extravagant dinner of our entire life. We spent a fortune on dinner... it was amazing... we went to the Stockyard in Nashville. We bought chocolate covered strawberries on our shopping trip and had champagne delivered to our room... because if anything will get you pregnant it's a romantic mini vacation right?! We decided to go so all out because we "knew" it would be our last valentine's and anniversary alone. By the next year, we would be parents. Or so we thought. I was so focused on getting pregnant I was forgetting to do the most essential thing... I wasn't fully trusting God. Only I didn't realize it at the time. 3 days after our anniversary I started my next cycle... still no baby. And more tears.