It’s hard work making another human being

Welp, I’m pregnant.  16 weeks exactly. It’s been quite the journey. And I should preface this by saying…a combination of heightened progesterone flowing through my body, tumultuous weekly changes in my body and various scary episodes in the first trimester have toppled my TMI filter.

Getting pregnant was easy. Dave and I were using the sympto-thermal method of birth control (i.e., a form of natural family planning) which is both an effective form of avoiding pregnancy AND a way to get pregnant pretty easily (by identifying your peak fertility days). It works like a charm if you are vigilant. And we were quite vigilant, in fact. We were intentional about getting pregnant and because I was never on the pill (and didn’t have residual hormones floating around), I got knocked up right away. Just a few days later, there was a little plus on my early pregnancy test. Still, this came as a bit of a surprise. I know many couples with heart wrenching stories of trying to conceive for months and months, sometimes years and years. I have a few friends who are still trying, 4 or 5 years later. So, when Dave and I decided to put a bun in the oven, I thought starting early wouldn’t hurt. Who knows how long it will take?

Welp, here we are….rapidly moving from one life stage to the next! D and I got married a year ago this October 9th, I graduated from div school in May, Dave took a ministry job and we moved to Raleigh in June and then I became great with child. We couldn’t be more excited, though I imagine the reality of child-rearing won’t settle in until I push the thing out and we are holding it in our arms. Now that my belly is swelling a bit, things seem more real, not to mention I haven’t had my period for several months. That’s a strange change.

I didn’t know quite what to expect with the firs trimester, but since my mom and sister didn’t report many symptoms with their pregnancies (and my sister, who is currently 6 months pregnant, still runs a few times a week), I imagined it would be a breeze (or at least breeze-like). I’m relatively young. I’m healthy. I have no preexisting conditions that would make conception or child-bearing difficult. I’ve been taking my prenatal vitamins religiously since I got married. And I’ve had few if any medical issues in my past. These all resulted in my naive assumption that I was immune to pregnancy complications.

Early on, about 6 weeks in, I started spotting brown (TMI alert). Spotting is generally not a big deal, somewhat typical in early pregnancy and a good sign if it’s brown (this means old blood). But after a week or so of this, I decided to make an appointment with an Ob office to figure out what was going on. Generally you don’t see the doc/midwife until about 10-12 weeks, but the Ob office I called felt like my symptoms granted a visit. The doctor did a an ultrasound, said the gestational sac look normal though it was too early to see anything else (the next thing to show up is the egg sac and fetal pole). When my spotting got heavier and redder, I went in and, again, nothing to see on the ultrasound.

The doctor ordered blood work to check HCG levels (they should double every two days in early pregnancy) and, two days later I received a call from her that “things didn’t look good.” My HCG levels rose only 55% and, according to the doctor, 53% is the cut off for any known viable pregnancy. Yikes. Well, that’s about the time that I decided holding out hope would be more destructive than staring reality directly in the face. I was deeply saddened and rather frightened, but tried my best to accept the fact that this pregnancy was nonviable (or worse case scenario, ectopic). I called my parents and my sister, I wrote a sad email my close friends both announcing my pregnancy and it’s inevitable end, and planned on getting the final verdict from the doctor a few days later.

My mom came down to NC and the three of us (D, my mom and I) headed to the Ob. My doctor was out, so another doctor read my chart and, rather than sit and discuss as is normal, he took my directly into the examining room for an ultrasound to see what we could see. We braced ourselves. But low and behold, there on the grainy US screen was a little round blob that looked like a signet ring – an egg sac with fetal pole. Needless to say, I burst into tears. Dave had said the night before that the most surprising news we could possibly encounter is that we are still going to have a baby. And, that was the news! The doctor printed off a picture and I stared at it in awe for the rest of the day. “This is what we don’t do ultrasounds this early. Babies grow at different rates.” I was shocked. I went from moving about the house gingerly, afraid my Fallopian tube could rupture at any moment (the doctor feared it may be ectopic) to pounding a milkshake with my mom after the appointment. It was a definite mental shift for sure.

Dave and I went in a week or so later and saw a bean-like baby on the ultrasound. Things seemed to be progressing normally. My spotting had died down and things were looking good. And, around this time, I decided to switch practitioners with midwives (and I was feeling a bit pissed about the way things had progressed with my previous doctor). Fast forward to 9 weeks or so and I’m making enchiladas in the kitchen, listening to a podcast, when suddenly I feel wet. I check things out and my hand is covered in blood. I had bled through my pants and, as a result,  my blood pressure went through the roof. “This is it,” I thought. This is what a miscarriage is. I wasn’t experiencing any pain but the blood was enough to freak me out. I called Dave (who was making a pastoral visit at the hospital), called my parents and my sister and then the midwife on call. She told me to put my feet up and wait it out. This is probably the most frustrating (but most understandable) advice regarding weird pregnancy symptoms. It could be nothing or it could mean miscarriage. You just have to wait and see.

I didn’t bleed any more after that one frightening experience but promptly scheduled an appointment with my midwife. She checked me out the next day. Again, I braced myself. But there on the screen was a healthy, dancing baby. “It could have been a ruptured cervical cyst.” I had never heard of this  before, nor did I find much info about it on the internet. But she told me rest assure that the bleeding wasn’t affecting the baby and this put me at ease. Ever trip to the bathroom was  a bit nerve racking after that (and still is) but I tried to remain calm. Sometimes even this (inexplicable, totally freaky bleeding) happens in normal, healthy pregnancies.

Fast forward two weeks later. I’m in Utah for my friend Rachel’s wedding. Along with an intense, 8-hour day of travel (including lifting heavy luggage into the overhead bins on the airplane – I’m an idiot), pretty much no sleep, and an intense day of walking around doing wedding tasks (I was a bridesmaid), I was pretty achy upon hitting the sake. Thee ol’ pelvis is not the same as it used to be pre-pregnancy. I woke up at 4am to pee (not an unusual occurrence), and there in the toilet was blood. My heart sank/started beating through the roof. I was one of 10 crammed into my friend Rachel’s house (Lex and Jon were sleeping at the foot of our bed) sharing one bathroom. I was far from home, far from my Ob-Gyn. I was going to be in a wedding in just a few days. And now, I’m bleeding. It’s so hard not to assume that every time you see blood, it’s a miscarriage. But I rushed back to bed and told Dave I was scared. He reminded me it had been a very busy, active day, and I wasn’t having any cramping. I tried to fall asleep. The rest of the weekend went fine. The bleeding was a one-time thing (again). I spotted a bit but took it easy. I didn’t dance much (sad) but managed to go on a little hike (beautiful) and make it home in one piece.

Now, here we are. No spotting for two weeks. Baby bump on its way. And a big sigh of relief that I’m out of the first trimester. Oye. And yet, I still find that I’m bracing myself at each appointment. What if they find something THIS time? What about THIS time? So far, God has answered our prayers and the baby continues to thrive. But at this rate, I just want to have a calm and boring pregnancy from here on out. Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. But, at the moment, I’m too freaked out to exercise (plus the midwife suggested I stop), Dave has to lift even slightly heavy things for me, we are most assuredly not having sex (see pelvic rest) and all in all I’m feeling like a frail, fat butterfly rather than the hardy, fertile mountain lioness I was hoping to embody during my pregnancy. I imagined myself out in the garden, hoeing the dirt and wiping the sweat from my brow with my huge belly shining in the sun. I imagined being super productive rather than laying in bed all day or complaining of hip pain after a short walk.

I imagined my life wouldn’t change all that much until the babe came. But, I guess, I’m getting a good early lesson in the fact that babies disrupt your life in major ways, and because you love them, desire a good and enriched life and hope that they will thrive under your care, you do whatever it takes to ensure their health and well being, even if that means sitting on your ass most of the day, or sleeping on your left side at night even if it means you’ll never fall asleep, or avoiding the cold cut sub you’ve been craving like  an addict craves crack. And eventually this will mean waking up every three hours to feed the baby from my very body, walking the baby up and down the hall as it cries inconsolably, enduring countless nights of sleeplessness and countless days of broken engagements as your baby calls the shots (at least in those first months). Perhaps I should be thankful that this lesson in life-interrupting is coming early, though to be frank, I was hoping for a few more months off before mommyhood begins. But I would not take any of it back for the world.  This little, squirming life inside me is a gift to be nurtured and brought into being, in whatever way God sees fit. And for that joyful mystery, I say thank you, Lord, thank you.