Thinking...

I've been thinking a lot lately about last year and where we've come since then. I took some time to go back over my old posts and to see where I was and what I was thinking...and there's a lot in my head right now, but I'm not sure I can put any of it into words. I keep going over it again and again and again and since it's still on my mind, I know I need to write about it, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to say.

Last year at this time was so very different. After having the two miscarriages in October and May of the previous year, we had decided to try again at the end of November/beginning of December. I was gearing up for yet another try and hoping and praying for the best. I was full of nerves and anxiety and just a huge sense of the unknown - what was around the corner? How long would we try? What would happen? It was all such an unsteady time.

Thankfully, we got pregnant quickly, but it all turned badly so fast. Those hCG levels never rose in a consistent way and the doctor I was working with was completely unhelpful - wanting us to wait over the Thanksgiving holiday for the followup to our beta blood draw. We were just entering yet another horrible period of pain and sadness and my heart was breaking on a daily basis. Getting that positive pregnancy test and the bleeding on the same day - going to the ER and taking a urine pregnancy test and being told it was my period and to go home (an expensive ten minute visit) - getting more bleeding and positive tests - hearing from my doctor that we'd just wait it out - it was all just so much to handle emotionally. And it was all just starting at this point last year.

I remember after the ectopic was diagnosed and how horrible those methotrexate treatments were; I still can remember how sick and how terrible those days were. I remember being hospitalized on massive doses of pain medication and wondering each day if I was going to have to have surgery and wondering how much of my reproductive organs I was going to lose. It all simply felt like, "this is it...there are no more tries...there isn't another chance after all of this." I lay there in the hospital pressing the button for more pain meds and crying about the child that I was never going to have the opportunity to hold.

Honestly, I don't know if we would have tried again if I hadn't switched doctors and she hadn't had so much hope. It seems almost silly now to have been so frustrated with all those daily blood draws and visits to outpatient labs for different tests. I guess after losing those three pregnancies, all of these tests just felt superfluous - like it wasn't going to happen so why were we trying so hard to find answers? I was just numb during all of it; I couldn't bring myself to be hopeful or to look forward to the answers because it just didn't seem like it would matter. I even remember when we got our first positive pregnancy test after all these tests and the MTHFR diagnosis and feeling a combination of excitement and sheer terror - what was going to happen this time?

I guess it's all just a long way of saying, we just can't be certain of the direction our lives are going to take or where we are going to end up. If you had spoken to me a year ago, I had all but given up hope. My body could not sustain a pregnancy, and I was starting to resign myself to that fact. I started to look at my daughter and think of her as "the only child." I mourned daily the future I wasn't going to have.

But we just never know what God and fate have in store for us. Even when it seems so bleak and it hurts to hope, I've learned that I just can't give up. If I had stuck with my old doctor and simply resigned myself to life as it was, if I had stopped searching and trying, I wouldn't be where I am today, and where I am today is nothing less than a miracle (pains, aches, discomfort, and boredom included). We are no more than 28 days away from one of the most miraculous moments of our life, and we wouldn't be here if we had given up hope and stopped trying. It seems so cliche and so silly, but it's good to stop and remember that we honestly don't know what is in store for us and we don't know what direction our life will go. We can't know, so we can't assume we do.

Is it profound? Not really, but it's a lesson that I need to carefully consider and remember. I'm such a planner and so resigned to whether or not something is "meant to be." Well, it's not meant to be until it's all over - and it's definitely not over. If nothing else, I hope I have learned to let go of a little bit of that need to control and plan everything and to accept that what is going to happen is ok. It may not be exactly what I want at the time I want, but it's what is going to happen. And that's not always such a bad thing, is it?