Darkness Before the Dawn

Well, I thought I'd take this time to remember. To count my blessings and reflect on where we were a year ago! (Please bear with me as this will inevitably be a long reflective post - personal therapy made public!)Last year was a funny one - living with my Mom and completely renovating her house. Needless to say we felt very blessed to have a permanent set of Gram-hands always ready to care for Karys! And living on the Sunshine Coast wasnt bad either! But in the midst of all the busy-ness, all the fix-ups and tear-downs and visiting, we were attempting to get pregnant. And, simply put, we never knew when the right time was, especially with my cycle! So knowing our history and wanting our children close together, we thought we'd start pretty early trying for #2. By the time we got to Sechelt (Feb'07) we had already had 10 months of UNsuccess! Oh how those months dragged on, and oh how I hate to make something that is supposed to be enjoyable so regimental! It gets so discouraging, month after month having that dear "Aunt Flow" pay you a visit reminding you of your supposed fertility only to show herself again the next month. So, imagine my utter surprise when I decided to take another pregnancy test a little while after we got to my mom's place - with a faint glimmer of hope because I was (by whatever skewed calculations I used) a few days late! I know - a few days is nothing, but a girl can dream right. I wasn't going to tell Jim about taking the test though because he had enough on his plate to deal with, let alone anticipating the state of his wife after another failed test! Off I went to the bathroom, did my duty and sat...waiting...never to look before the proposed 3 minute time limit for fear of jinxing the whole thing! Time was up and because I wasn't telling Jim about this test, I had to be the deed-doer! I HATE flipping that test over to see the results! So...picked it up and...what??? Could it be??? Could there actually be a faint second line on that stick???? Oh! My! Goodness! "I think that's a second line!? Is it? Man - I think we did it!" Talking to yourself - never a good sign! But I was so shocked! So there I sat, alone on the porceline tub with a goofy grin on my face, giddy with the glee of another being forming itself inside me...maybe! Because I wasn't sure whether it was a second line, I waited for a few years...I mean days, to take the second test, and this time it was there! That second line on the stick sat there and stared me straight in the face! Ha! Finally! We've did it and we're done! Now that this is happening we'll never have to try again!

Now - what to do with this information! I knew I needed to tell Jim, but when! As fate would have it, Valentine's Day was only a few days away! What a perfect gift! What an awesome wife I was going to be! Give him the gift we've been waiting ten moths for! And he'd never expect a thing! So the day came, and I could hardly wait! We went out for dinner and I had played it up to make it look like I hadn't gotten him anything! He gave me my gift and we shared a kiss and as we were waiting for the bill to come I did it! I passed him the (clean) pregnancy test under the table! You should have seen the look on his face! "What the heck is she trying to give me under the table?!" I'm sure it would have taken him a while to figure it out, but the mile long grin on my face helped him realize! There we sat! Giddy as two school kids! Already starting to plan for what we'd do with two and how Karys would respond and when we'd tell people!

Days passed and we kept our little secret, sharing winks across the room, feeling so sneaky keeping our precious one a secret! But it was right after telling Jim that this feeling came over me! As I lay there one night in bed, I thought "something's wrong." I told him about this feeling right away, but he just told me to chalk it up to jitters about this pregnancy because it had taken so long! I tried, but my instincts kept telling me "something's wrong." One night when I told Jim of my feelings again, he ask what I meant, and the only way I could describe it was I just didn't feel pregnant. His response was "well you shouldn't. It's only been a few weeks!" Okay Mr.Rational, I'll play your game for a while, but I still don't feel right! And then it started! After about a week of giddy secret keeping, planning for the future of this precious one inside me, the spotting started! PANIC! I just started to panic! I knew I shouldn't have done that run, I am so selfish, I should have taken it easy! All the mental reprimanding I could muster I took out on myself in a matter of minutes! Telling Jim was so hard, but he took it in stride and just suggested to make a doctors appointment! Okay, I'll do it. Maybe it is nothing. Tons of women spot during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester! Think positive! Well, I did and it didn't work! The spotting turned from old to new, and it went from light to heavy and I saw the entire future of my baby falling away! I was a basket case! Crying all day long, taking out my anger on God and Jim. When he'd try to comfort me and tell me it would all be alright I'd just tell him to leave me alone! How were things going to be alright when I was losing my baby! All of a sudden it became my mission to save her! I went to the doctors and he made me an ultrasound appointment and everything was going to be okay! Positive thinking is the key right?? Well, the screen proved to be further proof: they couldn't find a heart-beat, but assured me that if I came back in a week they'd find it...if she lasted that long! But not to worry! RIGHT! So there I went, all by myself to be the bearer of bad news...again! No...stay positive...you saw it on the screen...you can will it to be okay! So there I laid...in bed...flat on my back scared to do anything! I was going to make this baby better because God surely wasn't doing anything! Man was I angry! And then...heavy turned into heavier and I started cramping and cramping turned to contactions!! Despite my year-long vigil of prayer that I would never have to go thru a miscarriage, I knew exactly what was happening. That night, only mere hours after seeing my baby on the screen in the hospital, I lost her! And with that...temporarily lost all sanity! How could I! How could all my attempts have failed and my baby be gone?! What a horrible mother I was! And...looking back, how sorry I am now to have put my dear husband and mother thru my momentary laps of sanity! I was a mess!

So...after a midnight trip to emergency they confirmed the obvious and told me that "there was nothing you could have done, many embryos simply don't make it." But this wasn't "an embryo"!! This was my baby, and she was there this afternoon, and now she's not! Don't you understand!!!!!!! I saw her!!! And I guess that was the solace I had to cling to...I saw her! I got a glimpse of my dear one this side of heaven! Thank you Jesus for that glimpse! Now that's not to say that I didn't have my share of anger toward God for taking her home to be with Him instead of letting me raise her first. Looking back, seeing her on the screen was what made it so hard to lose her, but was also what made me so thankful. I got that rare opportunity to see our baby before she left us to go to a better place! And although there were many tears shed on both our parts, Jim and I are so thankfull for our darling #2! We have a baby waiting for us in Heaven! A child we were blessed with for a few weeks. She is ours, we've never had to discipline, never had to say "no," never had to hear her cry! That is the peace which got me through! That and Mr. Rational (Jim) reminding me of God's perfect timing and pleasing plan for my life! Although I viewed her due date as fate trying to reclaim October as a month to enjoy (instead of dread because it was the month my Dad died), it also ended up being the month we had to pack up and move a 30 acre farm. And even I knew that having a new-born in the midst of moving would have been challenging to say the least! So, we mourned, we thanked God for our mutual support, we named her Eden, and we got a tree! We got a beautiful magnolia tree and planted it in memory of her...Eden! And when it blooms we are reminded of her and the hope of meeting her one day! Until then, we enjoy the blossoms! And, of course, our darling #3 that we were blessed with conceiving only a month after! Thus the dawn had arrived!

Thank you Jesus for fulfilled promises and for forgiveness in times of doubt!