If this is your first time here – read this first.

Shock. How does one go from grief to elation in 10 seconds? Well the words, “We have a heartbeat” might get you there.

Kevin and the kids were waiting in the car. The appointment had, in my mind, been a formality. It was supposed to confirm what I thought I knew, what I thought that doctor had already told me. I was supposed to walk out to the car, silently nod my head to Kevin and slip into the front seat for the quiet ride home. That scene had frankly played itself out so many times, three to be exact,  I couldn’t picture it being another way. Well that was not to be, this time.

Back in the ultrasound room, the  doctor strode in and looked expectantly at the Tech. She smiled up at him and I practically shouted over her, “That other doctor was wrong!” One of the benefits of working in a hospital is that I get to know a lot of doctors. While I love my regular OBGYN, the doctor standing in front of me runs a close second. He is former Chief of Staff for the hospital and he is one of the nicest men I know. He had explained to me earlier this week that his wife had also experienced three miscarriages. He knew the pain in my voice and written on my face with unfortunately familiarity. When he realized the news was good he bounded across the room, gave me a hug and promptly stated, “This just made my weekend.” He had no idea how much more so that was true for me.

We walked out into the hallway and discussed what the next steps would look like for me. First though, he said something that made me chuckle, ” That other doctor was dead wrong and I couldn’t be happier that he was.” Considering the other man is his business partner, that meant a lot. I knew he genuinely was happy to experience this outcome with me. Like a good doctor should, he had reviewed my chart and knew all about what I shall refer to as “The Great Lovenox Debate of 2009.” Without hesitation he told me to start the shots, saying it wasn’t worth questioning myself if something went wrong later. I had about a month’s supply at home leftover from my pregnancy with Joshua, so I nodded in complicity. I will say that at this point, my heart spoke quietly to me, assuring me the shots would not make the difference with this pregnancy. I did not pay much attention to the tiny prodding from my soul and instead bounded to the car to share the good news with Kevin.

When he saw the smile on my face he immediately offered the inevitable “I told you so!” To know Kevin is to know that he is an eternal optimist. He doesn’t play connect the negative dots in his mind like I do, he doesn’t analyze every shred of evidence trying to decipher the correct outcome. He genuinely believes good things will happen. This is something I love about him and also something that makes me want to strangle him at times. I guess marriage is like that.  The car ride home was filled with what I will call, “tentative joy”. We both understood that I was only 6 weeks along and that most of my losses had occurred in the 10 week range, one even as late as 14 weeks. Our hearts knew that this was good news, for now.

That night I got out the Lovenox and it took about 10 minutes to get the courage to give myself the shot. Damn, I forgot how much that hurt. By the time I reached the end with Joshua, I was so used to the twice daily encounter with a sharp object,  I would have told anyone within earshot that it didn’t hurt at all. I was lying. Or at least I was just temporarily confused about the definition of pain. Or maybe when you are 9 months pregnant, pain is relative because in the near future a giant baby is going to come out of you but only after you experience hours of crushing pain. Yes, that must be it. I heard the tiny voice again when I was disposing of the needle, the one that told me the shots were not necessary. I didn’t listen.

My doctor came back from vacation and promptly began “clandestine ultrasound sessions.” She didn’t want me to be charged for the “quick peeks” as she called them, so we would meet after hours and she would fumble around with the machine until we got a clear picture of my little bean. FYI -most doctors have no idea how to use those machines and it is kind of funny to watch them try to do it because they aren’t used to not knowing how to do something. After a few clandestine meetings, I found myself calming down a bit about the outcome of the pregnancy. It helped that I was feeling so completely awfull.

I had been sick with all but my first pregnancy, the one that ended at 14 weeks. I was more sick with my successful pregnancies than the ones that ended in miscarriage, however, even with Isaac and Joshua I was not so sick that I couldn’t function. This pregnancy was proving to be a difficult one. I could barely make it through the day and by 6:30 each evening I was on the bed moaning in discomfort. I didn’t do much throwing up, but I spent roughly 16 hours a day feeling like I was going to at any moment. In some ways, this nausea comforted my heart about the outcome of the pregnancy. However, once you have lost babies the only thing that really helps is hearing that little heartbeat on a regular basis or feeling the baby move around you like a glorious little silverfish swimming in your belly.

At my 10 week “quick peek” with my doctor  I found myself almost as nervous as I was during my very first ultrasound.  This had been the stage where I had gazed one time too many at the  little gummy bear shape of my baby and failed to see a beating heart. The anticipation and near consuming negativity were beating like tandem drums in my head. I was far enough along that my waist was starting to thicken and I had very nearly settled on the reality that this pregnancy might actually produce, dare I say it, a baby. When she loaded my bloated tummy with warm gel she was chatting about something inane, so much less on the line in the next 30 seconds for her than for me. The first glance stopped my heart, there was the “gummy bear” but I couldn’t see the heartbeat, I physically felt her suck in her breathe, preparing for the ugly part of her job.

Just then, little Gummy waved.

Here is what he/she looked like:

This ultrasound calmed my anxious heart in ways words cannot express. I left the appointment and headed home for the day, feeling much more assured things were on the right track. The next day I was off to Target to get my Lovenox prescription filled. For those of you who have never had to deal with Lovenox, let me tell you it is not something that insurance companies like. Before insurance the drug costs about $1100 a month. My last insurance was amazing and after convincing them that I in fact needed it, all I paid was a $20 co-pay. This is what I was expecting this time.

When the clerk smiled and said “that will be $238.60″ I almost fell over, this was for a 1 month supply!  Since we moved last year, things have been really tight financially. A couple of years ago I wouldn’t have blinked at that amount but on this day, my jaw dropped open and my mind went into full panic mode. I told the clerk that I needed to think about it and I would come back.

I stumbled out of the store, telling myself that I didn’t know what to do but I did.

Part 3 tomorrow!

I promised there was more to the story and when it comes to babies…there always is.

Let me preface this by saying, I am very planned person. I like planning, I THRIVE on planning. This pregnancy was, *gasp*, unplanned. Yes, I know how getting pregnant happens (insert stupid question from male colleagues here). However, I have never gotten pregnant without some “trying” and much “planning.” The day I found out, Joshua’s 2nd birthday, I was in total shock. I had not been feeling well and I was really, uncharacteristically grumpy. I wondered what was going on and decided I should take a test just to be sure. When the two lines popped up immediately I just sat there, in amazement.

We had talked a lot about whether we were up for adding a third child to our family. We both love babies, however, by now we had begun to realize that we could “love babies” without having another one of our own. Neither of our hearts were settled on this subject and it was a source of constant discussion. We thought if we did have another we would wait until next year to even start trying, maybe. As it goes with most good stories, our plans were not to be. There I was on March 8, 2009 standing in the bathroom looking at a positive pregnancy test.

My history with pregnancy is storied and complex. I have now been pregnant 6 times with 2 positive outcomes thus far. I came to believe that pregnancy was not the same as “having a baby.” This is a reality that a lot of recurrent miscarriage sufferers experience.  A positive test is just that, a positive test. You don’t dare utter the words, “we are having a baby.” So was the case with the beginning of this pregnancy. I told Kevin about the test and watched his jaw drop in shock. I don’t think he spoke for quite some time. We both retreated into the space of our own minds to think about what this positive test might mean for our family.

As those of you with children know, there isn’t a whole lot of time for the self-indulgent action of “contemplative thought.” There are lunches to make, bikes to ride and shoes to tie. Period. So a few weeks went by and I was shockingly still pregnant. I met with the perinatologist to discuss when to start taking lovenox shots. For those of you who don’t know my history, I have a genetic mutation (referred to as MTHFR) that causes clotting issues in general but more specifically in the hyper-coagulative state of pregnancy. The good doctors I saw with my miscarriages (and before I had Joshua) thought this might be the cause of my miscarriages. They put me on twice a day Lovenox injections, baby aspirin and a kitchen sink full of folic acid/b6/b12 vitamins. Joshua was born healthy so their treatment plan was deemed successful. The Stanford doctor I saw with this pregnancy refuted the claim that MTHFR was causing my miscarriages (he did more tests) and explained to me that it was just a coincidence that my pregnancy with Joshua was successful.  He said women suffering multiple miscarriages were often being treated with this regimen but that it was “over doing it.” At first I didn’t believe him, I was determined to start the shots anyway. I spoke with my regular OBGYN and she said she would prescribe them as a “precaution.” We agreed that we would wait until there was an established heartbeat (via sonogram) and then start the treatment.

A week later we returned home from a day trip and I ran in the house to use the bathroom.  There it was. The blood I had been half expecting from the beginning. As much as I wasn’t sure I wanted a third child, I was completely sure I didn’t want to have a fourth miscarriage. I left the bathroom, told Kevin what I believed was happening and went to bed for the next 14 hours. The next day the bleeding had subsided. There was however some ominous cramping that I couldn’t shake and I was starting to understand how this was going to end. It has been a tough year around here and it only seemed fitting that this pregnancy would end this way.

The following day I had an ultrasound. Holding my breath in the dark room I was prepared for a what I saw, a gestational sac and a fetal pole but no heartbeat. I was almost 6 weeks along and it seemed as though there should be a heartbeat by now.  The doctor, not my regular one, said he was pretty sure this pregnancy wasn’t going to progress. In fact, he said he was 90% sure. I shook my head in agreement, this is what I have come to expect with early pregnancy. My heart hurt but the pain was familiar. He requested that I do HCG testing (tests the level of pregnancy hormone) that day and again on Wednesday, if the numbers went up he would do another ultrasound that Friday.

I left with my blood test order in hand, my heart in my throat. I made it to the car and then broke down crying. More than anything, I just didn’t want to go through this process again. My body doesn’t like to miscarry “naturally” and instead I end up having to have an outpatient proceedure (d&c) done that is both painful and heartbreaking. I went to the lab and got my bloodwork done and went home. I was in a constant discussion with God, begging for His mercy for this baby and conceeding that if it really was over that I just wanted to avoid a d&c.

Three days later, a different doctor called me back ( my doctor was on vacation) and told me that the numbers had, in fact, almost doubled. He wanted to do another ultrasound the next day. I was in shock, again. It was becoming a pattern with this pregnancy. My heart and mind had already settled on the fact that I was miscarrying. My expectations, confirmed by the “90% chance this pregnancy won’t progress” statement by a medical professional, were understandably concluded on the negative outcome. Once again I found myself in the dark ultrasound room, heart pounding and this time, eyes closed. The tech looked a me and said, “didn’t I see you Monday?” I nodded yes and she said “I don’t expect to see much more today, even if things are good, it has only been four days.” Nice, now I am thinking, “why am I here again?” At this point, I just wanted this all to be over. Time to move on, my heart whispered quietly. That is until I heard the words, “Well look at that, we have a heartbeat!”

Part 2 of this saga continues tomorrow….

 On March 13, 2004 at 9:02 p.m. Isaac Thomas Stone came into this world. His birth was magnificent, if only for the fact that he weighed 9lbs! I was in labor for 26 hours; I had two epidurals, neither worked. After pushing for more than 2 hours, they used a vacuum to assist in delivery. It was traumatic for me but as of today, 4 years later, I can barely remember the pain. All I remember was seeing him for the first time and thinking that I would never be the same again. And I wasn’t.

My pregnancy with Isaac was fairly uneventful. Life was very difficult at the time I was pregnant, as we lost Kevin’s mom to a battle with cancer when I was about 3 months pregnant. It was very emotionally tough the 6 months between D’Lynne’s death and Isaac’s birth. However, his birth brought healing and comfort to a family in need. Isaac will always remind me that God is a Healer.

Isaac got his name from the Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was 90 when God told Abraham they would bear a child. Sarah laughed at God. So, a year later when their baby was born, they named him Isaac, which means laughter. Even in grief, our household is full of laughter and I thought it was appropriate for our first child to be representative of the joy that exists between Kevin and me.

Isaac was a colicky baby, allergic to milk at first. He started out as pretty difficult but by 8 weeks old he was sleeping through the night and giving me very little grief. He crawled at 6 months, walked at 10 months and was pretty much speaking sentences by 18 months. He was and still is an over-achieving typical first child. He has a pretty serious personality and he really likes to understand the world around him and how it works. When he was little, he always had a furrow in his brow. We called him Walter because he looked like a grumpy old man.

Isaac loves music and movies. He will memorize the songs to movies and sing them all around the house. These past few months he has been learning his letter and is fascinated with how things are spelled. I suspect that he will be reading some beginner books in the next year. He derives so much joy from learning. You can see the satisfaction in his eyes when he grasps a new concept. It is contagious.

Isaac is also famous around our house for being precocious and saying very adult things at opportune times. The minute we laugh, he gets this mischievous look on his face and starts thinking of what else he can say to astound us. When he does this, it reminds me of myself as a child and I smile on the inside as I see a part of myself in my firstborn child.