Looking Back

So, I know what you're all thinking. This blog started out with such promise, and here it is left unupdated and unloved for more than two weeks! I know everyone says this, but we have been busy! I just finished up a huge project for work, Jim just survived the flu (after having a flu shot) and I have been dealing with a little lupus flare. I am now happy to say that everyone in our house is healthy, knock on wood! We have had a great weekend, too. We went to a fun little sandwich shop in our 'hood Friday night, and then on Saturday morning, we walked in the Alliance for Lupus Research's Walk to raise money and awareness for lupus research. This is the third year in a row I have taken part, and it gets better every year. This year, the Walk raised more than $76,000!

This year was a little sentimental to me because the day before last year's Walk, I found out I was pregnant with the baby who is now snoring in her crib in the next room. I remember being terrified, especially since we had lost a baby just three months earlier. I also remember feeling like I had the best secret ever. As I walked the three mile course, it was fun to know that my baby was already walking with me, even if she was the size of a popcorn kernel in my belly. There was a little person growing inside of me who was desperately wanted and already loved. From the start, I had a good feeling about the pregnancy, but I had also had no clue what was about to happen over the next nine months. It was lovely to be so optimistic.

At Walk time last year, I was working full-time at a hectic, frenzied pace. I was not really happy in my job, but I was working at a place that I believed in, so I overlooked the things I didn't like so that I could still get that warm and fuzzy feeling every morning when I went to work. I never really saw my husband, except for when we both collapsed into bed every night. We were so consumed with grieving over our loss that we never really woke up everyday. It was sad and hard and mostly awful. It was an early loss, but it still sucked, and it didn't help that people kept saying, "Oh, but at least it happened early." I understood what they meant, but I didn't feel that way. I have often said that when you lose a baby so early in a pregnancy (I was 9-ish weeks), that it's hard to know what you're grieving for. I think I hit the nail on the head, for me at least, when I said that I was mourning the loss of potential. We lost what could have been, and it was sad.

What I mean by that is that the moment I found out I was pregnant in the bathroom of a San Francisco hotel, what was growing inside me held so much hope. My husband and I immediately saw a life in those two pink lines. In the few short weeks between the positive pregnancy test and the damning ultrasound that showed a heart that had ceased to beat, we had imagined a whole life with our child. We had talked about names and nursery decor, Saturday mornings spent mending scraped knees after soccer games, Halloween costumes made by Grandma and Christmas morning spent around a tree that we had all decorated together. We imagined blonde hair and blue eyes, summers spent sunburnt and lazy August Sundays rocking on the dock. We had heard his or her laughter ring through our home and we had watched our beloved dog Murphy pull her down the street. We had mentally seen this baby go to his or her first day of school, then to college and then walk down the aisle. Yes, as crazy as it might seem, in those few short weeks, we had imagined a whole life. So when we cried, it wasn't for the bundle of cells that had multiplied, per se. It was for the things that would never happen, the baby we would never know, the person who would never become. It was because we loved someone we could never touch or hold. It was because surprise or not, we wanted this baby and all of the things he or she would become. We really wanted it all.

The doctors took a lot of blood in the weeks that followed our miscarriage and ran what they call a thrombophilia panel. They found that I had a clotting disorder which affected the way I clotted blood (clotted too much) and metabolized folic acid (not well enough). Both of these things could make carrying a baby challenging. Add the clotting disorder to my already existing lupus and we had a rodeo on our hands.

So, on Sept. 29, I found out I was again pregnant. Let's just look beyond the embarrassing reality that I found out I was pregnant in a Target bathroom. I was so sure I was pregnant, but had to know immediately. More on my lack of patience later. I took my lunch hour to go to Target and buy a pregnancy test. I didn't have time to go home and take it, so I went into the bathroom at Target and proceeded take the test. Needless to say, I passed the test (or failed, depending on your desires when you take the test) and saw a faint second pink line. The Saturdays, the Halloweens, the Christmases, the August Sundays. God willing, we'd have the chance at them all.

I would like to tell you that I am one of those women who got a positive pregnancy test and then voila! nine months (really, 10 months) later, I had a perfect baby. I did have a perfect baby nine months later (not 10, nine), but it wasn't a voila! experience. Every day of my pregnancy, in spite of having good feelings about it, I was scared. In fact, I was terrified. Every time I had a doctor's appointment, I would be sick to my stomach the morning of. And I mean, sick. Bleccchhhh. At seven weeks, I had my first appointment with my perinatalogist and saw Claire's heartbeat (see ultrasound picture). I never knew such a tiny flicker would end up being one of the most precious sites I'd ever seen. I had an ultrasound, some times two, nearly every week until she was born to make sure everything was progressing normally. Because of some first trimester issues, I ended up leaving my job. Stress on top of fear made me an awful employee, and since both of my bosses admittedly hated kids, their sympathy was not by any measure overwhelming. My state of mind plus their lack of understanding proved explosive -- and even landed me in the emergency room with bleeding at 14 weeks. For the first time since I was 15, I was unemployed. So what did I do? I got another job in spite of everyone's pleading that I just take it easy.

As the days passed, I got bigger, and my blood pressure got higher and higher. After an overnight hospital stay, I was put on bed rest with 14 weeks left in my pregnancy. I can hardly sit still ever, so bed rest was my own personal nightmare. Again, I had to quit my job. Admittedly, I was a non-compliant patient, and at 34 weeks, I was admitted to the hospital. My lupus was misbehaving, and I was in some nasty pain. This time, I was told, I wasn't going to be leaving without a baby. My nose was swollen all the way across my face, and a very hateful nurse told me I had hobbit feet. The prednisone they gave me for my joint pain made my blood sugar high, so they put me on a diabetic diet. Ever seen a hungry pregnant lady? My wonderful husband spent two weeks sneaking in food for me. Further proof I had married the right man.

The day I turned 36 weeks pregnant, they performed an amniocentesis to check for Claire's lung maturity. Eight long hours later, the results were in. Baby had (and still has) a strong pair of pipes! They induced me the next morning, and finally, I got my voila!

So, yesterday, just a few weeks more than a full year after finding out I was pregnant with Claire, we walked three miles together. We walked because we could, because we had already done it together once. I have never been prouder.