The Fog is Lifting

There's a mountain between Waynesboro and Charlottesville. I've driven over it a number of times. It's actually an interesting part of a very boring drive. However, sometimes that mountain is covered in fog. There are signs and reflective beacons and lights all along the route. In the middle of the day it can seem excessive, but early morning or late night drives, you really appreciate them.

When you're driving over that mountain in the fog you can barely see what's in front of you. If you are lucky, there is another vehicle in front of you that gives you a little more of an idea where the road is going. If not, you just have to have blind faith, go slowly, and trust that you will make it over that mountain.

I was reflecting on that fog one morning last week when we had a bit of very minor fog on the drive to drop Frances off for school. Most of that fog was over in the field beyond the road I needed to drive on. I knew where I was and I knew where I was going, but the entire view didn't look as familiar to me.

It was during that morning drive that I realized that my fog seems to be lifting. I honestly wouldn't have even described it as a fog until just recently. I've been going through life, aimed in (mostly) the right direction and simply plowing along, going slowly, and having faith that I was going to make it.

I did some research on post-partum depression. I've never been diagnosed with it before, but a stray comment from a friend got me thinking. My miscarriage was 17 months ago.That fits within the time frame. I am now at a point where life seems to be less fuzzy. While I've been wading through the fog, I had forgotten how some familiar things looked and felt.

Everyone who has experienced miscarriage has had a unique experience, though there are some similarities. My family and I have grieved this child. We still talk about "Lucky" and Ben still hugs my bear. I often wonder how life would be different with a 10 month old around. Would the kids be big helpers with a baby around? We'll never know the answers to those questions. I try in my mind to be realistic about things. I don't want to candy coat what life would have been. I know us to know well enough that I would still be overwhelmed with things to do. There would still be piles of laundry (likely bigger ones), the kids would help out on occasion, but they weren't going to change into different people themselves just with an addition to the family.

I've accepted that life is different now. How we view life has been altered in big ways in little ways. Our family has gone through a crisis and come out on the other side. I've spent a lot of the last 17 months wondering if the way I felt was just my new normal or is there was something going on. I'm coming to realize that it was something else. I am experience joy and silliness again. I am feeling hope and safety. I don't want to jinx myself, but the severe anxiety I had been feeling is lessening. Life seems a little easier to deal with lately.

It doesn't mean I've forgotten. Maybe it just means I've accepted things. I expect that I'll always feel like a part of our family is missing, but it's less overwhelming lately.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. Since going through my own miscarriage I have come to know about many other women who have experienced one as well. It is talked about more openly now, but many women still feel alone in this experience.

Personally, I still feel a mix of sadness and relief. Sadness because I really would have welcomed a new baby into our family, but relief that we didn't have to start completely over again. I've felt a lot of guilt over that, and I honestly struggled to even write it here. I'm sure there are some who will judge me, but I also know that there might be a few who need to see that someone else has felt the same way. I don't mind being judged if someone else can take comfort that they are not alone.

As we remember those babies lost too soon and those we never even go to meet, please reach out to check on a woman you know has been affected. Men too, as I know fathers grieve these losses as well. If you have had a miscarriage or lost an infant, my prayers are with you. If you need to talk, I'm here.

Lucky's Story, Part 2

This is a long story. It does not have a happy ending. I don't know how many parts it will have or how often I will feel like writing it. But I'm writing it anyway in the hopes that getting it all out will help me. If it helps someone else in the process that'd be gratifying too.

Finding out you are pregnant at 38 when your youngest child is almost 6 can be quite a shock to the system. We made a chart and discovered that there would come a year when we'd have one kid in elementary school, one in middle, one in high school, and one in college. That was a heck of a realization. We laughed a lot about that one.

I was really starting to come to terms with how our life was going to change. We already knew we needed to move, but this baby was a good kick in the pants to get started. We had talked about it for so long, but never made any actual plans until I just decided it was time to "fish or cut bait." The move was on! (and the storage unit was rented!)

I had an incident near the end of April with some bleeding, but we went in for an ultrasound and everything checked out. We went back for our "official" ultrasound on April 28th (Benjamin's 6th birthday! Another laugh!) and things looked good. We were given a due date of December 6th, but I chose to just hear "December." All three of my babies had been late so far, and I saw no reason to think this one wouldn't be too.

Because of the bleeding issue I had had, I had told my mother we were pregnant before I had originally intended to. My mom came up to be with me and got to see her first ultrasound with me. We were both excited, especially when they told us that everything looked good.

We were making plans to tell other people and trying to get the timing right. It was important to us that the kids know first (or nearly first) because they were old enough to understand the process. We had a number of family events going on in late April and early May, but we didn't want to piggy back on one of those, so we waited.

Frances had a dance recital coming up and we knew Ken's dad would be coming to see it. It seemed like a great time to be able to tell him in person. Ken and I talked it over and decided that we would tell the kids the Thursday before and allow them to tell Papa.

I was nervous about telling the kids because I had no idea how they would react. I was pretty sure Frances would be excited. I was also fairly certain that Ben would be mad. He's told me more that once that he doesn't like babies because they "make too much noise." Henry was a toss up. As the middle kid he's already been usurped as the baby and he was used to having siblings around.

I set up my phone to capture video and set the kids down for an interview.

"Frances, what is your favorite part about being a big sister?" I asked.

"I get to play with my brothers." she answered. Then the boys both reached over and hugged her.

"Henry, what is your favorite part about being a big brother?" I asked.

"I get to take care of Ben." he replied. And Ben reached over to hug him.

So far, so good.

"Benjamin, what do you think your favorite part about being a big brother will be?"

At this point my phone stopped recording, but I remember the pause as all three of them tried to figure out what was going on. Frances' eyes flashed to her brothers and then to my stomach. They got really wide. "Are you pregnant?" she yelled?

And then all three started in with the excited questions. I got out the ultrasound picture to show them and they laughed at how silly it looked. I got out my app I had been using to track my pregnancy and showed them their their baby was the size of a Lego mini fig. I also showed them a comparison of a baby's hand at birth and their baby's hand at that point in time. They were looking at the app and noticed that I had nicknamed the baby "Lucky."

That was meant to be an inside joke between Ken and me. The baby was conceived on or about St. Patrick's Day, so I jokingly used the nickname Lucky. After the kids noticed it, it stuck and that's what they've called the baby ever since.

Friday morning as we were all getting ready for school and work, I noticed that the kids had dug out their infant hand print casts from the buffet behind them. They were excitingly talking about Lucky. I even went so far as to tell them not to tell people yet. I explained that family needed to know first and then they could tell people. I was still expecting at least one surprised phone call from a kid who couldn't keep a secret.

Lucky's Story, Part 1

This is a long story. It does not have a happy ending. I don't know how many parts it will have or how often I will feel like writing it. But I'm writing it anyway in the hopes that getting it all out will help me. If it helps someone else in the process that'd be gratifying too.

On Saturday, April 2, I woke up very early and couldn't get back to sleep. It was a crappy day for that to happen because the kids were with my parents for Spring Break and I had no plans until I had to leave to pick them up at around 11 am. If ever there was a day that I could have slept in, this would have been it.

Something was nagging at me and I just didn't feel right. I mostly attributed it to the fact that I was waiting for my period to start. I had actually been waiting a day or two already, but sometimes my cycles can run a little long. I decided to take a pregnancy test just so I could laugh at myself and try to go back to sleep. Alas, that was not to be.

The test was positive. I stared in shock at the test and most of my brain shut down. We weren't trying for a baby. In fact, we were quite happy with the way our family was. We had moved out of the diaper/nap/neediness phase and were happily settling into parenting elementary school and middle school aged kids.

I crawled back into bed and woke Ken up. I gave him the news and waited for his reaction. He pulled me close, and in a rare moment of optimism he said, "We'll be okay. We'll figure this out." Then I cried for a little while and went back to sleep. When it was actually time to get up, Ken got in the shower and got ready for work. I went out to the couch and, still in shock, texted my best friend.

She was uplifting and encouraging and I finished our conversation feeling a bit more prepared to face the future. And I also began to find my predicament somewhat hysterical. "If you want to see God laugh, tell Him your plans."

I did some laundry, washed some dishes, and puttered around the house cleaning up in general; a move totally out of character for me on a Saturday morning. At around 11, I left to drive south and pick up my kids. I packed a snack for the van in case I got hungry and tried to imagine how I was going to get through the day without telling anyone.

We met at our regular swapping restaurant and headed in for lunch. The line was incredibly long and we waited over an hour for a table. At that point I was more than hungry, I was nauseous, but I couldn't tell anyone why, so I just kept my mouth shut (literally) and laughed inside my head.

I got the kids back home and tried to go about our normal daily business as much as possible. I stocked my drawer at work with crackers, just in case, and I hid the gummy pre-natal vitamins in a rarely used drawer.

Ken and I were still nervous about how things would work out: money, jobs, housing, etc. and how the kids were going to take the news, but we were feeling hopeful and excited. We made pregnancy jokes over the kids' heads and he rubbed my belly at night just to say "hi." We had never planned on having four kids, but when faced with the option, we chose to go into it with joy and excitement.