Milk.

Currently listening to: Perry Como - Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

After the miscarriage, for some odd reason, my milk came in. Lots of it.

One second everything was normal, the next my husband's face looked kind of like this -

O____O

and he's pointing at my chest. I look down and voila, I'm leaking from the right breast - shirt's wet in a perfect circle. A moment of silence followed, and suddenly I was flailing my way to the bathroom. Remember how I mentioned in the last post I have a messed up idea of how the human body works? Yeah.

My little human body was under the impression that I had just given birth to a baby, so naturally, milk time! I took it as a sign that my breasts are fully capable of feeding a small country (I grew I don't even know how many sizes, I was wearing sports bras the entire time) - POSITIVISM!

True, it was a painful reminder that I had lost a baby, but even my doctor said he was surprised any milk came in at all and that was a very healthy sign. I decided to be positive about this. Again: positivism!

I know what you're all wondering, sickos, so I'll share: I pumped some to try. I must say I make pretty good milk - HAPPY?! Also, I may or not have squished the source to see how far the milk would land, along with other childish manifestations. Don't judge me!

Finally, after a couple of weeks of hot towels, stained work shirts, and torture sessions aimed at Craig (kept telling him I was going to put some Jenny milk in his breakfast milk - drove him bonkers :) the milk started to wean, and life started to go back to normal.

So that was that. I wonder how it'll taste with eggnog? Guess we'll find out next year!

Hyperchondriac?

Currently listening to: the sound of my own frustration.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have a warped sense of how the human body works. It still escapes my mind how one of my intestines is 20 feet long, not to mention the fact that I spent years completely misunderstanding what menstruation is all about.

A few days ago I felt, under my tongue, a sore. A canker sore, uncomfortable even to talk.


Damned be the second I discovered Google!


A minute later I was frantically informing my husband I may have oral cancer and I needed to get an appointment to see the doctor ASAP. He gave me a sideways glance and sighed, as I read deeper and deeper into the symptoms of the disease - and then he snatched my iPhone off my hand.


And that's where "hyperchondriac" was born. Or at least coined.


I'm pretty sure it was born right around the time Craig and I started flirting with the idea of becoming three. I started obsessing with getting healthier, stronger, fit to be a baby machine. Before the opportunity of becoming a mother became available, I didn't pay much attention to being healthy. 


Well, now I'm a hyperchondriac, that freaks out if my basal temperature one particular morning is below the normal threshold (HYPOTHYROIDISM? omg no). In a way I realize it's a good thing, I'm worrying about my health for a good reason, but it's also a source of infinite amusement to my jerk of a spouse. Whatevsss.


In other, far more exciting news: I want to quit my job. Ta-dah!

Bobby's Story, final part.

 Currently listening to: Gavin DeGraw - "Chariot"

We held on.

On our way home, yes, there was crying, there was pain. Telling our families, our closest friends, it included an amount of pain because we had to revisit the same words, go through the same explanation points. Yes, I'm fine physically. A D&C is a procedure to clean my uterus. No, there was no bleeding. And on and on, and over and over.

While it became tedious to feel like we were walking in circles, crying on the phone with my sister felt like a release. She had been exactly were I was at the moment, and she was now expecting a healthy baby.

"God is in control, I know how this feels, and I want you know I love you."

Nobody else's words had such impact on me as my sister's did.

The next day I had the audacity to get ready for work and drive all the way to the office. Well hello, denial. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, I walked in and decided I wasn't going to be able to work that day. I talked to my boss and started crying, she hugged me and told me to go home. So I did.

After that, I kept silence. The pertaining people knew what had happened and were praying for us, all I had to do was sit down and do my part: heal. Don't be fooled. I have a history of sucking at grieving. Big time. So I was taken aback by my reaction so far. 

There were in total two days of grieving, of crying, of sobbing myself to sleep, with my husband's arms around me. Two days. Then there was peace. There came an insane understanding of why this had happened.

It was by the kitchen that I told my husband:

"You know, this wasn't our Liam or Angie, but we loved this baby,"

He looked up at me and nodded. So I went on,

"I think we should name him."

I had known it was a boy, I had felt it was a boy from the start. A mother just knows, so trusting this gut feeling, I named him Bobby. After Bobby Fischer. The SNL skit. What? My baby, my choice. When I told Craig about my choice there was a moment of staring at each other and then we both erupted with laughter. For the first time in a couple of days, there was laughter in our house.

Bobby would have been born to an uninsured mother. I was in the process of switching to a new company and my insurance was not going to kick in until my first doctor's appointment. So the delivery would have been out of pocket. You read that right. Out. Of. POCKET. Because, in this glorious country, pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition.

Moreover, Bobby would have been born as his father was finishing college. While it was a endearing idea to graduate with a month-old baby by his side, he would have certainly missed the first few weeks of life of his firtborn: finals in order to graduate are one stressing event, I should know. Oh, not to mention the possibility of missing the delivery itself.

If you've gone through a miscarriage, know it's not the end, it doesn't define you as a mother or potential mother, and trust me when I say it's more common than publicly believed. 1 in 5 pregnancies will result in a miscarriage. You are not alone. If it wasn't for my sister I would have probably thought I was a hopeless case. Reality is that miscarriages happen and the vast majority of women end up carrying healthy babies to term. There's hope.

We loved Bobby the minute we knew he existed. We had dreams and hopes for this little one, but God had different plans. Sometimes we don't quite grasp these plans, but it's not our duty to. In fact, just a few days before finding out about the miscarriage, I turned to Craig while getting ready for work and asked him,

"What do you want, a boy or a girl?"

Being wise beyond his years, the prat answered,

"I want a healthy baby."

And that's what God intends to give us. Bobby wasn't 100% healthy. What sufferings and pain he would have faced if my body had carried him to term, I don't know, but I thank God He was in control. Bobby is now in heaven, and no better place for him. I will see him one day, in another time and another place. I will one day hold Bobby and tell him how much I love him.

I chose God's strength over mine. And He is holding me through.

Bobby's Story, part II.

Currently listening to: Duffy - "I'm Scared"

If you've ever ridden a crazy rollercoaster, you know exactly how my stomach dropped when my doctor told me I had miscarriaged my first baby during my first pregnancy. Not such a pleasent feeling given the different context.

Just two weeks ago we had seen him on the screen at the ultrasound technician's room. Little heart pumping away, he moved like showing off for the camera. And I fell in love. I didn't even know him, I couldn't even feel him yet, but the mere fact he was inside me, making me sick as a dog yet the happiest I'd ever been, it was proof I was in love.


There was no warning. There were no signs, no symptoms. No sudden bleeding. In an instant, my body absorbed the yolk and cut off all life supplies. And it was over.


To confirm it had been a miscarriage, I was to see the ultrasound technician again. My doctor left the room so I could call my husband. I texted. I wasn't going to call. My heart was beating too hard and too fast, as if trying to revive his little heart, and it sunk in. He's gone. My baby's gone.

"Craig, I lost the baby."


The tears started and I looked up at the ceiling, not sure what to say to God. My first reaction, naturally was to ask why. Why are you doing this to me? Why did you let this happen? Why me? Why. Why. But instead, I don't know the reason, I asked,

"Show me what You're doing. Please, show me what You're doing."

I was alone in the exam room, but I didn't feel alone. I was hurting, but I felt a calmness that was not mine, fill me. I was crying, eyes closed, hoping this wasn't real, remembering my dream.

This was my biggest fear, and quite admittedly, for a couple of seconds (which felt like bloody hours), I felt like reality was inversed and I was living a nightmare. This couldn't be real. This was not happening to me. How could it happen to the one person that wanted kids so badly? How does that make sense that my body, my own property took one darn look at what would have been my firstborn and decided to, for lack of better words, kill it?

The doctor came back in. I asked him why, since demanding an explanation from God wasn't something I could bring myself to do. My doctor sighed, pulled a chair near me and explained that some women's bodies are more propense to carry a (and he used to following word for the utmost respect and care) defective embryos to full term. It wasn't much of a consolation, but my system was the kind that would only carry 100% healthy babies to delivery. Nothing less than all-around healthy babies.

All or nothing. How Jen-like.

I asked what happened to the "defective" embryos that were carried to full term. Doctor sighed again. He went on to describe how Down syndrome babies or with congetinal diseases are born. I blew my nose. The doctor stood up. We walked to the ultrasound room.

And I saw him for the last time. Smaller than my growing uterus. At the bottom, not moving. I broke down and hurt for the child I had just lost. Craig was on his way to the doctor's office. This is where I suspect I had an out-of-body experience. 


My baby was gone. The concept rebounded on my head once and again and I felt horrible. There are ... truly no words. The next time I opened my eyes I was sitting on Craig's lap, sobbing, in the doctor's office. He was saying that medically the baby never made it past the embryo state, and that while my own body had cut off the life resources, my uterus was carrying on with the pregnancy as if nothing had happened. My uterus had clung on to the baby till the very end. In fact, to my uterus, there was no end. 

I was experiencing a missed miscarriage.


Now we were discussing options. I could wait for my uterus to realize it was over and go through the elimincation process, or we could go the safer, quicker route: D&C. A procedure to clean out my uterus and prevent any potential infections. I said I would think about it. Craig held me close.


My doctor's words of comfort and my husband's arms around were holding me together. Somehow, the tears have stopped and a silence took over at the doctor's office. He left to give us privacy, and as soon as the door was closed, Craig and I looked at each other.


We knew what we needed to do. So we prayed.


Holding each other, we prayed. In the midst of the storm, in the middle of disaster, we cried out to our God, to make us understand, to show us His plans, to comfort us and hold us through this trial. He never fails, and He certainly knows better, so we trusted. We knew everything was under His control, so all we had to do was trust, and let His peace take over.

Bobby's Story, part I.

Currently listening to: Natalie Grant - "Held"

I found out I was pregnant on August 7th, 2011.

I was a couple of days late, if that. And since I could single-handedly redefine the term for "paranoiac", I snatched a pregnancy test from my personal stash (don't judge!).  I managed to pee on the stick with very little gracefulness, and after a minute of waiting, the word "PREGNANT" flashed. Seriously? Seriously. Pregnant. WHAT. My first words as a potential mother were,

"WHAT THE F*CK?"


Kicking off motherhood in style. 


Not that I didn't want to be pregnant. Let's rewind a tad here. I've wanted children since I realized what a mother was. Friends that have babies or kids know me as the baby hog or baby whisperer. I love children, and they love me (maybe because I let them do whatever the heck they want?). I've wanted my own kids since I can remember. 


Kinda like her:

And to be completely honest, I'm totally shameless about it. If there's a kid in the room, you're most likely to find me holding them and making them laugh, or on the floor acting the fool but keeping them entertained. It's always been a part of me, and a even bigger part has always yearned for my own little one.


So. Back to me screaming with knickers on my feet, tush on the loo, positive pregnant test in my hand. Voila, I'm pregnant. Cue mini panic attack. Why? Well, it was a tricky time. To say the least. We were planning to start trying to get pregnant in a couple of weeks, so I quit the Pill, so I could start shaking off the chemicals and whatnot.


Two weeks later ... hello, baby.


Timing was off, we weren't counting on getting pregnant SO fast, let alone finding out we're fertile on mutant levels (apparently, my lutheal phase is insanely long - ta-dah!). Everything was so quick, I hadn't had time to chart my cycles, to read the books, to save up for the nursery, to really try for a specific gender - nothing. Granted, Craig (my husband) had to console me through the mini panic attack referenced a couple of paragraphs above. 

Nonetheless, we were happy. Elated!


We picked out names, shared the news with our families, bought our first blanket for baby, talked to him, barfed my brains out, we were on track to becoming parents. Pre-natal vitamins, crackers on my bedside, my very own pregnancy journal, doctor's appointments, our first ultrasound, our lives were quickly changing.


The morning of my 10th week appointment at my doctor's office, I woke up with a sour feeling in my gut. I woke up Craig to tell him of the dream I've had. He stirred and listened. My doctor was pushing a wheelchair with me on it, rushing through hospital halls. I was thinking homeboy needs to relax, I feel fine! I look down between my legs and there was blood. Everywhere. As I turned to look at my doctor, I was met with the following words,

"We lost the baby, I'm so sorry."


Craig assured me it was just a dream. So did one of my closest friend after I texted her how this nightmare had gone. Somewhat comforted, I drove to work and took off to my appointment during lunch hour.

As I laid on the exam room, and my doctor looked for the baby's heartbeat, I grew uneasy. The doctor was reassuring, saying maybe the baby was too small for the Doppler right now. I remember it as a blur, having the doctor bring in an older ultrasound machine to find the heartbeat. I was scared.


He searched and searched for it. Pressed here, poked there. He was frowning staring at the screen, I was frowning staring at him. There was silence. I could feel the possibility of the impossible approaching. You know how it's said in intense moments seconds seem like hours? They felt like days for me, every single one of them. And finally ...


"Jen, it's a miscarriage. I'm so sorry."