Taking the next big step

What an emotional week. I could say that I've been an emotional wreck during this emotional week, but the truth is that it's just not true. Not because I'm not a wreck but because all the emotions that I'm dealing with can't even qualify as wreck-able. I count it as of-course-I-feel-this-way. Sure it's a wreck, but really what else could I expect?

Every day there's the possibility that it could be THE DAY--it could be the day we've been hoping for and our baby girl arrives. All at the same time, I cry for Miles. It has been important for us to have these days of waiting, I think, to continue balancing all of our feelings. We've known it was coming--our transition to having a second baby...more specifically, our transition to having two children--one living and one in heaven. It has been coming, and throughout this pregnancy we've discussed the transition our lives will take, discussing the powerful emotions that go along with it. There's something about being right on the verge that makes it more real of course. And so I cry. I cry that this all feels so familiar...to be excited for this new life that has been with me for nine months and any day will really be with us. I smile for her and cry for Miles. I cry with how passionately I dream of taking her out of hospital. I cry that we didn't get to do that for Miles. I cry with the happiness over how soon I will hold her. I cry for longing to hold Miles. I cry for the life that he is missing--the scraped knees, the baseball teams, the learning to read, the fights with his sister, the growing up, the whole life he deserved. All while holding my breath and praying and hoping that she will get that chance.

Why cry so much now? I wonder. Most of all, the arrival of our baby girl is a sign that the world keeps going. There have been plenty of these signs of course. It's not a new concept really. But it is the first sign in our own household. Right here. Miles is coming with us of course on this next big step; in the ways that he can, he'll always be with us. Sure, I'll have less time to myself, I know, being busy with a newborn of course. Yet I just don't think I'll spend less time thinking about Miles. If anything, I'll be thinking of him more. Everything, I'm guessing, will continue to remind me of Miles. So the world isn't just still spinning, really it's spinning in a very familiar way to how it did when Miles was here with us. And that brings happiness and tears.

My husband is the most handsome thing that ever happened to scrubs

My first "scare" happened in the middle of the night on Tuesday. (I don't even know what to call it because when during this pregnancy have I not been worried about my sweet girl? Still, I was even more scared at that moment...)

On Tuesday night around 6 pm, I started having serious contractions. After weeks of Braxton Hicks contractions, these were the first ones that hurt at all. (It turns out that it must have been due to either how badly I wanted her to come on the 28th--seemed like as good a birthday as any--or possibly it was just all the oreos I ate that day.) At the time, I thought it could be very early labor. Around 9 pm, I started timing the contractions. They were always really short but they were coming every 7 to 10 minutes. This could be it, I thought, though I knew we had a long way to go...

Mitch was on call at the hospital for the night, so I called my mom to come spend the night on the couch so that I wouldn't be alone and so that I would have ride in the wee hours if needed. "I'm having some contractions," I told her, very, very careful to express to her that we couldn't get too worked up yet. "Maybe this is it, so maybe it would be best for you to come over just in case."

As soon as I laid down to try to sleep, though, the contractions really slowed down. I slept for a couple of hours. I know I was having some contractions--but not tons and not painful enough to really wake me up. Around 1:30 am I woke up with what I can only describe as an incredibly tight uterus. It felt like a constant contraction that would last for several minutes. It would loosen up for a few seconds. And then back to rock hard. I knew that I wasn't in labor. And I also didn't know when the last time I had felt my baby move was. She had been moving plenty before I went to sleep. Now I couldn't feel anything. Now I would press on my belly the way that she had always responded to before. Still nothing. I was willing to tolerate any of the uncomfortable/painful stuff that comes along with being 9 months pregnant or in labor...but there was no way I could handle not knowing if she was doing ok.

After talking to Mitch, I paged the attending doctor to talk everything through. He said that he thought that everything was fine AND that he knew that the only way to know for sure (especially for ME to know for sure) was to go in to the hospital to hear her heartbeat and to do a non-stress test.

When I arrived, there was Mitch in his scrubs, waiting for his two girls.

They attached the fetal heartbeat monitor and immediately found her heart rate.
Immediately I was fine.
She was fine.
That's all I needed to hear.

And, yes, I briefly thought about asking if I could just stay in that room, listening to her heart rate, until she came on July 4th...

Her heart rate was good. But they wanted to see more accelerations so we stayed for about an hour. They tried the auditory buzzer to get her to wake up. It make me smile that she didn't react to it just like Miles didn't during all of the weekly routine non-stress tests we did with him.  I pictured each of them in there, rolling there eyes, thinking "Are you serious? That's the best you can do?" Meanwhile, Mitch brought me apple juice, and that did the trick to get her moving and to get us out of there.

And now here we are. Still waiting. These things I know to be true: I feel an enormous responsibility to be vigilant and make sure that our baby is doing ok, she is very, very loved, my two children bring joy to my heart, and my husband is the most handsome thing that ever happened to scrubs.

We just want her to be healthy...

"We just want her to be healthy." I feel it's a fairly common thing for a soon-to-be-parent to say about their little one on the way.  Can anyone mean it to the extent that a parent who has lost a child means it or wish for it with their entire being in the way they can? Not that it's a competition or that it even matters who means it more.  I guess I just mean that it's so more than a routine cliche when I say it, and the perspective and significance of what's important regarding health and life in general is so enhanced because of having Miles.

Yes, my biggest hope these days is that our baby girl will be healthy. It's a complicated wish that I have so little control over but that I hold out hope can still happen for her and for us.

Yet I hate the comment.  I feel that it's too simplified. Yes, I hope that she's healthy. Lord, please watch over her health. Lord, please let us keep her. Yet...the state of her health will be what it will be. We will love, adore, and care for her no matter where on the spectrum her health falls.

But here's why I don't like the comment...it makes it sound like we only want healthy babies--as if Miles' health problems were his fault instead of just a wildly unlucky fluke that he (and we) fought so hard for months to combat. Of course, I desperately wish that Miles' health had been better. I wish that he was able to live a healthy life with heart problems or that he had never had health problems at all.  But we loved him, loved him, loved him and he wasn't healthy. It's not like him being unhealthy ended up changing anything at all except that we lost him. Ultimately he was perfect, perfectly him--just as our little girl will be perfectly her.

And so it's loaded. I just want our baby girl to be healthy, and Miles' health problems didn't make him any less perfect or any less loved. And that's that.

Top Ten "New" Rules of Pregnancy for Me

For the record, I know that the cause of Miles' congenital heart defect is unknown.  It's nothing I did, they say.
I know that. Yet somehow I can't help thinking of every little simply scary thing in life that could possibly in any tiny way have impacted Miles and now could impact our second child...and if it possibly could be bad (even if that's just in my mind) then I don't do it.

In short, I'm psycho...but I hide it fairly well, I like to think. Constantly I worry that I am responsible for doing every little thing right--all while feeling helpless as I lack true control over actually ensuring the health of our baby girl. There's nothing I can do, yet I obsess over every little thing and am SO careful.

The complete list feels endless I'm afraid, but I'll share a sampling of things that I've done differently during this pregnancy for the baby's health (and my own sanity).

Top Ten "New" Rules of Pregnancy for Me

10. No heart rate higher than 140 bpm. Therefore, no running...just walking on an incline on the treadmill.
9. Move to another part of the gym when the cleaning man comes close to my machine. Leave the gym if I still feel I am in the range of chemicals.
8. Avoid bathroom cleaning products for the first trimester.  Yes, this reveals how long our bathroom went without being cleaned.
7. No clorox bathroom cleaning products ever again. I've switched over to "green" ones with only a few chemicals on the labels.  I wear gloves and clean the least often as possible (just for guests and un-ignorable grime).
6. No Ipod hooked onto the waistband of my shirts (only permissible to hook it on the top of my tshirt)
5. Give up coffee.
4. Give up chocolate soy milk.
3. Refuse to ever put computer on my lap.
2. No pedicures.
1. No microwave. It sat unplugged on the floor for months until Mitch asked if we were ever going to use it again.  When I said no, he got rid of it.

And of course there's the "appropriately react to all potentially harmful situations" rule. Thus the time I had an anxiety attack after I broke a high efficiency lightbulb and read the label that there is mercury in the damn things...Mitch put a mask on me, I evacuated the apartment, he cleaned up the mess, and we spent the night at my parents' house.

The truth is that these things, just like all the other things that I'm not admitting to doing/not doing this time around, are totally fine for pregnant women (according to more reliable sources of medical information than I am) so please don't think I'm judging. I'm just not a typical pregnant woman any more--a psycho pregnant woman would be one way to put it now, but, in all fairness, I feel it's fairly reasonable to be so in my case.

With this pregnancy, my number one goal is for the baby to be healthy. And after that goal, if possible, it would be nice to be a sane person as well.