Friday, February 13, 2015

The Miracle of Ordinary Days - Part 20

 Losing a pregnancy is painful.  So Aaron and I made the decision not to talk about it again for a few months.  We'd just wait.  Sometimes it is better to hold off certain conversations to let time heal a bit of the hurt.  It's just the way it is for us.  So that is what we did.  Life returned to normal. The kids started school.  This was a big deal because Tyler and Abby had homeschooled the previous year.  Now they were both in regular school full time.  It was a huge change for me.  As much as I enjoyed certain aspects of homeschooling it was also really stressful. I never felt caught up and I felt like I was failing to teach my kids what they needed to know.  We worked hard but we prayfully decided that school was the right place for them both.  And having more freedom through the day to get the house in shape added greatly to the peace of our home.  It was lovely.
During this time I took a lot of time to think and pray.  Did I really need to have another baby?  Did I really want to?  Was it worth all the difficulty, the pain, the worry? I really tried to look at it objectively but the fact was that I had felt for many years that we had a daughter somewhere. I used to have dreams that she was there with us.  She looked different at times which made me think that it was possible she was coming by way of adoption.  Aaron felt it, too.  We had a name picked out for her.  We knew just what we were going to call her.  It just didn't seem like things were going to come together.
So the fall months started to fly by and in late October, early November we discussed what to do.  We both agreed our feelings hadn't changed about it and that we felt that we had one more child to bring into the world.  So we decided that if nothing was happening by December that we would talk about it more.
Aaron needed to have a minor surgery at the beginning of December.  It was nothing major but needed to be done.  He'd need a few weeks to recover so he took some time off before Christmas to recuperate. Aaron is a lovely guy most of the time but Aaron in pain is no fun to be around.  It was hard for me to see him in pain and not be able to help at all.  After a few days I was on edge and felt really irritated with him.  Now for most people that is probably normal but for me it really takes a lot.  Unless I'm pregnant. 
I realized that I might need to take a pregnancy test so I ran to the store and bought three.  I always like to do that to take them over time.  I was not surprised to see that the test was positive!  Hooray!  I was excited and I wanted to tell Aaron but he was in a LOT of pain.  So I went down to comfort him and tell him I was sorry for being irritated with him. As we talked I just told him, I know this is really bad timing to tell you this but I'm pregnant.  He was happy but in pain and he said he wished I would have waited until after he'd recovered a bit more before telling him.
We decided that we were not going to tell anyone about the pregnancy.  There was just too much emotion and worry that it would cause.  I especially didn't want my parents to know until I was sure that it was going to work out.  That might sound strange but being that far away made it easier not to tell them.  Just like missionaries don't always tell their folks when things happen in the mission field, it seemed the most kind thing to not make them worry about me until we were absolutely sure that we had nothing to worry about.  It was the first time in my whole life that I did not tell a soul I was pregnant.  Only Aaron and I knew.
I waited much longer to visit the doctor.  I decided that because the majority of my miscarriages happened early on I would wait until I was eight weeks pregnant to go into the doctor.  I prayed every morning and always turned the pregnancy over to God.  I just said if you want this baby to be a part of our family, I am here and willing to bring it into the world.  I put all of it in his Hands.  It was a very peaceful feeling.  I was feeling sick and nauseated most of the time so I knew that was a good sign.  I made an appointment for my eighth week and let the time go by. I wondered how it would go but had faith that if it was to be, it would be.

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