This is the story about when I was pregnant for the first time.
In the middle of July, I was pregnant. I started feeling funny, especially nauseous after eating and particularly exhausted to the point of naps. I never take naps. I took a pregnancy test and it was inconclusive (read, a faint positive line). I took another test two days later with another faintly positive line that was a bit darker. Finally we decided to splurge on the digital test. It was positive. We celebrated.
We told some of our closest friends but otherwise decided to wait until after a doctor’s appointment to really spread the word. Plus, Matt was studying for the bar and couldn’t get too distracted. But he was excited. I was excited. We would share with each other moments of exhilaration and fear of what was coming next for us.
A week later, I started to bleed. Lightly at first but it was naturally alarming so I went to the doctor’s office for some tests. When Matt came home that day I told him what was going on and that it could be anything- good or bad. But we had to wait.
The next morning, Matt skipped the Bar review as we waited for the phone call. We got the news that I was no longer pregnant.
Matt immediately mourned. I had to prepare to go out of town that day so I put my emotions away on a shelf within the depths of myself. Matt took me to the airport and I bawled. My hormones were telling me that something bad was going to happen- it was already one of the worst days and I felt like the best thing was to hide out but instead I was getting on an airplane. I mustered my strength for the friend I was going to visit and left the safety of my husband’s side. The whole airplane ride I thought about all the “what if”s. What if we can’t get pregnant again? What if I can’t carry a child? What if I did something wrong? What if I was a bad wife for leaving my husband during this already stressful time? What if the person beside me was a terrorist and was about to take over the plane?
When the nurse had called to give me the news, she had just coldly told me that I wasn’t pregnant. She didn’t talk to me about the possibilities of what had occurred or what this would mean for the future. I thought I was one of those crazy women that create pregnancy symptoms because they want to be with child. Finally, a few days after the news, while I was still out-of-town, I called Matt and declared that I HAD been pregnant, I wasn’t crazy. Matt agreed- he had evidently never thought I was crazy. Hormones. My body had a difficult time recovering from this extreme reversal of my condition- very sore, tired, off.
We are still very excited about what is to come. This is just one part of our story.
The very next month, I got pregnant with what would turn out to be a very special little boy named Zachary.
In my research following this event, I found that these early miscarriages or “chemical pregnancies” are actually very common. Some experts theorize that up to 80% of pregnancies end this way, it is just that they usually happen so early that women haven’t tested and just pass them off as a particularly heavy monthly gift. For women that know whats happened- it is something that takes time to process because we weren't prepared... you can never really be prepared. Everything has a purpose but this one is harder to take than others.
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