Trying Again

In an effort to cope with the loss of our twins, my husband announced (to anyone who would listen) that we would be trying again as soon as the doctor gave us the okay. I wasn't sure that I would be ready right away, but I was devastated when the doctor told us at our follow up appointment that he recommended we wait six months before trying again. Our grief over the loss of the twins was three-fold: (1) the loss of Caiden and Kaylie - a pain that would dull with time, but could never go away completely, no matter how many more children we have, (2) the loss of the excitement of twins - this part could be relieved if we have twins again in the future, but my doctor assured me that in all likelihood we will never conceive twins again (what he perceived to be good news, but I took as another devastating blow), and (3) the loss of having a baby, especially while all of our friends were bringing home healthy babies. The last, at least, was something that we could fix by starting to try again. So, although I didn't want to start trying the next week, I thought a month or two would be a good waiting period.

At my follow up appointment to the D&C, the doctor had changed his mind. He said that it was good to wait six months to allow my body to return to normal before getting pregnant again, but since we didn't know that we would be successful on our first try, he thought it was okay for us to start trying sooner. I was ecstatic! Much sooner than I had originally anticipated, I would be able to do something to relieve some of our grief.

However, I did not anticipate the emotional roller coaster that was to come. I knew that when I was pregnant again it would be the craziest roller coaster ride we had ever been on, but I didn't expect the effort to get us there would also be a roller coaster. Over several agonizing months, we experienced the roller coaster - the raw emotions of "moving forward" after our loss (not that we were forgetting or minimizing our loss, but working to move forward nonetheless), the tears with every negative pregnancy test from sadness that we were unsuccessful yet again and frustration about the unfairness that we had to go through the roller coaster again the next month. During this time, I lived my life two weeks at a time: two weeks of doing whatever I wanted: drinking, eating raw cookie dough, getting tattoos (okay only one), and two weeks of being on my best behavior in case we had been successful.

However, thankfully, after these agonizing months, we had a positive pregnancy test! I had expected to be filled with mixed emotions and most likely more scared than happy at the sight of those two little pink lines, but just the opposite happened. I was over the moon! Scared, of course, but that was secondary to my excitement. I took the test on a Sunday morning. I was the lector at church later that morning. At my church, the lector sits all by themselves, to the side of the Altar. It was a good thing I was alone, because during the quiet prayer times, I could barely keep the tears of excitement out of my eyes.

One additional exciting note is that the due date is our wedding anniversary! I fully expect a roller coaster of emotions until then (or whenever the baby decides to arrive), but I hope that I can enjoy every crazy minute of it. I know all too well that things can go terribly wrong in a heartbeat, and then all you have to look back on are the pictures and memories. So my goal is to get as many pictures, videos, audio files of our baby as possible and make as many memories as one small family can manage over the next several months. If anything goes wrong, at least we will have these things to remind us of happier times, and if we end up with a healthy baby, we will have even more to treasure.