The Big Reveal

As proven by my lack of blogging lately, I have thus far managed to keep the promise I made to myself of staying inordinately busy this summer. A zoo visit here, lunch with friends there, working out every hour in between…it has been easy so far. However, this IS summer (a.k.a. Baby Season), and I can remain oblivious no longer to the growing bellies protruding beneath every tank top and dress worn by every woman between the ages of 20-50. Unless I send up prayers for temporary blindness (and please don’t), I cannot escape the fact that virtually everyone I know is pregnant at this very moment. No amount of working out or staring at jaguar spots can give me the amnesia I have been hoping for. This leads me to the big reveal…the cure to my maternal longing…


Tomorrow we are starting the long journey towards becoming foster parents. We are meeting with a lady from DHS to fill out what promises to be a mountain of paperwork. This will be followed by background checks, financial statements, fingerprinting, physicals…the list goes on. Once we pass all of that, we will begin working towards completing 27 hours of parenting classes on free evenings and/or weekends. The last step is having a home study in which they check and make sure your home is kid friendly - or something to that effect. Then, BAM, you get a phone call and suddenly, for all intensive purposes, you’re a parent.

As you can tell from the above paragraph, we have no clue what to expect, we are in no way prepared, and we have nothing, and I mean NOTHING, for kids at our house. This is our leap of faith. Opening our home to a child that we will pour our hearts into, only to have her returned to her parents, is sure to happen. And sure to be agonizing. Our ultimate hope is that we can foster an infant and eventually adopt - as a few of our friends have been blessed enough to do. We were informed that Canadian County is not the mecca of infant adoptions, but we aren’t just doing this to fulfill our desires. We are doing it to minister to a child that may never go to church except with us, to show a toddler the wonders of unconditional love that they may have never experienced, to give a newborn a warm embrace and a comforting place to sleep. No, we have no clue what to expect, but we do know what we have to offer…and that’s everything we are.

Those Glorious Days of Summer?

Summer. A word that makes every kid’s heart leap and all teachers sigh with relief. It signifies an end to a school year, a break, a rest from the daily grind. Summer when I was a kid seemed endless, with so much to look forward to: long, hot days spent swimming at White Water, screaming gleefully on rides at Frontier City, listening to my dad mow the grass while I read contentedly in my room, driving to Tulsa to visit my grandparents, and playing basketball with my neighborhood friends until it was too dark to see. The list, it seems, could go on forever. My favorite childhood memories are from those carefree summer breaks when the days stretched before me…each one a new possibility.

As a teacher, my outlook on summer has been a bit different. Every year I hear, “Must be nice having two months off,” spoken with a detectable trace of derision. Questions like, “What are you going to do with such a long break?” and “How long do teachers get off again?” are asked with a hint of incredulity. A teacher’s summer is spent a little differently than one might think. Most teachers, including myself, use those months to plan and shop for the upcoming year, actually get some things done around the house, and, oh yeah, work a summer job! The summer days no longer stretch out before me as a sea of memories waiting to be made…they fly by in a state of fast and furious “doing.”

As a non-mother, this summer will be unlike my previous “teacher” summers. I’ve spent the last 2 summers pregnant, full of hope, my mind occupied with what might be. This summer, despite my busy state, I am afraid the days will instead stretch out before me in a sea of memories I may never make. I plan to heap even more responsibility onto myself, in hopes that the days will, indeed, fly by as they have in past summers. A little SWITCH (youth group), maybe some dog training (working towards Koda’s Canine Good Citizenship), even a little baby-sitting. Somehow, I’m not sure if it will be enough to keep my mind off the shower I should be planning and the nursery I should be decorating.

With summer just a week away, the non-mother in me finds myself wishing I could stop time and hold at bay the day the teacher in me has been looking forward to for so long. Summer, that beautiful taste of freedom, suddenly feels too oppressive to face. What will I be doing with my two months off? Whatever it takes. 

Dexter-style

Dexter. I’ve been rewatching the first season, and I realize now one of the many reasons why I love it so much. I really identify with him. Not the serial killer part, but his emotional awkwardness. He has to fake emotions in order to fit in, as he has no feelings of his own. Now I wouldn’t say that I’m THAT far gone, but I do often feel as though my emotional responses aren’t “normal.” I have comforted many a friend as they cried about MY situation whilst I sat dry-eyed. I have recounted some of my darkest days to others while seeming as detached as if I were talking about the weather. I have stood in the diaper aisle of Wal-Mart wondering when the tears were going to come…reading about other women weeping over Pampers in their local grocery stores told me surely that was the “typical” miscarriage reaction. People have implored me to remember my babies through plants or trees or even through giving them names. The thought that none of those things ever crossed my mind…well, chalk another one up to my oblivious insensitivity.

Now believe me, I do cry. Put Marley & Me on television or give me a Nicholas Sparks novel, and I’m bawling unabashedly. It’s easy for me to cry for someone else’s situation (especially when it involves a furry, four-legged friend). There’s just something about the vulnerability and egocentricity of crying for myself when others are around that I just can’t handle. However, just because I can go out in public and talk about my situation without tearing up, Dexter-style, I’ve found that people think that means I’m “okay” enough to be subjected to all sorts of interesting commentary and advice. I’ve read numerous articles online regarding this verbal phenomenon, so I decided to consolidate the information (plus a few of my own gems) into a list of things NOT to say to me, or anyone else suffering through recurrent miscarriages or infertility, for your own personal safety. *Each faux pas is followed by my unspoken reaction for a little sarcastic relief. (Read at your own risk…)

10) Kids aren’t that great anyway. *Then give yours to me.

9) Maybe you’re just not meant to be a mom. *Ouch! Below the belt!!

8) You’ve gained some weight! *Yes after five pregnancies with no time in between, you tend to gain a few pounds. And the grief eating doesn’t help. Oh, and YOU’VE gained a few pounds. (I didn’t say the reactions were mature…) Haha

7) Have you tried XYZ? It worked for this lady on the internet… *Oh, I’ll tell my doctor with years and years of experience who has read just about every study known to man on fertility issues and attends all sorts of conferences. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a cure.

6) Oh well, you can always adopt. *When this comes from someone with their own biological children, it’s a knife to the heart. The inability to have a child with mommy’s lips and daddy’s eyes is a huge grievable loss, a vanishing dream, not just some small inconvenience.

5) I know how you feel. *Not a good idea to say to ANYONE going through anything remotely tragic.

4) God has a plan. *Not helpful unless God has told you what it is and you’re about to impart that knowledge upon me. I know it’s true, but hearing it doesn’t change anything.

3) When are you going to give up on having a baby? *When you buy me a baby.

2) Well, there are worse things that could happen. *Great line for a new Hallmark sympathy card! You should submit the line right away before someone else steals it!

1) Nothing. *I’ve talked about this before – no need to say it again.

I don’t say ANY of this to induce guilt, because if you’re sensitive enough to think I might be writing about you, you’re sensitive enough that you wouldn’t have said any of these things! Also, I know that most of these comments and questions are born out of genuine concern or to fill the uncomfortable silence. I rarely take them to heart or hold them against anyone because God knows I’ve said some TRULY idiotic things when I didn’t know what else to say. The best things to say? I love you. I’m praying for you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. That means more than all the well-meaning advice in the world.

Groundhog Day

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered? “ This is a quote from a movie called Groundhog Day; since I’m one of only 13 people who have seen it, I will give you a very short synopsis. Basically it’s about a weather man who wakes up the day after Groundhog Day only to find he’s reliving the day all over again…and again, and again before he finally wakes up to a tomorrow. I feel his pain. I’ve figured it up, and out of the last 21 months of my life (since the day of my first positive test), I have been pregnant for half of that, each time a Pregnancy Déjà vu.  I’m not reliving the fun parts of pregnancy over and over…the name choosing, feeling Baby’s first kick, nursery shopping, shower attending. No, I’m stuck with the morning sickness, the exhaustion, the anxiety, the overwhelming grief…you know, the really UNfun parts. When you’re stuck in the same 2 months over and over, sometimes your todays ARE your tomorrows…sometimes the future is obscured by the present.  

We relived another unfun day today…we found out that we have to have another D&C. Unfortunately, although the baby has passed, my sac, for whatever reason, has decided to hang around and even grow. The doctor told us today that if I continue to try to let this miscarriage take place naturally that when it finally happens it will feel more like labor…something I don’t wish to experience without a baby in my arms at the end of it.

Monday is my 30^th birthday...I pray that this meaningful milestone will be my Groundhog Day awakening. That I will wake up one day soon to feel my round belly, breathe in my new baby’s sweet scent, or even eagerly sign adoption papers. When I blow out my candles this year, my request won’t be a secret…and my birthday toast? “Here’s to a new tomorrow.” 

New Doctor, Same Story

As many of you know, today was our first visit with Dr. Best-in-the-State, who from now on shall be called Dr. Impressive Credentials. It was between that or Dr. Smooth Operator, and that just seemed strange and a little inappropriate. Anyway, Dr. IC and his staff were very thorough and kind. AND, much to my relief, Dr. IC actually had a good bedside manner. Not a bowtie in sight, and no grumpiness that I could detect. However, in around 40 minutes of questioning us and going over my extensive medical records, he came to the same conclusion as his practicing antithesis. He told us that 50% of recurrent miscarriages are without a known cause, and that based on all of the test results, the only conclusion is that we must try, try again and eventually we’ll “hit a home run” as opposed to “striking out.” He promised us that he was not just giving us a “Rah-Rah” speech, but that he truly believed what he was saying. His baseball analogies were somewhat strange, especially considering my distaste for the game, but the message behind them was clear. At some point, based on all that they’ve ruled out, we will probably have a baby of our own. The question is simply how much more we can take. We don’t know if the magic number is 6 or 10 or even 15. The only thing Dr. IC can provide for us really is his experience and reassurance.

I have to say that having Dr. GB’s results confirmed was both a relief and a bit of a surprise. I was so hoping to hear, “Oh, silly Dr. GB, he was so busy being old and grumpy that he forgot to run this test.” Then a few minutes later, “Yup, that’s what’s been causing this all along. Here’s the pill you need to fix it.” Not hearing anything of the sort did help ease some of the guilt, knowing that during this last pregnancy there was nothing I should or could have done differently.

This visit did spark something that I haven’t felt in awhile: HOPE. I haven’t written lately because, honestly, I’ve been too angry and sad to write anything the slightest bit uplifting. People ask me how I do it, how I come to work the day after bad news, how I keep from bursting into tears on one of my due dates, even how I can hold onto faith through it all. The truth is, sometimes, I don’t. I’m good at wearing masks on occasion, as I’ve shared before, and the “I’m fine” mask is one that I’ve become all too familiar with lately. Today though, this renewed hope has allowed me to refocus on the big picture of my life. It is as follows: I have an amazing, loving husband who works hard and supports me in all I do. I have a caring family who is full of faith and lifts me up in prayer daily. Although we work really hard, God has blessed Erik and me with great jobs and the ability to have a life without any debt except for our beautiful home. I’m fortunate to have lots of friends, and a few that I count close enough to be vulnerable with. I have security in my future because I know that God is in control and he DOES have plans that I can’t even fathom that DO involve kids, one way or another. I AM fine. I just needed a doctor’s “Rah-Rah” to remind me.  

Crayon Time Machine

Do you ever have those instances when a memory is so clear and crisp it transports you back in time for just a moment? The smell of a rose always sends me to my Grandma’s house where a vase of fresh roses is as commonplace as the hummingbirds outside her window. There are many, many songs that trigger memories of different times in my life: high school graduation, a first date, road trips. There are kids in my class whose mannerisms are so like people from my past that for a moment I can see someone else standing in their place. Sometimes the memories are welcome, other times their intrusiveness and unexpectedness can bring you to your knees. Today, I experienced the latter.

I was teaching, walking the room, doing the same thing I do every day, looking at the same kids, the same everything. But for some reason, today, a box of Crayolas was my time machine. In the blink of an eye I was 9 years old again, jealously eyeing the girls around me with their big, fancy 64 count boxes of crayons. The other kids would go to them and ask to borrow one of their 10 shades of blue while I stared forlornly at my lowly 24 count box. When it came to school supplies, I ALWAYS got exactly what was on the list. No frills, no excess. Folders meant folders, not Trapper Keepers, and 24 count meant that anything more was unnecessary. I remember telling my mom way back then that someday I would buy MY kid the biggest box of crayons the store had so they could be “cool.” Problems are so simple as a kid…I’m sure that at 9, all I  knew was that one day I would get married and have babies because that’s what people do. Miscarriage was not in my vocabulary. Today, the crayons symbolized innocence...and a future that is just out of my grasp. 

We still have not decided exactly where we go from here. Adoption is still not an option unless anyone finds a few Gs floating around unclaimed. Fostering is not something that my husband feels comfortable with, therefore it is no longer on the table. We did make an appointment to see a different Reproductive Endocrinologist, Dr. Supposedly-Best-Around (name will be changed upon meeting him).  On April 12^th I will present him with my history and the results of the battery of tests that I have been put through…we’ll see if maybe he can unlock my medical mystery. If not, well, being an aunt will have to be enough. And you’d better believe that when Auntie takes my nieces school supply shopping, their box of crayons will be bigger than they are...

This Roller Coaster Is Stuck! Refund Please...

I thought all of the way home on how to break the news to everyone. I know that so many people have invested their time and prayers into our story and our lives. The news wasn’t easy for me to hear despite all the doctor’s superfluous apologies, so I know that nothing I type will make it easier to read. There was no heartbeat found today. All the fervent prayers sent up and tortuous waiting just to hear those words. AGAIN. I don’t need to write about my emotions tonight…I’m sure you can make a list without my help because some of you are probably feeling the same things.  

I cannot coherently string together much more than the previous paragraph at this time. Once I’ve had time to process this and Erik and I have gotten to think about where we go from here, I will have plenty to say. I do know that at this time, we are considering other options. I don’t think that I can do this again. I’m sure that I can continue to survive miscarriage after miscarriage, but the cost to my emotional well-being is just too high.

Tonight we’re going to go out to a restaurant and try to forget this bad dream for a few hours. We’re going to plan a summer vacation and think about all the fun we will have. We’re going to take a break from our lives. Sometimes the realities of this world are just too much to bear. 

A quote that made me pause today: 

“When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.”