Living on a Prayer

When we hit the 18.5 week mark in early June, I remember thinking okay, this is our halfway point. That day I was driving and I swear to you, Bon Jovi spoke to me over the radio waves. I fan-girled so hard to that song, belting out ohhhh, we're half way there, whooaa-oooahh living on a prayer, take my hand, we'll make it I swear whoooaaa-ooohhh living on a prayer. Oh JBJ, if only it were that easy. Sometimes I think I really should have tinted windows and maybe a sound proof vehicle.

Last time, the halfway point was all excitement, just another drop in the bucket. This time, leading up to it was met with fear but then it was a celebration of praise and thanksgiving making it to that point, checking it off the long list of small victories that we hope to surpass. For those enduring Pregnancy After Loss, each week is a big celebration and a relief. We know how you can go from being pregnant one day and then not the next.

When we made it to the 24 week mark, weekly appointments began. Since then, we spend at least an hour and a half on Thursdays at the hospital, first with the high risk ultrasound tech having a biophysical profile of our girl, then meet with my doctor afterwards to discuss. With Hudson we had two sonograms total throughout the 33 week duration of my pregnancy with him. With Hadley, I think we've now had ten so far? In our 24 week appointment, she switched over to the 3D/4D unexpectedly and there she was! We saw every little detail of her face and fingers, her arms are always up by her head. It is so incredible to see how she evolves each week, varying between Max's features and mine. I cling to my sonogram pictures of Hudson because it's what I have of him. I find myself doing the same with hers because it just makes me feel closer to her, allowing me to know her just that much more before she arrives.

From today's 27 week appointment.

Overall the second trimester of my Pregnancy After Loss has been pretty even keel. I have definitely had my moments, because I'm human and have experienced a traumatic loss in this arena, but surprisingly to me they have been few and far between. Each time I feel that twinge of worry, she'll start kicking as if she knows her mama needs that assurance. Then there are times I just feel the need to use my fetal heart monitor and hear her heart beating, which then puts me at ease. Starting the weekly appointments became so helpful, just to have that chance to touch base every seven days with my medical team, and to have the chance to see and hear her. It was a chance to ask questions and raise any concern if it was there. Recently, I was losing a lot of hair - like, postpartum hair loss, clumps of hair - so I told my doctor and she said, "Let's do blood work! If you are losing hair, it could be a thyroid issue or anemia. I'll test you for anything and everything!" And she did. No thyroid issue, and though this little one craves beef like, all the time, I am anemic again so we increased my iron and added more biotin. There's no such thing this time as too careful.

As we end the second trimester and move into the third, though the weekly appointments help more than I can express, the nerves seem to be growing. I keep thinking back to my previous third trimester and how it just ended so abruptly. We keep inching closer to that October date circled on my calendar but that doesn't really mean a thing in my book. Every day we are living on prayers. I say them on my morning drive to work. I pray for Hadley to continue to thrive. I pray for other mamas I know who are on their Pregnancy After Loss journey and those growing babies. I pray for the hearts and minds of Parents of Loss who are trying to conceive again. I pray for Parents of Loss who have their rainbow baby with them but the struggles that can bring such as guilt and sadness for not having had that experience with the child who isn't here. At night, I drift into sleep with an echo of those morning prayers on repeat and this child representing hope squirming around in my belly, so thankful for every movement.

This is my routine - hoping, wishing, praying. 

One aspect to the Pregnancy After Loss that has been difficult on the heart is navigating the question is this your first? Just like the question that was so hard to receive when I was in the trenches of my grief, do you have any kids? I reached a point of mastering that answer, finally getting to a place where I used my better judgement of when to use which practiced response in a given situation. Though it took some time to feel okay with it and separate the acceptance from the guilt of the answer, sometimes a simple no is just easier. Not every person was someone I felt the need to expand on that detail of my life with. If it's anyone I would anticipate knowing beyond an initial first meeting conversation, I can muster a smile and bravely say that we have a son watching over us from Heaven. I've learned to read people and which situations will warrant what kind of reaction. Some people are uncomfortable, some want to know more, others may have had a similar experience or know someone who has and we share a moment.

As soon as I started showing - which happened much earlier and faster this time given I had just been super pregnant less than a year before my uterus started expanding all over again - strangers everywhere were coming forward with that question. With these hormones and a still grieving heart, I found myself at a loss all over again of how to answer something that seems so similar, yet is so different. You don't want to not acknowledge the child you carried through a pregnancy and labored with, but on the other hand, sometimes it is just worth being selective with your answer. Sometimes it is far easier to say yes, this is my first and then hope that is the end of the conversation. However, I learned that is rarely the case.

The times when I choose not to share, it's usually situational but then people have advice. They tell you all about what to expect, what to do for certain pregnancy ailments, share with you about their first pregnancy. They ask the gender and then when I tell them, weigh in on how girls are just the best. I smile and know it is meant with the best intentions. They don't know that in my mind, I had the chance to have a little boy and he isn't here. That to me, having that little boy would have been the absolute best and something I had been so excited for. I still mourn not having this time with Hudson as a "boy mom" and all that I had envisioned with that. Sure I could have that chance again, but not with him. Sometimes I want to interrupt people and tell them I have done this before, to share my own anecdotes of my first pregnancy, or how my body did with labor and delivery too, or compare my post-partum recovery. However, then it feels exhausting to backtrack and not worth the words, so I let them tell me and just nod along silently.

Yesterday I was at a store and had picked up a wall hanging for the nursery. A lady behind me sitting on a bench asked if I was having a girl, and I said yes. She asked if it was my first? In that moment, I decided to respond that this is my second. She asked how old my other little one is and I felt the lump in my throat form as I told her he is in Heaven. She put her hand on my arm and said she had a son in Heaven too. She asked me if this baby had a name yet and I told her. She said she would pray for Hadley often and that is all we could do, that we live on prayers, thanksgiving and grace. She then pointed at a group of women at the front of the line and said those five are her daughters, her blessings after loss. She said she knew I would have mine too. There we were, two mothers, thirty years apart in age, sharing a moment together in line at the Sample House. Tears in both of our eyes, her five adult daughters buying half the store and gabbing in front of us, with my girl kicking my ribs. No more words were exchanged, just squeezes of the hand and smiles from one member of "the club" to another. An opportunity to share a moment with someone else like you, in a world where you feel like a statistic. While I don't believe everything is part of a divine plan, I believe that He puts special people in your life or in a situation at needed times. I look at them as angels. At that moment in time, that lady was an angel to me.

Until Hadley is here safely, we will continue to be living on a prayer, and like that angel lady in the store added, with thanksgiving and grace.