Pregnancy Purgatory

Pregnancy Purgatory

I call myself a trained extrovert. I am, by nature, a sensitive and private person. Often when my face laughs and my voice is jubilant and boisterous, my heart cries. I know I’m overly sensitive and this year, I have come to learn that my two greatest gifts, motherhood and the written word, are helping me to deal with my temperament. I actually enjoy the temperament God gave me, although I struggle with people in my life who don’t believe or accept my temperament.

With every temperament comes shortcomings and I am very aware of mine. I greatly enjoy motherhood and want nothing more out of life then to kiss boo boos and share smiles with my girls. However, mommy life has forced me out of my comfort zone in many ways. My greatest struggle has been the hours of this vocation. Being a mommy is a 24 hours a day calling. This is hard for me, because I require alone time, wind down time, reflection time, private time……TIME. I am in need of a lot of time. Processors need time.

When you’re a mommy to young ones, that’s not an option. I’ve tried rationalizing mommy’s needs for space and a few moments without any touching to a two year old, it doesn’t work! So, for me, sacrificing time is my act of love. I must try to let go of the selfish need for self reflection and deep prayer, reading, and thought for the sake of my family. And, that’s ok - or so I’m learning.

I was reminded this week that although my time to reflect and pray has been sacrificed and sparse, this doesn’t mean my gift of intuition has gone absent.

With my previous pregnancies, I was sick as a dog. All day, all night, all nine months – SICK. The whole thing was very hard on me emotionally and to be honest, physically. This pregnancy - - nothing. I feel fine. I eat when I want to eat and aside from feeling tired, I hardly know I’m pregnant.

After explaining away the possibilities and friends and family members telling me I may be feeling ok because this one is a boy, I decided I still didn’t feel right about this and got myself to the doctor.

At seven weeks I had a scan and a four week old baby was found. For four weeks, the development looks good, but that puts my dates off by almost a month. I was given a due date and some simple math showed me that according to this scan, my date of conception was a week after I got a positive pregnancy test. The doctor told me he was 50/50 on if I was just that off on dates and the baby is fine or if the baby stopped growing at 4 and a half weeks and my body has yet to miscarry. The only answer is time. So, I wait two weeks. I wait until I bleed, or I wait for an ultrasound that will either show me a missed miscarriage and the need for some medical intervention, or it will show me a beautiful little heart beating away. So here I sit, in pregnancy purgatory.

In these two weeks of waiting, there are many, many things going on in my life. My husband Joseph and I have a non-refundable vacation booked to Las Vegas to celebrate getting through a very stressful year (yeah, I know- ironic..), I will turn 29, and of course, there is Christmas.

So, here I am, motherhood has once again thrown me into a situation where being an introvert is not an option. In these two weeks I will see many friends and relatives, most of whom have already heard the news of my pregnancy. My first instinct is of course to crawl in a hole and hole and hide out, not speaking to anyone for the next two weeks until I have something to tell people. I’m actually semi-famous for my ability to do this and have often fielded phone calls from friends pleading with me to stop “falling off the face of the earth.” But, this time of year does not allow this type of reaction to life. Once again, motherhood throws me out of my comfort zone and smacks me in the face with all things scary and humbling.

Although it may seem too personal to put on a blog, I’m trying to grow as a person, so bear (and pray) with me. Also, as any introvert can tell you, we have tactics to avoid uncomfortable situations. I’m not so secretly hoping folks will read this and learn of what we are going through, so I can avoid questions about the pregnancy over the holidays.

Joseph and I whole heartedly believe every conceived child has a precious little soul, and that doesn’t change if the child is born into heaven or into our arms. Either way, this baby has been born into our family. For that reason, I welcome talk of the baby from anyone. I’m just hoping to not have to explain my place of unknowing over and over and over again!

I’ve been through my angry stage of yelling and asking God why in the world He would give this family yet another struggle when we have been through so, so very much. I’ve told a few people that I feel like I am constantly playing dodge ball! But, I’ve now moved on and feel quite peaceful. I have no choice. What will be will be, and I have no control over what that is. Once you realize you have no control, it is actually a really freeing and liberating thing, and I feel blessed to experience it. Plus, I follow in the footsteps of great women who have waited on the fate of their baby. It truly is advent in our hearts!

Merry Christmas, and please pray we are able to enjoy our much needed time together of this “vacation”!