Bittersweet...

I sat here staring at this blank box for awhile, trying to figure out how to start. I can't really think of a clever way to ease into things, so I guess I'll just be straight-forward...

Many of you know we were going through the infertility process starting in July. We had our first consultation, felt complete confidence in our doctor, but came away feeling let down. The specialist had said before that IVF would be our only option, IUI (or artificial insemination) wouldn't work. So we spent the whole month of July wrapping our minds around this idea and mentally preparing ourselves to go through IVF. There were so many positive aspects, like we would have a great shot at the twins we were praying for and a more likely chance of things working.

So to hear that, for insurance purposes, we would have to do a few rounds of IUI first, we were just defeated. Mostly me. I saw it as pushing off the thing they knew would work, and we'd waited so long already that I was feeling impatient. With no assurances of much, we had the IUI done on August 28th. Four days later, I was pretty sure I was pregnant, I was beginning to get very sick. We could not test until September 11th, though, so the "Two Week Wait" was completely agonizing. I got sicker everyday. I swore that I had to be pregnant, or else I was dying.

Sure enough, around 5:00 in the morning on Tuesday, September 11th...we got a positive pregnancy test. We cried, we laughed, I immediately exclaimed, "Holy cow, I have to give birth!" We spent the day telling family: Andrew's by phone, mine in person. My sister's reaction was the best reaction ever, I wish we'd recorded it. She screamed, jumped around, and hugged us like crazy. She screamed herself hoarse, haha. Everyone was so happy, many were sure we would get the twins we so desperately wanted. But most of all we were SO BLESSED that this method thought almost pointless, but a necessary step, had given us a child!

We wanted to keep it a secret for awhile, though, from most of our friends and our coworkers. We knew there was a "safe" period that we should let pass, so November 9th became the day we would go public.

Since we went through infertility treatments, we were able to have an ultrasound around 6 or 7 weeks, to see how many eggs had been made into babies. We were told we would even get to hear a heartbeat. So last Thursday, October 4th we went in to see our little miracle. The appointment started off wonderfully, with the guy telling us we only had one, it was 12.59mm long, and we got to see his/her little heartbeat. Before we were able to listen to it, the doctor had discovered something else. Agonizing silence before he said there was a "complication". We DID have a second child, but it had never made it out of the fallopian tube. An ectopic pregnancy. We were ushered into a waiting room to speak with our doctor. He looked a little bewildered as he told us what was going on: we had a healthy baby just where it was supposed to be. But this ectopic pregnancy was a problem. It was a miracle it was even discovered, he explained, because there was a sac and a heartbeat. This is not a very common occurrence, he said. He said any other case and suddenly in 2 weeks I'd have been rushing to the ER with massive stomach pains and uncontrollable bleeding, and could very well have died because the sac had ruptured. But this baby was alive, so they found it. There was no way to just move him to the uterus, I would have to have emergency surgery to remove the whole fallopian tube and our sweet little baby that had just saved it's sibling, and probably me.

We were told he had only done this surgery three times in his 20-year career with these circumstances, and all three times the other baby in the uterus had survived and been fine. So we knew we were in as capable of hands as we could be. My other baby would be more at risk for miscarriage for about a month afterwards, so I was to take it easy as I went on about my life.

Shock. That's all I can say. I don't remember the car ride to my sister's house. I barely remember walking to the car. We told her what had happened, and she bawled. Everything inside of me told me to not cry, to stay strong because I had another baby I had to keep safe. I did cry when I was driving home by myself (Andrew'd met me at the hospital so we eventually had to get both cars home) that evening. I prayed out loud to the Lord, and I talked to the baby. We decided that since the baby had grown and had a heartbeat, we should name it. I felt it was a boy. So we looked at our list of names, saw that Evan meant "God is gracious" and decided on Evan James. I allowed myself that one cry before the surgery.

Friday morning, everything went smooth, it's all a blur now. My sister, brother-in-law, and my mother all came to support us at the hospital.My sister gave me a James Avery charm that said "You'll Always Be In My Heart" and said she would have the back engraved for Baby Evan. The doctor said the surgery couldn't have gone better, our other baby probably never even knew anything was happening. Everything was hailed as a success and we were released that day. My appetite (long gone from intense nausea up until this point) returned for Friday evening and Saturday. I was ravenous. My mother came over Saturday afternoon and cooked us more food than we knew what to do with, and came over Monday while I was still at home to clean our house and cook a little more. My home group leader and one of my friends also came by Saturday to visit with us. Sunday was just me and Andrew, so it was quiet and kind of sad in our house. I could see Andrew really struggling to deal with his grief. I felt helpless, knowing I couldn't "fix" anything...

Tuesday I decided to stay home again because I was exhausted and sore still. I spoke to my sister on the phone, and she said a friend of a friend had been through two miscarriages and had done blogs about it, and would I like the links to maybe read when I was ready? I said sure, thinking it wouldn't have much impact on me since I'd been calm and positive about what had happened the whole time.

I had no idea how deep I was hiding my pain and grief. Reading this sweet woman's words had me sobbing and reaching out to the Lord. It really hit that I was NEVER going to get to hold my child on this earth, that after waiting for so long, I would have to wait the rest of my mortal life before getting to see his sweet face in heaven. I realized that if this baby survives as well (God-willing), then every birthday for him/her I would always think about Evan. The sadness just washed over me in waves. I have known several women who have miscarried children, and while I was always sad for them when they told me, I never understood. You can't really feel that pain of the loss until you are right there, having lost a child yourself. Many people around us have the "at least you have another baby!" attitude, and they are absolutely right. We are so thankful we didn't lose both babies. But we still lost a child. It had a heartbeat, and other little body parts. He was growing. He was OURS. And he never had a chance. He lived long enough to save us, and then he was just gone. I never even got to see him on the monitor, I think Andrew might have caught a glimpse. We waited so long, we have more love to give than we know what to do with...that little baby was so wanted.

It does comfort me to know he's with our Father, waiting for us to join him. I just selfishly wanted to have him first...

So far everything is fine with our other baby. I'm back to being sick as all get-out, so that's a great sign (although I hope the morning sickness passes soon!!). My incisions are clean and neat and healing nicely. And Andrew and I are just trying to get back in the swing of things. There's an empty space inside of us that no one can see, and many won't truly understand. It's just there, and randomly it hurts. I've been much more teary since breaking down yesterday, but the silver lining is that I'm back to praying more. I had clammed up, unintentionally turning away from the Lord. And we need Him now more than ever as we try to move on.

We are so excited about our little baby, though, as sad as we are about losing Evan. We are going to love the crap out of him/her, hahaha! And this baby will always have a guardian angel in Evan. We all three will.

Our approximate due date is May 24th, but we haven't had an official one since we haven't seen our OB-GYN yet. We see her on October 29th, and we certainly have a lot to tell her. But I'm excited to watch this baby grow and I cannot WAIT to hold him/her. We have wanted this for so long...words cannot express how blessed we are. Everything has been truly miraculous, although bittersweet. Even that word doesn't describe this accurately, really. It's so much more than bitter AND sweet.

After reading that woman's words about how she felt compelled to share her story in case it would touch someone else at any point really spoke to me, and when I told Andrew I thought it was time to bring this all to light for everyone he agreed. So it's several weeks earlier than we wanted, and not quite as happy a newsbreak as we were hoping, but we are very excited to share our news with you all. I'm relieved to finally be able to post on Facebook about random cravings and nausea and everything (it's been SO HARD to not talk about it, I've mostly been not even posting anything).

We appreciate the support we've received so far. My sister's kind words and gestures, my mother skipping work to clean our house and cook for us, the people that have visited and texted and called...it's all been more love and support than we could have hoped for. Every one of you that has been there with us since Friday: we love you, we thank you from the bottom of our broken hearts, and we are just so blessed to have each and every one of you on our side. Thank you, thank you, thank you.