Contest

I just entered a writing contest with the following story.  It's long, but I like it :)

My name is Alex, and I have always enjoyed writing as my preferred outlet of self-expression.  I am much better at writing my feelings than I am at speaking them.  In high school, I took several semesters of creative writing class, and my teacher particularly praised my poetry.  In college, I added English as a major midway through my junior year, as most of the elective courses I took had to do with reading and writing.  In grad school, I’d feverishly bust out 15 page papers in a single day.  In September of 2010, I began blogging about being a mother, and just this week I began a new blog about life with chronic pain.  I also have several personal journals that I enjoy writing in but do not make as much time as I wish I could for.  Most importantly, for as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mother, to three children.  I wanted them all to be about 3 years apart from the next, just like a set of my cousins had been.  I began to get my wish when God blessed me with a little boy in 1999, and then a beautiful baby girl just a week before Christmas in 2002.  Since I was very young and not in a solid relationship, I doubted my dreams for a third child would ever come true.  Then, when the children were 5 ½ and 2 ½, I met a wonderful man, Ryan.  15 months later we were married in a beautiful ceremony in the mountains of Colorado, light snow falling in the background.  I would have liked to have had another child right away, but month after month passed without a positive pregnancy test, and we eventually put the dream of having a child together on the back burner.  We assumed that maybe we couldn’t have one together, for whatever medical reason.  I knew Ryan would have liked to have a biological child of his own, but he viewed my children as his and we were both content.

                To our surprise and delight, in July of 2010, I suddenly found myself pregnant.  We had been married nearly four years.  Within a week, we had told his parents, my mom, our siblings, and the kids.  Everyone was thrilled, especially our moms and our daughter, who immediately began suggesting names and asking if the baby could sleep in her room.  The thought of “starting over” with a new baby when the kids would be 8 and 11 was a bit daunting, but we were both extremely happy and neither of us could contain our excitement.  The pregnancy began to progress well; I have chronic pain, and for the first time in years, I just felt great all the time.  On July 27^th, my 29^th birthday, I got to have my first ultrasound.  The baby was a little less than 8 weeks and the heartbeat looked amazing: 169 beats per minute.  I had never had an ultrasound with my kids that early in the pregnancy and knowing that there was something the size of a pinto bean growing inside of me with a heartbeat of its own was the best birthday gift ever.  I do not remember ever being so happy, content, and excited.  The only thing that put a damper on the appointment was when the ultrasound tech said, “Your chance of miscarriage is only about 5 percent.”  I remember thinking it was weird that she would even say that, OF COURSE I was not going to have a miscarriage.  That was something that only happened to other people, and I (erroneously) believed that miscarriage was some fluky thing that was no big deal. 

                Unfortunately, about 2 weeks later, I began spotting.  The afterhours on-call doctor assured me that many pregnant women bleed or spot and told me that since we’d had a scan and seen the heartbeat, odds were good that everything was going to be fine.  He told me to take it easy and said if I was still worried, I could call the office in the morning and have another ultrasound.  I was very worried but rested as he told me to do, and the next day, I felt pretty good.  I did not have any more bleeding at all and I took the kids shopping for school supplies.  The following day also went well, until about 5 in the evening when I went to work and began lightly spotting again.  Again, it stopped all the next day, until work, when it began to intensify slightly.  I went home early and tried to call the doctor, but he was assisting a delivery and we never did end up being able to connect.  The next morning, I made an appointment, completely excited as I knew the baby would be fine.  I took myself out to lunch before the appointment and I just wanted to gush to every person I saw that I was going to have a baby.  I was THAT excited about the pregnancy.   My mom happened to call me that day and when I told her what was going on, she insisted on coming to the appointment with me.  We chatted in the waiting room, still both excited at the prospect of a new baby in the family.  I finally got called back to the ultrasound room and had to explain to the tech why I was there.  She began the ultrasound, and I was so excited when I saw my little baby on that big screen in front of me.  She began measuring and said, “9 weeks, 4 days,” which I thought was quite odd because I should have been at least 10 weeks.  Then I noticed that the heart was not beating like it had been before and I wondered if she needed to do something special with the equipment to make the heartbeat show up.  Just as it dawned on me that things were not ok, she said, “There’s no heartbeat, and no movement,” sorrow in her voice and sadness in her eyes.  I was in shock.  I drew in a deep breath and said, “OK.”  My mom began sobbing.  All I could think was that I wish I hadn’t told everyone, because now I would have to untell them; mostly I didn’t want my daughter to be upset. 

                After we lost the baby I was angry at the world.  I wanted to walk up to pregnant women and punch them.  I thought it was terribly unfair and the spiteful side of me would think, “how come SHE gets to be pregnant, how come SHE has a baby?”  But it was not up to me.  I began blogging about the experience and how I felt and lots of people I know supported me and even opened up about their experiences with losing babies.  Losing this child, no matter how early, taught me a lot about being a good person when others are going through a hard time.  I always felt for people who were going through bad things but I was also a person who “didn’t know what to say.”  I learned that just saying ANYTHING and being caring and sincere is much better than nothing at all.  I also made new friends who were going through similar experiences, and that made coping a bit easier.  But the biggest, most comforting and helpful thing was turning to God.  Without his love to comfort me and without standing on the solid foundation of faith in Him, I might never have made it through the experience.  Without his love and encouragement, I might never have been able to look back at the experience and see it as positive, but I do now.  The first pregnancy test, telling everyone and seeing their excitement, the first ultrasound with the good heartbeat were all are amazing gifts that can never be taken away.

A couple of months after losing the baby, I began to have an extreme flair up of my chronic pain, and we still have not gotten to the bottom of what is causing it.  However, with writing and praying, I have the courage to face each day and conquer challenges.  I began doing martial arts with the kids and while it is very physically demanding, it is also rewarding.  I have learned to challenge myself and face new obstacles, but without God’s encouragement, I wouldn’t have the strength to face any of it.  Since losing the baby, we have begun going to church every week, I have begun reading the bible and other daily affirmations, and we began listening to Christian radio station.  This experience gave my whole family the opportunity to get to know and love God.  The kids love the Christian music, and it is nice to give them something positive to focus on in a world that has its eyes and hearts focused on things that are not important.  It has also given me the courage to face adversity with a new attitude.  When I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant again on April 21, 2012, my husband and I were happy.  We knew that this baby was a gift and whether or not it would grow and get to stay with us was out of our hands.  I worried some, but I also let myself enjoy being pregnant.  I liked the symptoms of pregnancy, even though some were uncomfortable.  The slight nausea and achiness was affirmation that I had a baby growing inside of me.   I let myself dream of what having a new baby would be like, and I took trips to the baby stores to look at all the cool baby gadgets and cute clothes and room décor (a lot has changed in the 10 years since I was pregnant with my daughter).  I checked out baby and pregnancy books at the library.  I’d be lying if I said it was all fun, no worries, but I trusted God, and my husband and I were able to talk about our feelings with the pregnancy and the loss and we grew closer because of it.   At our first appointment, the doctor told me I had blood in my uterus and said my chances of miscarriage were “slightly” elevated.  We both hoped and prayed that this pregnancy would be different and we looked forward to our appointment in two more weeks to see how things were going.  We also knew that the results were out of our hands and that all we could do was pray and trust God.  Three days later, we told our families via ultrasound photos in mother’s day cards.  We didn’t expect everyone to start crying, but they did (even Ryan’s dad), and it was fun to share the excitement with everyone.  The day after that, this child also went home to be with God and his or her brother or sister.  I only made it about 7 weeks this time.  We were due on New Year’s Day, 2013.  While we are all sad that another child could not join our family, we know that God is still there and His presence helps to dull our pain.  Sometimes I still get that jealous pang when I see a pregnant woman or a baby.  I am only human, after all, and it hurts missing out on the wonderful experience of growing a new life to love.  But we know without a doubt that those two precious children are not gone forever.  We will see them again in another wonderful life.  And while whether we are given another chance at becoming parents or not remains to be seen, nothing can change the fact that Ryan and I are the parents of four amazing children.  God has blessed us and held us in our times of sorrow. We will continue to have faith in Him as he has shown us all the positives that come with trusting in Him.