One Last Lullabye

I didn't want to write this post, for many reasons. But someone once said, "when in torment, document."



Someone also once said, "everything happens for a reason."



But I have to say, I'm pretty glad that person isn't standing right in front of me right now, otherwise I might consider punching them.



(Okay, maybe not. But I would possibly slay him/her with vicious rhetoric).



There are very few things which have proven themselves to remain true in my life, time and time again: love, in it's purest and simplest form, can make everything right. Always. Also, (despite my strong feelings about the aforementioned cliche) everything does happen for a reason. Even the painful things.



Especially the painful things.



I have also learned that a momma's intuition is rarely ever wrong. Okay, fine. There have been a few times I've been wrong. (Maybe only two or three....) but I do know that those times became increasingly rare since having Ella and Milo. Call it a sixth sense, call it a "word" or a feeling, but it's there- for better or for worse. In my case, I've been the...um, beneficiary...of vivid dreams, premonitions, whatever, where in freakishly clear detail, I've been able to see ahead into the bigger moments in my life. For example, more than 6 years ago, a dream with letters spelling the name"Jacob" a few weeks before I met Jake on a blind date (and before I actually knew his name). Then another dream, three-ish years later: me, holding a pregnancy test with two bright pink lines- only a week and a half before I found out I was pregnant with Ella. A few nights after the pregnancy test dream, I dreamt of a car accident. I awoke in a cold sweat after seeing bright headlights at night, my car spinning, and my hand on my protruding belly. Fifteen weeks later, I was T-boned in an intersection at night. I held my belly as the car careened to a stop before going into a ravine. I remember being surprisingly calm, even as I was rushed to the ER while a doctor wasted no time searching for the heartbeat. I remember wanting to freak out, but inside, I had this profound sense that I was okay. We were okay. Two agonizing minutes later, the doctor found her heartbeat. He looked up at me, smirked, and said, "Everything is fine. It just wouldn't be still long enough for me to pick it up." (Is that not my Ella, or what??)


So those are just a few of the dreams I always remember right away. I needed to give a bit of backstory to set the stage for yet another one I can now add to the list. This one featured me, lying on an exam table, a wand on my belly and a screen in front of me. I can make out the distinct features of a baby that I know immediately is mine. She is dancing and wiggling about, stretching her tiny arms and legs. I see her nose, her perfect profile, and I feel warmth. Light. Nevermind that I said we were done with two. This baby is coming and the love is palpable. I then turn my gaze on the wall beside me and I see the number 3 in bold. I stare at it for what seems an eternity. From there, I climb into a shower, crying. And then I woke up to find Ella hovering a mere 1/2 inch from my face, asking to watch TV downstairs, so I dragged my tired self out of bed to make her breakfast.


Mid-way through buttering her toast, I thought, now THAT was a weird dream. What the hell did I eat last night before bed? Never again... And I went on about my day. It wasn't until a few days later that I started to feel....off. Warm. Flushed. Barely able to keep my eyes open. Stuffy nose and sore throat. One minute I was starving, and the next, I was sure that my bowl of cereal was about to make a repeat appearance. Milo pressed his head against my chest one night as I rocked him to sleep and I suddenly felt a very familiar pain radiate through my boobs. Wait, wasn't my period supposed to start? I grabbed my calendar and started counting. Not late yet, but very close. I bought some pregnancy tests and didn't tell a soul. (Well, I maybe told one or two souls, but I swore those souls to secrecy). First test was negative. At first, I was relieved. And then, strangely, I wasn't. Was that disappointment lurching it's way up into my throat? I swallowed hard. We said we thought we were done. We had our girl and our boy. Healthy and happy. Surely, that was enough. I wasn't charting or tracking anything. We weren't trying. Hell, if truth be told, we were preventing. But I simply couldn't shake that unmistakeable feeling. The same intuition that told me something was different when I got pregnant with Ella, and the same one that told me without a doubt that Milo was growing inside me, even when the first test I took with him told me otherwise. I just knew. Of course, some of this intuition stemmed from my unbelievable (and unfortunate) sensitivity to hormones and the fact that I was sick, like, 30 minutes after he was conceived. But really, more of it was because I just knew. I couldn't explain it, but I didn't have to. Two days after that initial negative test with him, I saw the word "pregnant" on a digital test.



So, it seemed I was in a very similar spot once again. I started making note of my symptoms, paying more attention. And also, despite my best efforts not to, I started picturing our new family. I saw Milo as the big brother instead of the perpetual baby. I saw him and Ella cozied up to me in a hospital bed- all at once jealous, and yet in awe of this new little creature who was joining our family. It started to make sense, even when I swore months ago that it never would. I took another test. Negative again.



I waited. I waited without knowing what exactly I was waiting for. A blood test came back negative as well. And yet, when most normal people would have given up on the initial idea, I came home and researched. I googled like a fiend. Shamelessly. I just couldn't let it go that something was different. I was now over a week late for my period. I woke up sick to my stomach in the middle of the night. My boobs felt on fire. I was peeing every 30 minutes. And in the midst of it all, I still remembered that dream.



A long and torturous seven days later, I finally got my answer: a very faint yet unmistakeable line on a first response test. I gazed at it, not entirely sure if I was hallucinating. But it was there. "There you are." I said. "What took you so long?" Then, I posted the picture on a well-known pregnancy/fertility forum, just to make sure that other women saw it too and I wasn't, in fact, losing my mind. (Turns out I wasn't- not yet, at least).



But I couldn't get excited. I was happy, relieved, and yet- reserved. When I found out I was pregnant with both Ella and Milo, I excitedly blurted out the news to our parents before the pee had even dried on the stick. Everyone knows a line is a line, no matter how faint. But there was something about this line that told me to wait. Just wait.



I contemplated arguing with my test. I had been waiting. And yet, intuition is so often a double-edged sword. If it clues one in about impending good news, it's certainly just as capable of preparing one for the opposite. I sat on the floor of my bathroom-turned-chemistry-lab and found myself pleading with my pee stick. Please get darker. Please stick. Don't leave me yet. I saw you in that dream and you were perfect and you were healthy. Don't go.... I thought about how long I had waited to simply close myself up in my bathroom alone (which is next to impossible with a preschooler and a toddler) in order to finally hold in my hands what I knew in my heart all along. But why couldn't I celebrate? I told very few people. When I did, I asked them to pray. And I continued to pray that what I was afraid of would never come to be. I prayed, this time, that my intuition would be wrong. I prayed to be sick as a dog, told God that he could throw all of the morning sickness at me he wanted. Please. I could handle it. I would do it.



And yet, even as I prayed, I was aware that I was holding back- that there was more I needed to say that I wasn't willing to say. Over the last four years, I guess I've re-defined how I view prayer, and consequently, how I view "God." I tend to avoid the cheesy, cliche sayings now (whether I believe them to be true or not) because there was a point in my life when I spouted such things without feeling a shred of truth in them. And yet years later, I still ultimately believe that there's this force bigger than all of us that we call LOVE- that works miracles, puts broken lives back together, gives second chances. And I still believe that the excruciatingly painful things are what will always have the most potential to change us, if we let them. But if I truly recognize all of this, it means I have to change my thinking. I have to force myself to say that I trust a bigger picture that I can't see- that perhaps, I might never see. I have to choose to believe that maybe, I really don't know what's best, even when I want to think otherwise. And hardest of all, I must come to terms with the fact that it's especially those things I try so desperately to hold onto that I must learn to let go of. If you love it, let it go.



If you love it, let. it. go.



Because my children, who are tucked away in their beds asleep, didn't get here because I willed them to. And neither did this one. I can't take any credit. And so, days later, I gave in. While the kids were having a snack downstairs, I stole a few solitary minutes to drop down on my knees in Ella's room. I heard three words come out of my mouth, completing the second part of the prayer I was unwilling to speak up until then. And even then, as I sputtered out the words, I was still somewhat unsure I believed them. "I trust You." And then I said it over and over again until the tears stopped. I saw our family. I remembered the tiny silhouette on the screen from my dream more than two weeks ago. At once, I felt immense joy for the blessings I have- that I'm so undeserving of- and yet, I felt my heart break as a familiar pain began radiating in my back and mid-section. Sometimes, whether we like it or not, pain may be the only indication that we're still alive, and that we're meant to live into a bigger story. So for now, as much as it hurts, I won't wish it away, because I know that the story isn't over.







"Dear God, I would have loved to have held this baby on my lap and tell them about you, but since I didn't get the chance, would you please hold them on your lap and tell them about me?"





{For our sweet angel baby, due 11/6/12}