Yesterday I posted on Facebook that it was the 3 year anniversary of when we found out we were pregnant with Shaylin. I know I posted plenty about it on my old blog but I thought I'd post again here & focus on those first few days.
One friend of mine said she loves our story. That made me smile. We have a story! Shaylin will have a story to tell someday of how God answered the prayers of her momma & daddy & turned their sadness & dispair into hope & joy.
On June 4, 2009 I was at work by myself. I had a nagging feeling that I was pregnant & walked to Albertson's next door to buy a test. Took the test at work in the bathroom & that little plus sign popped right up. But I wasn't happy. This was the 7th time I'd seen that + & it never ended well so my first thought was "Here we go again". Believe me! It breaks my heart that this is my first thought knowing now that it was my first daughter. But it is what it is.
I called Jeremy. He still had some hope that this one would stick. He always had more hope than me. Then I called my fertility doctor's office but they were already closed for the day so I had to wait another day for bloodwork. The next person to find out was my friend Lisa. I sent her a message on Facebook. We had bonded over the past year through our losses.
The next day I called the fertility doctor again & they sent me to a lab for bloodwork. It was to be ordered stat. Loved that! I went on my lunch break & not 2 hours later I got a call while I was at work.
I still remember that moment. I was in the filing room in the back filing paper. It was a Friday & I always filed papers on Fridays. The nurse said I was definitely pregnant & my numbers looked good. I asked what they were (why don't nurses just tell patients without us having to ask?!).
In past pregnancies my HcG numbers weren't very good. Pregnancy #2's numbers were only 12 & then I miscarried a few days later. So I was used to low numbers with sad results.
2,275!
The first words out of my mouth were "Holy crap!"
Yes, I know. I'm classy like that.
22 would have been normal for me. Not two thousand two hundred seventy-five!
I called Jeremy & he knew that was good. Not too many men understand things like HcG count but a husband in the midst of multiple miscarriages understands them. He tried to not get too excited but he was.
A few minutes later I called that nurse back. I wanted to be sure that she was reading my results & not someone else's. I was just in disbelief. Hopefully she wasn't offended. It wasn't that I didn't think she was doing her job right. It just wasn't normal for me.
Some women can go on from there & not need another blood draw. But given my history we had to have another to be sure the numbers were doubling. You want to see the number at least double in 48-72 hours. Since the first draw was on a Friday & 2 days later would be a Sunday when labs were closed, I had to wait till Monday. That was one looooooong weekend!
Monday came, blood drawn & done stat again, & I quickly got my results called back.
7,540!
In case you're not good with math, that's more than doubled.
And in case you're not noticing, those are some crazy high numbers. I've sometimes felt that God gave me those high numbers because that's what we needed. We needed something huge like this to tell us that this one was going to be different. I was obviously going to be scared for a long time (I think it took me till about 20 weeks to stop checking for spotting!) but this gave me some sort of "proof" that a baby was actually sticking & growing inside of me.
In the days to come we got more "proof" - fatigue (we were at a retreat with our church the following week & my memory is that I pretty much slept through the whole thing), nausea (at exactly 6 weeks & everyday till 17 weeks), & of course those first 2 sonograms. The first at 7 weeks where we saw that tiny heartbeat. Shaylin looked like a tadpole on the screen. And then another sonogram at 10 weeks, this time with my wonderful OB who never gave up hope on us, where we saw Shaylin's arms moving around & her tiny legs kicking. We could even see her brain! And she was probably only an inch or so long! Amazing!
But it's those first few days that I will never forget. As I sit here remembering them I still tear up. I've said many times that with 6 miscarriages the odds were that we would never be able to carry a baby to term. But God is bigger than those odds.
I know my story has given hope to other women who've struggled with some form of infertility. I have friends who've dealt with it. And I'm beyond thrilled for those who've been given their miracles & have their own story to tell. For those who haven't yet, I pray for them whenever I think of them that God will someday bless them & they too will have a story to tell.
"For you formed my innermost parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." ~ Psalm 139:13
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