Well, this just sucks. Why do such horrible things happen to such good people?

God, if you're up there, please answer me. It just makes NO sense.

Laura & Justin, you're in my prayers.

One year ago today, I was blissfully 5w6d pregnant. I was teaching school (it was a Thursday) and going about my merry way, when I stopped to use the bathroom before lunch. It was then I noticed the blood. Not gushing blood, but plenty of it...enough to know something was very wrong. I called my doc and my husband and we went to her office ASAP to get checked out. It was the last day of school before Fall Break. My doctor was not there that day, so I had to see the midwife who was very cold and blunt and harshly told us something to the effect of, "These things happen. Its no big deal." Chris wanted to punch her out. They took blood and sent us on our way. We went home stunned and speechless. Our innocence was officially gone.

The next day (Friday - Oct. 1) was a teacher planning day, much like today was. (The principal had called me at home Thurs. night to tell me not to worry about coming in the next day.) I skipped the work day and went back to the doctor, only to find out that I was officially not pregnant anymore. I had miscarried naturally without even as much blood as a normal period. I only bled these two days and my baby was gone just like that. I spent the day last year curled up in a ball crying my eyes out. Chris didn't know what to do...I didn't know what to do...Nothing anyone said could make it better. They still can't.

Even though I'm pregnant again and seem to be OK this time, nothing can replace that baby that we lost. Nothing will make me forget. Every time I hear about another woman's loss I am taken back to that day and all the emotions come rushing back. (Yesterday Chris found out one of his co-workers lost her baby at 12 weeks and was having to have a D&C. He felt the emotions all over again as well.) I'm jaded now...not nearly as innocent or naive as I used to be. But maybe that's a good thing? I don't know.

Has it really been a year?? As I sit here crying, I think about how long ago it seems...and yet still feels like just yesterday. How strange.

Eve woke me up this afternoon by tagging me for some blogland fun. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is this:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

OK, here goes. The post was written on June 4 and the sentence goes like this: "I took a long bath and cried my heart out, and Chris was so sweet..."
The whole post was about how I had gotten my period that day and was feeling VERY down on myself thinking I was incredibly defective. Ironically, this was the first day of my LMP before getting pregnant. WEIRD.

OK, so now I have to tag five people....Hmmm...OK, I tag Jill, Laura, Roxanne, Julie, and Kori.

This should be interesting! :)

I can barely post. I have been so lazy all weekend, then today (my 2nd "gas price" day off), I worked my butt off cleaning, doing laundry, cleaning out drawers and cabinets, etc. I am so sleepy. Back to school tomorrow, but at least its a short week. We have a teacher work day on Friday (any day without the kids is like a day off), then all next week we'll be on Fall Break! Woohoo! Gotta love being a teacher! I'd love to be a SAHM one day, but if I absolutely HAVE to work, teaching is the ideal job to have. Lots of breaks and a great summer vacation! Anyway, this has been such an incredibly boring post, but I promise I'll try to think of more fun things to write about tomorrow! Good night!

Laura's post about her lovely dream after which she feels like the tadpole must a girl has inspired me to share about this one crazy dream I had a while back. Yes, 99% of my dreams since my BFP have been XXX rated, but this ONE was not. Any help interpreting what the heck was going on in my mind to cause me to dream this would really help.

OK, here goes. I'm going for my 20-week appointment in which they do the big ultrasound and gender check and all, but when I get to my doctor's office they tell me to go to L&D at the hospital. I go over and, insted of doing an ultrasound, they DELIVER the baby to check things and do measurements, and of course we can tell if baby is a boy or girl. (I don't remember if it was a boy or girl, just that we found out.) Anyway, after we all "ooh" and "ahhh" over the baby, the doc says, "Well, the baby still needs to grow a little more, so we have to put it back." And they do. None of this seemed weird to me in my dream. I didn't freak out that the baby would have DIED if it had indeed been delivered, and I didn't even consider the mechanics of how it would be put back into my uterus.

Any clues as to what this freaky dream means?

The governor of Georgia has asked all public schools to cancel school on Monday & Tuesday in order to conserve energy (due to high gas prices). Of course, our county complied. While the left side of my brain says, "Wha???" the right side of my brain says, "WOOHOO!!!!!!!!" Hey, I guess down here in Georgia, we'll use any excuse not to work! I mean, we already get the whole week of Oct. 3-7 off for Fall Break and now we get two more days off! Sounds good to me...If anyone needs me, I'll be in my PJ's! :)

OK, no need for my irrational fear. Baby is fine. Heart is beating @ 150-160 bpm. AGAIN, they couldn't get an exact reading 'cause he/she was moving too much. Man, I wish I could FEEL these movements! Anyway, it was comforting to hear that beautiful sound, and we got to schedule the big 20-week ultrasound for Oct. 24th. I am so anxious. I want everything to measure just right and baby to spread 'em for us. The way he/she is moving, though, I'm betting we won't be able to find out the gender.

Paranoia sucks. FF and all the wonderful women I've gotten to know through this crazy journey are so worth it, but knowing how many things COULD go wrong is sometimes very bad for me. Like a double-edged sword thing. Sigh. Is it March yet??

Ahhhh...State testing is finally over. Psycho kitty can go away now. Thank God. As a bonus, today I get to attend a "team planning day" with the other Special Ed. teachers! (That means I don't have to deal with kids today! Heehee!) I have a great sub lined up so nothing to worry about.

In other news, I go to the OB today. I'm suddenly scared and convinced that this baby has died since I last saw him/her on Friday. The insanity never stops.

Nothing else much to report...Looking forward to a less stressful day for once! :) Hope all is well. I will check on everyone when I return from my appointment this afternoon.

Oh my gosh. My friend just sent me this picture and I cracked up. After a whole week of standardized testing and the kids going CRAZY, I have been telling Chris that I am NOT going back to school ever again. He doesn't believe me. This picture will explain how most of us teachers feel about evil state testing:
Its supposed to be animated so you actually see the cat firing the gun. Oh well. Hehehehe...I still love it.

Well, I just got back and the baby was so fun to watch! He/she (no we couldn't tell for sure) was kicking their LONG legs (don't know whre those came from - I am only 4'10" and Chris is 5'10") and crossing them a lot! Modest baby, I guess! :) My friend thinks maybe its a girl. I am so excited! Cautiously excited I mean. She said, "well, things can still develop and the baby is kinda hiding the goods, so I can't say for sure..." Oh, I can't wait til 20 weeks! It was so wonderful to see my baby, though, and get FIVE new pics! Of course, I have to include one. Here's a cutie:
I am so happy!!!! :)

I think I'm having sympathy pains for Laura. (I just wrote this to her, but will repeat myself here.) ALL DAY I have had major diarrhea and vomiting. YUCK. I have managed to get to the bathroom in time each time...Can you imagine messing yourself in front of middle schoolers?! Oh my goodness. I did manage to make it through the day and kept down my lunch, so its all good now. Anyway, I feel new sympathy for her and wish her well very, very quickly. Sending you hugs, Laura.

All is well as far as baby goes. (As far as I know, anyway...) Tomorrow I go at 3:30 pm EST for the play ultrasound with my friend. I had a nightmare that I got there and she couldn't find the heartbeat. I had to rush to the hospital where they DID find the heartbeat and all was well. Whew. I guess I'm worried about her being kinda new at the whole thing and knowing what she's doing. But she does this all the time so I know she will find the baby. I can't wait 'til the baby starts moving so I can have some kind of reassurance that he/she is still alive in there. Sigh.

Ohhh...I have been so lucky not to have any kind of nausea or vomiting in about 2 weeks. Well, it hit me again this afternoon. Yuck. What is that about?? I gagged on something and completely lost my lunch. I know you were dying to know that.

I'm 14 and a half weeks now. Its almost surreal. I actually caught myself looking at nursery sets on the Babies R Us website today and thought, "What are you doing?!" Such cute stuff, though. I can't wait to find out what we're having. I have been trying to decide between Classic Pooh stuff or something more gender-specific. The thing that makes me want Classic Pooh (besides my LOVE for Pooh) is that its gender-neutral and I can most likely use it again for other children (should we be blessed enough to be able to procreate again one day). But then I see all the cute boy stuff and all the cute girlie stuff and it makes me want to go all-out for our son or daughter. Sigh. Maybe we'll see a big penis on the ultrasound screen on Friday and we can KNOW its a boy. I'm hoping so, anyway!

My preggo hormones are making me completely crazy. I cried and cried and cried on Sunday, then all week I have been SO pissy with the kids at school. We're doing standardized testing this week and both the kids and teachers are exhausted and SO tired of it. My group of kids kept groaning and sighing and asking, "Are we done yet?" and I about lost it. I'm just pissy. I come home and I am SO TIRED I just want to go to sleep. Nothing else, just lay on the couch. Maybe watch Survivor Africa reruns, but that's about all. What kind of mother am I going to be?

I don't know if Chris will WANT to procreate again if this is how pregnancy is going to be...

OK, right after such a happy post...here we go again.

Susan Torres' baby girl died. The poor woman was kept on life support to make every attempt to save this baby and give her the life she deserves. Now she, too, has passed away.

WHY?

I just have to shout a big WOOHOO for Jill! Love seeing that BFP on such a good-looking chart! Yippee!!!!!!!!! Oh, and I know its obnoxious, but I'm sending a whole lotta STICKY VIBES to her as well!!

Such good things happening...
Roxanne & baby* are doing well (even though he seems to love to drive her crazy)...
Laura and the tadpole (after a big scare) are swimming along nicely...
Sara is sick as a dog, but still preggo, so that's good!
Kathy & Kameron are kicking right along...
Holly is exhausted, but still very pregnant...
And now Jill is preggo again! (Praying for a keeper!)

Woohoo! I love it! Keep the good news coming!

*Roxanne, I am so sorry I wrote the name! Won't do it again!

OK, I'm going for it. I'm gonna try to say again what I tried to say before. Please don't be offended or think I'm judging anyone...
I've been thinking a lot over the past couple of days (dangerous, I know), and it seems to me that its totally understandable to turn one's back on God after going through what so many of you have gone through. I mean, think about it. If one believes that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then one must believe that God knew that one's child was going to die and COULD have stopped it but for some reason, chose not to. One would have to say that God knew the terrorists were going to fly planes into the World Trade Center but did nothing to stop it. But if we believe that God is loving, then this makes absolutely no sense. Why would He allow that? Why would He not stop that? Could it be that there was something worse that was somehow avoided by this thing happening? Who knows? No one will ever know, this side of Heaven, so yeah, I get it. I get why it would be so difficult to worship and pray to a God who did not spare you such pain. Why would you want to spend eternity with such a God?
I sometimes think life would be easier if I were not a Christian. I mean, I have been raped and emotionally abused by several guys through the years, then ONE man comes along and earns my trust. I marry him. When we try to start a family, our baby is taken from us much too soon. It then takes 13 months to conceive again. After losing our child, my husband is forced from his position as a youth minister at our church...this done by people who once claimed to love and support us unconditionally. Ha. We have raged against God, questioned Him and sought some sort of reason for it all...But we have not turned our backs on Him. I can't say why, except I FEEL God with me. I know He has not abandoned me. God knows what it is like to lose a child. He sent His Son to die for us so that we could know Him as we once did, before sin and suffering entered the world. (Yes, I believe in the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve, and the Fall of Man.) Don't get that either. Why does He care so much about me that He would give His Son for me?
I don't know why God allows such suffering. I refuse to believe its "punishment" for some big sin. I do believe that God is a God of justice and disciplines His children the way my parents always disciplined me, but I don't believe He sits up in the sky throwing pain at us just for fun or to keep us in line. I read the Book of Job in the Old Testament and am confused. Sometimes it brings me peace...sometimes it only brings more questions.
I don't know what the answer is...I don't know why crap happens, but all I know is that if I lost my faith I would truly lose everything. I can't explain where it comes from, but my faith has only grown stronger through all this pain. I trust God even more now than I did a year ago, and I depend on Him more daily than ever, especially now since I am pregnant again and terrified of what could happen. I love God more than ever. Weird, but true.

You girls are amazing! Thanks for the encouragement. I was very emotional yesterday so, as I was working through all that, and trying to make some sense of things (Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina, my own losses), I'm afraid I just went a little too overboard and may have hurt someone or refreshed the pain for someone. That's not what I want to do. So many of you, my wonderful blog-friends, have been through so much worse things than me, and I'm afraid I might have come off as callous or self-righteous in my "philosophizing" about the how and why and "where's God?" of it all. Anyway, I might share the other blog one day. I love getting feedback and comments, which is why I blog vs. writing in a personal journal. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on things. :)
Anyway, I'm off to school now! Thanks for reading and putting up with me!

I have now set up a different blog...a blog where I will try to work through my deep faith issues and try to come to terms with why things happen the way they do. I won't try to discuss such things here, because I know my faith is not shared by many who read, and I definitely do not want to turn people off or make anyone feel hijacked by my faith. I just need a place to vent and work through the really hard questions. I might share that blog one day. I don't know. I just don't want it to be a place where I am belittled or attacked for the faith I have.

This is all the furniture we have in the room that will be the nursery. I love the soft yellow. We will eventually have a crib and changing table, and of course hang pictures and other cutesy things, but for now its pretty bare. I'm just really excited. (BTW, the blanket that is draped on the glider is the baby blanket that was in my crib when I was an infant.)

On Friday I am going to visit my friend who works in the Crisis Pregnancy Center here and she's going to do an ultrasound for me! I'm so excited. I haven't seen the baby since my 7-week appointment. I'm secretly hoping that we will be able to find out if its a boy or girl.

I'm so, so sorry if my earlier post angered or upset anyone. I have deleted it. And the next time I want to discuss issues of faith, I will do so elsewhere. I don't express myself as well as I would like sometimes, and I'm afraid I came across too harsh or something. Not really sure. All I know is that the last thing I wanted to do was to offend or hurt anyone.

I just caught myself doing it. AGAIN. Every day, several times a day, for the past ten weeks I have caught myself checking for blood. I still expect to see it every time I go to the bathroom. Does this ever stop? With my miscarriage, I was so shocked by it...never thought anything like that would happen to me...I guess I'm somehow trying to prepare myself for the worst in case it does happen. Its awful. I wish I could just relax and accept that, at least for this moment, this baby is happy and healthy and doing just fine. I want to enjoy every moment of this pregnancy. I want to glow. And I do sometimes. Sometimes I really do forget the past and am able to totally enjoy the moment. BUT...as soon as I have to go to the bathroom, the fear hits all over again. Somebody please tell me this fear will eventually go away.

Thanks for the suggestions about how to help, guys...Really good ideas! In fact, I've got things going to collect toys and things for the kids, and our Jr. Beta Club (like Honor Society) is collecting money, so I feel like I can do something. :)

Chris painted the nursery today. Its a beautiful yellow. :) I can't believe he was so anxious to do it! I told him it was probably too early, but he wanted to do it, so we went with yellow. Its gender-neutral and goes with Classic Pooh (which I LOVE and want to use much of!), and I've always wanted a pretty little yellow room, so its all good. He is also painting our hallway a nice khaki color, so I'm pretty excited about the way the whole thing is going to look. Our house will actually look semi-put-together! Imagine that!

Well, I am off to grade math tests...Then I plan on eating dinner, watching Survivor Australia reruns, taking a bath, and going to bed. The little fetus is keeping me from sleeping well, so I tend to need to go to bed early so I can get in what sleep I can find. Sigh. I'm just a barrel of fun over here. Sorry to put you to sleep! :)

We are so lazy. We skipped church yesterday just because we wanted to rest, and I spent the WHOLE DAY in my PJs. Took a bath last night and put on clean PJs, went to bed, and as of this moment I am STILL in my PJs. I love this. I could SO be a SAHM. But, that won't be happening. Sigh. Tomorrow it will be back to school, back to the grind...but only 4 weeks and we'll have a week off for Fall Break! Hey, I guess if a girl's gotta work, teaching is a pretty cool job to have. Gotta love those breaks.

I've been watching a whole lot of CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews the past few days...Louisiana looks like a freakin' third world country. Hard to believe this is America. But you know...I don't know why we always seem to think things like that can't ever happen here. We are NOT some blessed country who has some kind of some special covenant with God and can't be touched. 9/11 should have proved that well enough. We are not immune. Its so sad, and I hope all those people find their familes and can get back to their homes within the year. (They're saying it could take up to a year before people can return. Wow.) I've been looking at my pets and feeling so bad for the poor animals who were so helpless to save themselves...Of course I feel worse for the humans, but I can't help but look at my pets and imagine how sad I would be if anything happened to them. Poor things. I wish we could afford to send money or do something. I just feel kinda helpless.

I am so glad to have Monday off. This has been an intense, stressful week at our house. Chris had moved everything out of our extra bedroom to make room for a nursery. Anyway, that meant that everything in that room was all over the rest of our house. He had been saying for two weeks that he was going to take the old nasty furniture to the dump and get everything straightened up, including getting the carpets cleaned (they were nasty from all the accidents while trying to housebreak Rosie), but only today has everything gotten straightened up. The only reason it got done today is because we have company coming in town in about an hour. As you might be able to tell, I have been stressed out living in a chaotic house where not much is in its place. I want to move furniture and do everything, but I can't. I have another little human to think of now. Since I'm not showing too much (The belly is definitely sticking out a little bit!) I think Chris sometimes forgets this and starts to resent me for not being as helpful as I have been in the past. As a result of all this stress, Chris and I have been fighting more than ever. I feel much better now that things are clean and orderly, and hopefully we can get along. I hope so.
Tomorrow afternoon we are going to see Phantom of the Opera at the historic Fox Theater in Atlanta. I am very excited. Chris' brother and sister-in-law are coming to spend the night tonight and go with us tomorrow. (The tickets were an early Christmas present from Chris' dad and stepmom.) They will be leaving after the show, and I fully expect to spend the next two days after that in my PJ's. I don't want to do ANYTHING but sleep a LOT. Of courser we'll get up and go to church on Sunday, but after that, its NAPTIME!! I am so excited I can hardly stand it.
Oh, and I'm 13 weeks pregnant tomorrow!! What the heck?!?!

About This Blog

This is me, sharing my journey through struggling to conceive, surviving miscarriage, and, finally, receiving the greatest blessing ever...the gift of a healthy, beautiful little boy.

Blogs I Love To Read

• Aurelia Ann
• Bark Like a Dog - Milo (Justin & Lauralu's babe)
• Beyond the Pale
• Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog
• Everything Is Under Control
• Galloping Cats
• House of Miao
• Irvin World (our family blog)
• Kathy McC
• Mad Mommy
• No, I Will Never Be "Over" It
• Sweet Coalminer
• Taking Up My Cross
• The Barefoot Mama
• Three-Girls-O-Rama
• Vegas Mommy
• When Eggs Go Bad

• moving
• guilt and bad mommy thoughts
• update on us
• She is here!!!
• 5 days
• still here...
• Full Term!
• Deep thoughts
• Two years old!
• overdue update

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