A Million Little Pieces

I will never forget the day that we decided to get pregnant. I remember laying in bed, in the middle of the day on a Saturday, in the dark, and just praying. I laid in my bed for probably two hours. Jon and I had been married for about 6 months. I had just made it through the worst semester of my entire life—my first semester of law school—and I had been feeling the desire to get pregnant HEAVILY. I mean, like, crying when I see babies or puppies or small shoes… and that YANK on your heart. It pulls you to the child, and to the mother. I was pretty much stalking every pregnant person I could find on Facebook and Instagram. And when I could finally trap a new mother for five minutes, I would bombard her with the most inappropriate questions—how long did it take to get pregnant? What does it feel like to have a baby inside you? Did you feel that “ring of fire” that women talk about when you were pushing the baby out? Did your vagina tear?... yaaaaaaaa… told you—inappropriate. But I had to know. It was like I was a vampire and knowledge about babies and pregnancy was the blood that I needed to survive. I watched all the documentaries I could find. I read all the blogs. I was ready…

But I was terrified. I knew that this had been on my heart for so long, but was I really ready to be a mom? To take care of another human being?!? And what about my marriage; could we handle this? Were we ready for this? Oh ya and law school… did women in law school even get pregnant? Would I have to drop out? Would my peers/professors/deans treat me differently? Would I ever have the career I was working my ass off to get??????? Every sign pointed to “wait.” There were a million reasons to not get pregnant at that moment.

So I prayed, and listened. And I felt a sense of relief wash over me. Faith…. Trust. Why was I questioning what God had put so heavily on my heart? Why was I so afraid of what other people would think? Why was I doubting myself, or the union that God had brought together between my husband and I? Why was I doubting God? So that was it. I put my trust in Him. He knew what He was doing. He has already written this path for me, and for my future children. I would go off of birth control, and leave it up to Him. And I would get pregnant within 1-3 months. At least that’s what I thought would happen.

Until it didn’t. Have you ever actively tried to get pregnant? It’s not easy. You have to pee on an ovulation stick, or take your temperature in the morning, and count days on the calendar, and have sex on your back and stick your butt up in the air on top of some pillows for 15 minutes (I laid there for hours like that though—just to make sure). And then the excitement sets in. You can’t drink, you could be pregnant. Your boobs hurt, you’re probably pregnant. You have a zit, you’re definitely pregnant. You have some cramping, this is it, you’re pregnant. You google what day your child will be born on, since you know when you ovulated. You put your due date in your phone calendar. Then you check the date when you can tell everyone on Facebook—twelve weeks—got it. Then you check on the Chinese calendars to see if you’re having a boy or a girl. Then you start googling names and putting them on a list in your phone. Then you start pinning baby room ideas on Pinterest, and creative ways to tell family and friends. And when you are 10 days passed ovulation you start peeing on pregnancy tests because, even though you’re supposed to wait until 14 days passed ovulation, you read on that one blog about that one friend who had a positive pregnancy test at just 9 days passed ovulation.

So you pee on one in the morning. Negative. That’s okay… you still have several days left where it could be positive. It’s still early, you tell yourself. But you pee on another around lunch time- just in case. And then one before bed, just for good measure. Negative. Negative.

You pee on three sticks a day, sometimes more, and one stick you are SURE is positive. Isn’t that a line? You take a picture of it and send it to your husband, and to your one girl friend who knows you are actively trying to get pregnant. Your husband doesn’t see a line. Psh. What does he know? Men are stupid. Your friend sees something too but it is extremely faint and very possible a shadow… yes!!! This is it!!!! You are with child. You are carrying life. You are a mother. You are carrying on the human race. You are building your family!!

Except no. No, you’re not carrying on the human race, you’re not building your family and you are not with child. You wake up in the middle of the night to have started your period. What? Wait wait wait, maybe its just spotting from being pregnant.  There’s still a chance. Six hours go by… there’s no chance. You’re definitely not pregnant.

This is where the cloud comes over you. Your heart is in your throat. You don’t want to talk about it because you don’t want to start bawling. So you text your husband, who is downstairs—“definitely not pregnant.” He texts you back and says he is sorry and asks if you are okay. You ignore it. Of course you’re not okay. What happened? Where did you go wrong?? Maybe you didn’t rest enough, or you didn’t pray hard enough or you're trying too hard. Maybe you’re… not… ever… going… to get… pregnant.

I went through this emotional roller coaster for eleven long months. And it tore me into a million little pieces. Month after month…. It was… exhausting. I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I was going to grow old without ever having been a mother. I was so scared.

We finally went to a fertility doctor. Our issues were very small and slight compared to the full range of fertility issues that couples experience. But we were going to try to get pregnant with intrauterine insemination (IUI)—google it. And it worked. Not the first time, but the second time… it worked. 

I became pregnant with Ruby. And all of those million little pieces that I had broken into slowly started to come back together. Day after day, she grew inside me, even though there were days where I still could not believe it. When Ruby was born, I finally realized why we had gone through infertility… I was meant to be the mother of THIS dazzling little girl, and she was meant to come into this world on this day. All of the struggle, and the questions, and the…pain… I had had it all wrong. It wasn’t about me... it was never about me. It was about her, always was. 

I have the privilege of being her mother. Me. I get to wake up every single day and see her smile, and kiss her soft cheeks, and snuggle her tightly to my chest. How did I get so blessed? I would go through it all a thousand times if it led me to her again. She made me a mother.