Zzaj And Keenan's Journey To Baby

In May 2011, after only 3 short months of marriage my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN! 

We vowed to each other that since we got married at such a young age (I was only 21 when we got married) that children were a minimum of 3 years out. God has a funny way about him... we made it 3 months. We both had very interesting ways of processing this news. 

How it all started. I noticed for a couple of weeks that my breast were extremely sore and the pain was increasing everyday. I'd never had this feeling before so of course I looked on Web MD and came to the conclusion that I probably had breast cancer. After complaining to my husband for a few days, his response was, "babe, maybe you should take a pregnancy test." 

I was baffled. Pregnancy. You're nuts. A few more days passed and I found myself indulging in my favorite steak banh mi sandwich along with an iced Vietnamese coffee for lunch. On my drive home I was so nauseous (again, never felt like this before) However, I knew for sure that the condensed milk in my coffee just didn't sit right that day. As I told my husband about lunch he insisted again, "please, would you just take a pregnancy test, like a normal woman?" So finally I gave in. I picked up a test on my way home and of course... we were pregnant. Let's just say this evening ended with a trip to Urgent Care to verify that the store bought test was wrong... because how was I supposed to sleep that night if I didn't speak with a real doctor?

When we arrived at Urgent Care the nurse asked what my symptoms were... Let's just say there was absolutely no mention of the test we took at home. I didn't want to give the doctors any crazy ideas. After about 36 seconds of expressing my symptoms the doctor requested we take a pregnancy test and you would never believe it... YES, WE WERE PREGNANT! In all of my crazy I looked over at my extremely confused husband with a huge smile on my face and tears in my eyes and said "babe, we're going to have a baby!!" His response... "Zzaj, you're nuts, you knew this before we got here..."

So that's how our journey began. We would spend the next 9 months in what felt like hell. I was sick all 9 months of my pregnancy... literally throwing up about 10 times a day, a torn esophagus, sciatic nerve issues, weekly IV treatments, hundreds of dollars wasted on ER trips and continuous melt downs to name a few. We decided that our beautiful Kennedy Grace would be our only child because there was no way we would ever sign up for 9 months of hard time again. 

These crazy memories finally were far enough in the past by Summer 2015. We decided this time, WE'RE READY for baby #2. It didn't take long for us to get pregnant again, we were so excited. We couldn't wait to tell our family the news. There was no way we were waiting 13 weeks to share the news. We were happy and healthy and everyone needed to know. We found out mid August and around 7/8 weeks things got strange. We went in ready to hear a heartbeat and instead we were faced with the news that there wasn't one. We remained hopeful for another 2 weeks. Maybe we were just earlier than we thought, that's all... right? After the longest 2 weeks of our lives we were told that we had a miscarriage. We were left with this feeling of extreme confusion because "we were ready this time..." 

The medical procedure to remove the baby consisted of me holding my husbands hand, playing worship music and trying to make sense of why God didn't realize how ready we were for this. What just happened to us? We didn't talk much to each other about it. We prayed a lot. We decided that it was well with our souls even though it wasn't how we pictured this all playing out. Then we also decided that we were definitely done having children because we would never go through that experience again. 

After a few months of grieving in our own ways our beautiful baby girl begin to ask the question... "why do we only have 3 people in our family?" and slowly but surely we were "ready" again. 

Today, we're 35 weeks pregnant. We're doing 9 months of hard time. I've been extremely blessed to have another pregnancy full of extreme vomiting from start and we couldn't be more thrilled to meet our rainbow baby this January. 

7/11 Lotto Ticket

"Truth is, what those dear, sweet people (carrying nothing but positive intentions) seemed to be missing, was that the baby that I carried for 10 weeks in my womb was real, and should have been reverenced as so."

I was pregnant...Receiving this news in June was kind of a big deal. My mother's birthday was in June. She had passed away two years prior, and finding out this news during her birthday month felt as though she had personally whispered in God's ear to hear our prayers for a baby. Jon and I had decided that after waiting eight years to add to our family, (our oldest being eight), it was officially time to "try" for a little one. And so we did...We found out we were pregnant in June, and were completely over the moon. We sorted through baby names. Played guessing games regarding gender. Attended multiple garage sales. Loaded up on bassinets and bouncers, all in preparation for our little light's entrance into our world.

July 4th..I'm awake. I go to the bathroom to find that I am bleeding. I am bleeding. I'm not on my period. I am pregnant. Why am I bleeding? My husband calls the midwife. We try our best to describe what we are seeing. We see blood. That's what we see. My midwife instructs me to lay down, as my bleeding wasn't heavy, AND  (fun fact), there are some women who spot during pregnancy. I lay down and fall asleep. I wake to find that my bleeding is minimal and barely there. We run to the hospital, as a precaution.  After a vaginal exam and an ultrasound..we see our little one is still there. Heart is beating. Life is there. The doctor who performed my exam said, "Your body is deciding whether this is a viable pregnancy. Go home. Take it easy." 

The next couple of weeks consisted of me "taking it easy" and my body "deciding". I would visit the doctor again, to find a heartbeat, and our baby & my body still deciding. I didn't leave the house unless I was going to acupuncture or the doctor. I did all the "right things". THIS baby was going to happen. Surely, losing a mother two years prior and then an unborn baby was not part of my story. 

Two weeks later, I'm in the bathroom, cradled at the toilet... only to see the tiny hope of the heart beat that I heard two weeks prior. This could not be my reality. This was the baby that we prayed for. This was the baby that my mother had nudged the hand of God concerning (at least it was comforting to believe so.)  I sat there stunned... numb... in shock... How could this happen? How did my body fail in the one task that women are "supposed" to be able to "easily" complete? (or so I was told)...How did I fail? I ran through scenario after scenario regarding what could have gone wrong. Surely it was my fault. After being poked and prodded by three doctors. Three vaginal exams. Three ultrasounds. I had miscarried. I was 10 weeks pregnant. 

One of the things that I learned through this experience is that people really don't  know what to say to someone who has endured a miscarriage. Afterwards, I was met with the occasional, "I'm so very sorry for your loss" (which is the best thing to say in that kind of situation), OR I was met with my personal favorite, "Well, as least you can always try again," which for the record, is the WRONG thing to say in that kind of situation. Hearing the words, "You can always try again", felt as if the provider of that disclaimer were announcing that OUR baby and/or experience was comparable to that of a 7/11 lotto ticket... we could just simply try again. Truth is, what those dear, sweet people (carrying nothing but positive intentions) seemed to be missing, was that the baby that I carried for 10 weeks in my womb was real, and should have been reverenced as so. Yes, we could try again. Yes, we would try again. However, THAT baby deserved to be acknowledged for the light that he or she was... if even for a quick flicker.