An Update, The Short Version

To say the last few days have been hard is an understatement. To say that I'm doing ok seems generic. It is true though, I'm doing ok. A lot has gone through my mind, a lot has gone through my body, and I am still processing everything, both mentally and physically.

The short version (at least as short as a wordy woman in love with run-on sentences can tell it) is this- After spotting last Thursday (Christmas Eve) evening, more on Friday (Christmas Day, and day 3 of the blizzard that moved in on Wednesday), after almost needing to run Dazzle to the ER in the wee hours of Friday morning due to her asthma taking a nasty turn, 5 hrs in the ER & Urgent Care on Saturday as the bleeding continued, laying low with another migraine on Sunday (my recent migraine flare-ups are now making sense as my hormones are going a bit whacky right now), waiting in a back room at the clinic for an hour on Monday before walking out annoyed and asking if I could be seen Tuesday morning instead, I headed home. How's that for a long sentence?

Once home things began to pick up, which ironically, is what I was hoping for at that point. I had been dreading the need for a D&C like I needed after my first miscarriage and turned out to be one of the most miserable experiences of my life, for so many reasons. The bleeding got heavy, the cramping got painful, the miscarriage became very real, no room for questioning or hoping beyond hope. Right about the time I was beginning to get concerned about the amount of blood I was losing, my husband called to tell me his car broke down on the way home from work. Seriously. Not even kidding.

Our brother-in-law went down to rescue him (thanks, Nate!) and help him try to fix it, and ended up bringing him up north and loaning my husband his truck so he could get to work on Tuesday. I ended up not passing out from not losing too much blood and not needing to call an ambulance because my husband wasn't home to drive me and our 16 yr old hasn't had driver's training yet. I did however stay up very late as I was afraid to go to sleep, lest I just up and die right there in my bed. I worry like that.

Things has slowed down by Tuesday morning, and I was getting ready to head to my make-up appointment (remember I walked out the day before?) when we discovered the van (that I drive) was dead. Ka-put. Completely. It was very cold, like 7 degrees, I wasn't up for the 10 mile jog down the highway. (Ok, pretty sure I've never jogged 10 miles anywhere in any temperature.)

I finally made it to an appointment, thanks to a new battery in the van (and my husband's car is still being worked on, or should I say is being worked on again? It died 3 times on the way home from the mechanic's... $400 later...)

I usually see the midwives at the clinic in town, but then, I'm usually having uneventful pregnancies. I was handed off to the OBs, only one of which I'd ever met, so, I met a new doc, and she was lovely and as sweet as can be. We both think that things pretty much took care of themselves (such a weird way to talk about it) on Monday night, and she had me schedule a follow-up ultrasound next week to just make sure everything looks all clear, and then some bloodwork 3 weeks out, just to make sure that my hormone levels all get back to where they should be.

All in all, I'm saddened by the realization that there is no longer a baby due July 20th, and there is no longer a point to wondering how long to wait to let people know I'm pregnant. There is nothing I can do to change that. There is only to carry on, time to put one foot in front of the other and just "do the next thing".

Really, that was the short version! The Lord has been so good to me, to us, I don't know if I can even begin to explain it, I don't even know if I can't understand it all, no, I'm pretty sure I can't, but He has been. It's in His nature. Things have been, or maybe I should say could have been, overwhelming (and I haven't even mentioned how our youngest two have had these croupy coughs that have been sounding rather concerning as well, 3 kids sick, 1 mom sick, and both vehicles dying in one week, sheesh!) but we just keep resting in His goodness.

I'm in full-blown planning for the new year mode, excited to share some of our plans with you soon! Much of my down time has been spent focusing on the future, one day at a time, something I was planning on using this holiday vacation time for, regardless of all of the issues that have arisen...

In closing, I do want to say a heart-felt thank you for those that expressed concern and/or sent up prayers on my behalf, and for those that have shared their own story of grief & loss- it's not something I ever wanted to have in common with any woman, but it sure is something that I'm glad I'm not alone in. Thank you all, and thanks be to God, my comforter, my shield, my rock, my friend.