The Unexpected Life

If you missed Part 1, catch up here.

(TW: miscarriage, infertility)

The tears come streaming down your face…

The week after that fateful ultrasound was probably one of the worst of my life. I had bloodwork done that seemed to indicate my pregnancy was progressing, even though there were other signs that we’d lost the baby. This led to an ER visit due to concerns of an ectopic pregnancy. Finally, it was determined that we had lost the baby, and I was prescribed some drugs to avoid surgery and/or scar tissue from an incomplete miscarriage. The process was extremely painful – both physically and emotionally.

When you lose something you can’t replace

Kent and I grieved the loss of this little baby, and heard countless stories from friends and relatives who had experienced something similar. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common situation, with 1 in 4 pregnancies ending in miscarriage. Doubly unfortunately, something being common does not make it any easier. 

When you get what you want…

Following that first miscarriage, we were extremely fortunate to get pregnant again relatively quickly and easily. Of course, I felt much more anxiety this time around, worrying that we’d lose this baby too. I definitely wasn’t as excited to tell our families because I still had the bitter memories of the miscarriage front of mind. But I also knew that the support of those who loved us was invaluable as we grieved. So we hesitantly shared our news and prayed that this time would be different.

And it was. 

I don’t understand why. Knowing what I know now about the rest of our story, I’m even more amazed that my pregnancy with our son was so uneventful and just…easy. It truly was a miracle, and I sometimes marvel at this tiny little man I have the privilege of parenting. 

We’d always talked about having our kids about 2 years apart in age and we knew from hard-earned experience that it might not happen right away. So, when our son was about a year old, we decided that the time was right to start trying for a second. 

When you try your best, but you don’t succeed

Month after month passed with a negative pregnancy test and the unwelcome arrival of my period. It was a brutal reminder every time that my body just wasn’t doing what I felt it should. Somehow it felt like a failure every time. Like I was a failure. Every time.

I ended up going to see my doctor, who then referred me to a fertility clinic. Over the course of more than 2 years, I got to know that clinic very well. Countless ultrasounds, blood tests, procedures, pharmacy runs and follow up visits later, I had managed to see almost every room in the fairly large clinic. I remember the day I punched the final spot on my personal (in my head only) Bingo card of ultrasound rooms. I had been in every single one.

Because I had successfully had an (almost) full term baby, the doctors were hopeful that my body just needed a little help to get and stay pregnant and so recommended we start with IUI. The full fertility treatment process is a longer story for another post, but the short version is that we went through 4 failed rounds of IUI before moving onto IVF.

The first full round of IVF resulted in a negative pregnancy test, and so were were faced with the decision of what to do next. One of the most frustrating parts about the whole fertility journey is that there are so few answers. It is amazing to me how little we really understand the process. This means our doctors were not able to offer us much concrete advice.

After some prayerful consideration, we decided to try one more time with IVF. Through a series of events that will need to be explained more in a future post, we ended up with a positive pregnancy test (yay!). At around 7 weeks, we went back to the fertility clinic for what would end up being our last time. The ultrasound technician nonchalantly said “so I see two babies in there!” and both Kent and I about keeled over. We were expecting twins!

But if you never try, you’ll never know

I’ll never forget the feeling of sitting in the waiting room after the ultrasound as we waited to meet with the doctor. We were both in a sort of shocked silence, punctuated by the occasional burst of short laughter from one of us as we tried to process the news of twins. It was great news, for sure. But also a tad overwhelming. 

Here’s the truth. I had begun to doubt if we’d ever have more kids. I  had been grieving the family I thought I’d have, with kids a couple years apart and being best buddies. I mourned the fact that, even if we got pregnant by some miracle, I wouldn’t get that time at home with all of my kids together because our son would be starting school soon. The dream I had for what my life would look like had long since died. It is a very private kind of grief, one they don’t make a greeting card for…that grief of a life you thought you’d have disappearing and being replaced by a vague unknown landscape. Of watching friends and strangers get the very thing you so desperately want, while time ticks mercilessly on. 

And here I was, finally getting what I’d been fighting for so long for and still somehow facing yet another unknown and unexpected twist. Twins.

Lights will guide you home

There’s a song called Battle Belongs by Phil Wickham that I would frequently listen to during the infertility journey when I needed to change my attitude. I would turn on a playlist to try to remind myself of what I knew was true about God, even when I mostly just felt angry at him. We sang this one particular song at church when the twins were about 2 months old and I immediately got choked up as we sang the first verse.

It was like God was whispering to me (or actually, more like shouting):

“I saw this all along…when you were crying in the bathroom over another negative pregnancy test, when you were devastated as another month, another year passed without a baby. I saw this moment, right here: you with your twins at church. I saw your son doting on them, being so excited to teach them all the things a big brother should teach his little sisters, not caring at all that he’s 4 years older than them instead of only 2. 

And I see 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 50 years from now. I see why it needed to be these girls. I see why the mountain needed to move at this time. I see it all. You’re safe with me.”

I don’t fully understand how I got here, or where we’ll go now. But I know I can trust that God’s got things under control. And I get to enjoy this crazy, unexpected ride.