A Little Love & Luck

I've wanted to get on this blog numerous times over the last few weeks to write about all that has happened. I've formed the words in my head a million times but never could get them from my head to my fingertips to type. I've wanted so badly to pour out all that was in my head into words on a page.

I've been afraid of what would happen if I saw it all it print, afraid to let out all the words and feelings that have been safely tucked in my heart, afraid of how raw it would feel.

But I want to write it down, to have it in print, so that even when the rawness subsides, I will still remember.

So, let's begin at the beginning...

It all started on March 20.

This was the day the pregnancy test turned positive.

That Saturday morning, we were getting ready for our day and Billy said to me, "I think you should take a pregnancy test."

I know I must have looked at him like he had gone a bit insane.

I told him that even if I was pregnant, there was no way it would show positive because it was too early, but he continued to insist that I should, so eventually, I gave in.

Now my last experience with a positive pregnancy test was with Abby and when I took that test, the positive showed up immediately.

So, needless to say, that was exactly what I expected with this test.

I took the test.

Negative.

I yelled out of the bathroom to Billy and said "See? I told you it would be negative."

Yep. Definitely negative.

Wait a minute...

Is that...

Is that another line!?!?

It only took about 15 more seconds for me to change my response from, "See? I told you it would be negative" to "Hey Billy, maybe you should come in here..."

I learned an important lesson that day:

Pregnancy tests don't always show positive immediately!

The test was indeed positive! And if that wasn't enough proof for us...so were the other 4 that I took over the next 2 days.

We were having a baby!

The next few weeks were pretty much what you would expect. The morning sickness begin pretty soon after finding out and it was SO BAD this time. I was sick with Abby but nothing compared to what it was like this time. There were days when it would take me half an hour to take a shower because I spent the first 25 minutes laying on the bathroom floor praying for the nausea to pass so that I wouldn't throw up once I got in. (nice mental image, I know)

We weren't really planning on telling anyone until we got closer to the end of the first trimester, but I started showing REALLY early. I mean, I looked like I was four months along by the time I hit the 6 week mark. It was crazy! I had always heard that you showed earlier with subsequent pregnancies but this was ridiculous!

In hindsight, I believe God was at work, even in my rapidly growing belly.

Since we wanted to share our good news before my belly did, we decided it would be best to start talking sooner than later... so on Easter weekend, that's what we did. First we told Abby, then our families, and then we starting sharing with our friends.

The news was out!!

And I could finally stop holding my breath to keep the button on my pants from popping off. Woohoo!! Bring on the elastic waistband pants!!

Everything continued to go along as expected.

I continued to be sick, my belly continued to grow.

I did have an episode of cramping that bought me a trip to the doctor and an ultrasound. They found a very small subchrionic hemmorhage, but we were told that most of time these just reabsorb back into the body and cause no problem. Other than that, everything appeared fine.

Now, I won't tell you that I wasn't worried about the hemmorhage...every parent worries when they hear anything is potentially wrong with regards to their child, no matter how big or small, but (with Billy's help) I tried to keep it all in prespective and assume that things would continue on just as they were supposed to.

On April 19, we went in for our routine first trimester ultrasound.

I got on the table, the ultrasound tech turned down the lights and got the machine ready and then, just as expected, there was our baby - right there on the screen.

It was a great moment.

But a moment was all it lasted.

The ultrasound tech said she needed me to lay very still because she was having a hard time getting the heartrate to register...so I did. Then she pointed to the screen, and although I don't remember her exact words, they went something like this:

"There it is. See that really small movement right there? That's the heartbeat."

Then she told us the heart rate...

55 beat per minute.

I felt like someone laid a brick on my chest.

We were taken into the exam room to wait for the doctor. Billy & I were both in a bit of shock I think. First you worry that your baby might not survive, then you worry that your baby will survive but something will be horribly wrong with them. Then you go back to worrying that they won't survive...and so on and so on.

When the doctor came in, he told us that based on the heartbeat, the subchrionic hemmorhage and the slowed development rate (something else that was found on the ultrasound), things didn't look good.

There was about a 70% chance that this would end in a miscarriage.

I remember very little about what happened after that. I think I just went numb. I just kept hearing his words over and over in my head...

55 beats per minute...slowed development...70% chance...

miscarriage.

We were scheduled for a followup ultrasound in one week.

We started making phone calls, sending emails, everything we could think of asking people to pray. We knew that our God could perform a miracle and we asked everyone we knew to ask everyone they knew to pray for exactly that.

We needed that miracle.

On Friday, April 23, four days later, the cramping started.

It was so intense...reminiscent of labor pains. We went back to the doctor and had another ultrasound to confirm what we already feared.

Our baby had died.

My doctor, my nurse, even the ultrasound tech all said the same things to us:

Usually when this happens early in a pregnancy, something went wrong at the very beginning. There may have been problems that would have only allowed your child to live for a short time after birth or have been incompatible with life altogether. Sometimes things just go wrong and this is the way that you are protected from that.

At the time these were just words, they meant absolutely nothing to me.

Nothing.

But, once again, looking back, I can see how God was working.

I was scheduled for a D & C the following morning and was sent home with some pain medicine.

There isn't a lot to say about that Friday night. I was so full of pain medicine that my senses were a bit dulled and other than a half hour of sobbing over the events that would be happening the next morning, I was just numb. I just sat and stared until I finally fell asleep.

I had the D & C the next morning.

It's heartwrenching to come home from the hospital knowing that your baby is no longer growing within you and yet you have no baby to hold in your arms.

There were NO words to describe it.

I didn't talk to anyone except Billy for nearly three weeks. I just couldn't. I was experiencing a crushing grief that I just couldn't put into words. I found it best to just keep to myself and be quiet.

I begged God to give me my baby back.

I pleaded with Him.

"You are God! Just put my baby back. Just give him back to me. Please, please just give him back."

Nothing.

I became angry that God chose to take my baby, that He created this life inside me only to take it away.

My conversations with God went from begging Him to give our baby back to angry outbursts.

"Why?? Why would You do this?? Why would You give me this child to love and never let me hold him, kiss him, cradle him?? WHY??"

I was always met with the same response.

"I did it to protect you."

And I always had the same reply.

"I DON'T CARE."

I was angry...and, at that point, I really didn't care. All I wanted was my baby back, growing safely within me. I wanted to be the happy, glowing pregnant mom making plans for the nursery and picking out names...imagining what color our baby's hair would be & whether or not he would look like his sister.

I wanted all that back and until God could give that to me,

I DID NOT CARE.

This conversation with God was repeated many times during the course of the following weeks. I questioned God, He faithfully replied and I responded in anger...

Over and over and over again.

Two weeks after we lost our baby was Mother's Day. I asked Billy if we could just go away that weekend. I didn't want to be a part of all the hoopla. I told Billy that I didn't want to focus on Mother's Day this year, I just wanted to focus on our little family...so that's what we did.

That weekend, Billy, Abby and I packed up and headed to the beach. We went to ocean, the pool, out to eat, to play putt-putt - we just enjoyed being together.

It was exaclty what we needed.

The last day we were there, I was alone getting ready and, once again, I found myself asking God the same question that I had repeated so many times before.

"Why?? Why did You let this happen?"

And as faithfully as always,

"I did it to protect you."

As I said earlier, I must have had this same conversation with God a thousand times over the last few weeks. I had screamed it at Him, sobbed, yelled...and everytime, every single time, He answered me with the same response.

That Monday morning was the first time I actually heard His answer.

"I DID IT TO PROTECT YOU."

And for the first time in over 2 weeks, I didn't yell back at God that I didn't care.

This time my response was different.

"It doesn't change the fact that my heart is broken into a million pieces, God...but Thank You."

My grief didn't just magically disappear at that point...there is part of me that still grieves today. But that day, that moment will forever be etched in my mind. That was the moment I finally heard the words that my Father had been faithfully speaking to me for the past few weeks.

In my mind's eye, I could see myself finally placing my perfect, precious baby into the hands of God. No matter how much I wanted it to be different, I realized at that moment my baby was no longer mine to hold onto to.

The hands that would forever hold my baby were the same hands that had been holding me.

He had been protecting me from the beginning...

I believe that God made my belly grow quickly so that we would have no other choice but to share the news of this pregnancy with the people in our lives sooner than we planned. Because we told, our baby had the chance to be loved on this earth by more than just Billy & myself. From the moment they knew this child existed, our family & friends loved him. God also knew that we would need those same people to surround us and pray for us during our time of loss.

Yes, God was working through my growing belly.

I realize that we will never really know here on earth if there were problems with our baby, but if what the doctors and nurses said was accurate and God took our baby because there was something horribly wrong that would have taken him from us shortly after birth or caused him to live a life of pain, then what better place for our child to rest than in the arms of God, where no pain can touch him.

Yes, God was working through the words that were spoken to me by my doctor & nurse.

God hands had been working, He had been holding and protecting me right from the start.

It was too early for us to find out the gender of our baby, so even though I referred to our baby as "he" throughout this entire post, we don't know for sure what the gender was.

Billy & I both had this feeling we were probably having a boy.

It was important to us to give our child a name, because even though he was only here on earth for a short time, he was here.

He was a life that existed and mattered.

We named our baby Bennett Elidad Johnson.

It means "little blessed one whom God has loved", hence the title of this post.

Billy and I firmly believe that we are now the parents of 2 children, one who lives here on earth and one who lives with our Father in heaven.

We know that, one day, we will see our sweet Bennett in heaven.

There were so many moments, both good and bad, that I want to remember since the day that test came back positive. I wish that I had been able to write them down as they happened, because even now, it's hard to remember some of the details.

I couldn't write about it all before. I didn't want to see the thoughts in my head in words on a page. It would have been too real, too painful.

And even now, almost 6 weeks later, it's still painful. In some ways, writing it is like reliving it.

But I want it written down.

We don't have albums full of pictures or hundreds of stories about Bennett's life, we just have a handful of memories...

the positive pregnancy tests, the joy of sharing our news with friends & family, the ultrasounds, the moment we realized he was gone.

Our baby mattered to us.

He existed even though there is nothing on this earth (with the exception of an ultrasound picture) to show it. All that's left is what we will remember. The proof of his life only exists in the memories we share.

So, I want it written down...

In remembrance.