Something New

 

I received a lot of kind messages after writing my last post, On Love & Loss, and I am so grateful to be able to write in a space where people are kind.  I know that part of putting words out there means that I open myself up to all sorts of feedback and criticism, but I have not found harsh words, at least not ones coming across my awareness as I have shared vulnerable parts of our story. 

I want to talk about our current pregnancy without the cringe factor, and I don't really know how to do that, so I suppose I'll ask for some grace as I share.  I also write this while I have many friends and family members who desire for their womb to be filled, some for the very first time and some who have carried babies before but are struggling now. That makes it even harder for me to want to share these parts of our story, yet also, I do remember finding hope in reading the stories of others who had walked through the valley and were now ascending to the mountain top with joyful news, so maybe this can be an encouragement for someone who needs that.

I am learning through this that shared experiences are kind of weird.  I think I have longed for camaraderie along this journey, and when I found it, it was such a comfort to me.  But also, I am learning that just because we share a type of experience (pregnancy loss, infertility, losing a loved one, going through a challenging work experience, etc.), our lived experiences of that event can be quite different from someone else's.  I have friends who I have struggled to connect with now that I am seemingly "on the other side" of this fertility journey.  I put that in quotes because I am still not holding this child in my arms yet, and much can happen that would keep me from that experience in the weeks ahead.  Yet, I have more hope than I have in a long time and have felt a lot of reassurance from the Lord when I have days of doubt that I am to carry and care for this child for as long as He asks me to. 

When I was desiring to be pregnant and either wasn't or was in a pregnancy that wouldn't last, I envied those who were having a normal pregnancy experience. My prayer journal is filled with almost constant requests for God to help me surrender that envy and to feel joy for them, and I was thankfully able to do that.  I have friends who I felt distanced themselves from me in that season, maybe as a way to protect themselves from the darkness I was walking through, or maybe because they didn't know how to approach me when they were not in that place.  From where I sit now, I am still struggling through many friendships due to either shared experience and attempting to connect through that unsuccessfully or due to me having seemingly "moved on" while they still feel stuck.  Some hard friendships have been ones where I had once celebrated with friends during their season of joy while feeling that now they are unable to share in this with me, and grace simply must abound here as there is nothing any of us can do to change that. 

I always thought I would be the sole geriatric pregnant woman in my life walking through pregnancy, since many of my friends had children in their 20s and have deemed their families "complete."  I don't know how one ever senses that-- Scott and I have always desired a big family, and though that now seems far off, I don't know when we will ever say "we are done."  I mentioned in our last post that adoption has always been something we have desired, and we are concurrently walking through our foster care licensing process while also walking through a pregnancy, and this has felt difficult but also helpful for us.  It is giving me a framework for loving children who are not biologically "our's" but who we will love in our home in the future either for a season or for life. 

A kindness that the Lord has bestowed upon me in Asheville is having friends who are only a few years younger than us who are now also pregnant, so the loneliness I thought I would experience in this season is not to be. I currently have three close friends who are expecting babies later this year, and to say that I am surprised and delighted by this is an understatement.  Even though I am not walking through this experience with childhood friends or college friends who I had hoped to experience this season with, I am experiencing it alongside wonderful friends who have come to me later in my life in ways that I could not have dreamed up. 

I guess that's enough of a prelude to this story of our sixth pregnancy. The reason I titled this post "Something New" is because I have been learning throughout this pregnancy not to compare it to others, and I have seen the Lord fulfilling a long ago promise to the Israelites in my own life-- that He is doing something new that we can trust.  It's from a verse in Isaiah 43 that says, "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."  River, our 5th child, is also named based on this verse, something I forgot to mention in my last essay.  What follows is the story of Josiah Scott and his journey in this world so far with us. 

Two days before a historic storm, Helene, hit western North Carolina, where we now live, I woke up to take a pregnancy test, expecting another negative result that I would likely trash bitterly.  I had been through two recent procedures that were supposed to "fix" issues that may have been contributing to our recurrent losses.  

I blinked several times when I saw the faint second line, a line I had seen many times before, though only in the context of it soon disappearing and my womb being emptied either naturally or surgically.  We were heading to a music festival in Nashville that weekend (or so we thought), and I thought to myself "well I guess I'm giving myself heparin injections in the port-a-potties this weekend" and resigned myself to not drinking any beer at the festival.  I e-mailed my PA at the reproductive endocrinology clinic, and she asked if I could come in that day for confirmatory bloodwork; I did and we learned that we were officially pregnant again and that I could start heparin injections right away.

We were supposed to leave the following day for Nashville, but the weather reports were concerning and we didn't know what to make of it all. A hurricane in the mountains? Seemed weird to me.  We knew all about hurricane prep on the coast, but what were we to do in the mountains? The reports started getting more concerning with words like "historic flooding" being mentioned.  Most of us did not understand what this could mean, and we did not do anything to prepare for the storm in terms of buying necessary food items or water.  I told Scott I thought we should wait to bring Doc to board him until the storm hit and reassess afterwards. I'm always more anxiety prone and cautious about things like this, and Scott didn't really want to wait an extra day but did agree to wait until Friday to reassess after the storm hit. The music festival wouldn't start until Saturday anyways, so we had time. 

The morning of the storm, we found ourselves wondering "Is this it? Is it over yet?" We still had power at this point, and I was trying to watch the news to see if the storm had passed.  I texted my mom and sister when the TV started glitching.  I was supposed to go in on Friday for more bloodwork as my clinic normally trends hCG every 48 hours, but I knew that they were likely going to be closed for the storm.  I tried to call LabCorp repeatedly that morning to see if they were open and would draw an hCG for me. The phone rang endlessly but no one ever picked up; they ended up being in a part of town that was heavily impacted by the storm, something I later learned.  The power went out, and Scott still wanted to take Doc to board.  I told him we needed to wait, that we couldn't drive over there right now.  I had spoken with his boarding facility the day before and they told me that they were only accepting pets for emergency situations as they were short-staffed and had to have staff sleep there overnight to care for the dogs because of the predicted flooding. Part of our Nashville trip was also supposed to involve driving Ruby to Kentucky to drop her off to train for hunting, and we were trying to decide when we would be able to do that. 

Our phone service went out shortly after the power and none of my texts would go through. It had rained and there was wind, but our area didn't seem to be too impacted. I was trying to send a message to our Airbnb host to let them know we might not make it that night, but nothing was going through.  I tried to send texts to my family; nothing.  The 48 hour mark for hCG draws felt significant for me because two of my pregnancies failed at that point, or at least we became aware of them failing then.  I wasn't going to be able to get any further confirmation on this one on Friday, I was quickly realizing.

We got in our car to drive around since we couldn't contact anyone and had no clue what was happening around us.  We saw the lake had flooded onto the surrounding street but hadn't gone high enough to reach houses; we saw roads flooded that we couldn't drive down.  We saw law enforcement and fire teams with lights on everywhere.  I don't remember how we learned this, but we were told I-40W, the road we needed to drive to get to Nashville, had washed away in a landslide. We saw long lines at gas stations and thought maybe we should fill our tank in the car we were in.  The first gas station we went to was already out of gas. People there told us of another that was open, and we drove there and were able to fill up after waiting a while.

No one could communicate with anyone from the outside world and especially not from within Asheville and the surrounding areas; we were told by people we met while out that Asheville was an island at that time-- no roads in and no roads out. This terrified me, and I had no idea what it meant for the days ahead.  I remember thinking to myself, "If this child survives all of this, we will have to name them Helene." I felt certain this pregnancy would end and kept expecting to see blood at some point. 

We spent the next couple of days trying to meet our basic needs with what we had; grocery store shelves were empty, gas was being rationed, and there was a curfew in place to allow emergency response to get out.  Our lake community served as a search and rescue headquarters and also headquarters for the power companies who were working constantly on restoring power.  It was chilling to see search and rescue teams being sent out from where we lived to rescue people stranded from flooding. We cleaned out our fridge and moved as much as we could to our deep freezer, trying to only open it when necessary. Neighbors gathered over fires for hot dogs (not pregnancy approved) which I ate gladly out of necessity, with the mindset "either this will kill this child or they will become very resilient." I set up a station in our kitchen with all of our batteries, chargers, battery packs for phones, flashlights, and headlamps, and it served as our personal headquarters for our needs during those days. We finally got some cell phone service when we would drive to certain places, where seemingly everyone from our town was gathering to text to check on friends/family, to let someone know they were safe. We sent texts that went unread for days to friends we couldn't reach. The Buttered Biscuit kept serving food somehow and provided nourishment for our community and the first responders throughout these days; everyone gathered there for internet or a cell signal to try to just get one bar to send a text.

By Tuesday, supplies were running low in our community. We had been checking on neighbors with downed power lines who couldn't leave their home and delivering supplies from our freezer to them, offering boiled water, etc. Scott's coworkers were also having trouble accessing needed resources, some being from harder hit communities.  We had learned of a way out to Tennessee and were considering driving there for supplies and to go up to KY to bring Ruby, as the breeder was still charging us for her stay. We also thought we might be able to find a LabCorp to take my test orders to in order to get an hCG drawn. I was eating all sorts of non-allowed items for pregnancy at this point, just trying to stay nourished each day with what we had.  Plant-based eating went out the window as we survived on whatever was in our freezer. 

What you should know is that normally it takes us about 30 minutes to get to TN on I-40W.  We are so close to the border and have always loved this about where we chose to live in WNC. With the new route and roads closed from landslides, it would take us 2.5 hours to reach TN. We left for supplies, to drop off Ruby, and for a blood draw, not knowing what we would return to. Our power was still out when we left, and we honestly felt like we were leaving a war zone.  When we got about an hour and a half into our drive, things started looking normal. We had cell service, restaurants and grocery stores were open, and gas stations had fuel; we couldn't believe it. We greedily filled our tank, got a coffee at a drive through, and enjoyed the normalcy that was offered to us in these simple acts. We had some money that friends had kindly donated for us to contribute to Helene victims and planned to stop on our way home to get supplies to bring back. 

On our way to bring Ruby to KY, we stopped in Clarksville, TN at the tiniest LabCorp I had ever seen where I had made an appt for my hCG draw once I had cell service. Scott waited in the car with the dogs as the technician told me, "sorry hun, we don't do stat labs here but I can run them routine." I told her that was fine, that our LabCorp was possibly underwater from Helene, so anything would do.  I wished I could tell something from the test tube that she had just drawn, wished that somehow she could say "oh this is very good, healthy pregnancy blood," but of course, nothing of the sort happened. It got sent off and I was to wait for an unknown number of days for the results to come back.  By then, we would likely be back in NC, and I wasn't sure if would even be able to access them with cell and internet service being out. 

We continued our journey and dropped off Ruby, then came back through Nashville and Chattanooga where we stopped for large marine containers for gas fuel to fill with gas (not for ourselves- we were bringing gas back for Scott's coworker who had a farm and couldn't get diesel anywhere for his tractor, as well as another coworker who had totally lost her home in the storm). We stayed overnight in Chattanooga in a dog-friendly hotel with Doc and then spent all the money that had been given to us the next morning to get bread, canned meat, cereal, fresh water, sleeping bags, blankets, and other needed supplies to bring back for our community. Our car was full, and we had filled all the gas tanks we had with fuel.  I was nauseated from the smell of gasoline and thought "well even if my hCG comes back normal, these fumes are probably going to end everything for this baby." 

We made it home, back into the war zone,  and arranged to deliver all of our supplies.  I was putting out bread, water, and food supplies at Scott's office for his coworkers to come collect when they could when I got my hCG results.  I couldn't believe I even had a cell signal because his office was in Swannanoa, one of the worst hit areas in Asheville. For the first time in recent pregnancies, my hCG was increasing, indicating a healthy pregnancy; I couldn't believe it. 

We returned home and had power, which we were relieved by.  Cell service was restored, though still very spotty, and supplies were starting to come in.  Alternate routes had been opened and many people were fleeing to TN, Greenville, and Charlotte to get away. I slept well for the first time in days, exhausted from all of the travel and stress of the past several days. It felt like we had lived a thousand lives already that week. 

Life started to settle into new normal. Nothing would be the same for a very long time, and even now, Asheville isn't "normal." Homes have been lost, lives lost, businesses.  You can't drive far in Asheville without seeing signs of devastation from the storm. Many went without clean water for almost 2 months.  

We made plans to drive to Charlotte to have my first ultrasound as I still hadn't started bleeding but still couldn't get any bloodwork done in Asheville to confirm things were still going well. The clinic was closed until clean water was restored. We also shipped a solar generator to my brother's house that we planned to pick up then to support our deep freezer in case power was lost again. My brother and his wife graciously hosted us and we drove to the clinic, claiming a "follow up appointment" from my procedure in August. I was certain that there would be no heartbeat or no baby when the probe was inserted, just like in my other two pregnancies that made it to US.  I was certain that the stress of the past few weeks coupled with all of the non-allowable food items I had consumed would likely mean that this pregnancy was over.

When the probe was inserted, I held my breath for a few seconds before registering what I expected, an empty amniotic sac.  Except, it apparently wasn't.  I had never had an ultrasound this early before, and there was a tiny clump of cells that I could barely see that would later become known to us as our child. This tiny clump of cells started making a sound that I recognized as a heartbeat, and tears filled my eyes. Our first heartbeat in a pregnancy, in the most unlikely of circumstances.  I walked out of my first ultrasound with a souvenir photo that I tucked into my purse. We stayed the night with my brother and sister-in-law, and I awkwardly drank ginger beer at a nearby bar while we gathered together for drinks, claiming not to be drinking much at that time. 

I've made this post so long already, but to summarize the next few weeks, here's what I'll say.  Every ultrasound, blood draw, doctor's appointment filled me with fear. I was certain bad news was lurking around the corner.  Each time, good news was delivered, and I thanked God for these gifts and for His faithfulness. We graduated from my specialty clinic at 9 weeks and were met with hugs from my prior OB team at Laurel, Shannon and Brooke sharing in our joy when I called to make the first appointment with them. Dr. Kaplon was so excited to see me under different circumstances and promised me as many ultrasounds as I wanted to feel comfortable, knowing that I was anxious about losing this one.  Our genetic testing came back and confirmed a healthy boy with low risk of genetic anomalies. 

In our first pregnancy, we had decided on two names that we loved, one for a girl and one for a boy. I had a long list of other hopeful names, but these were the two we had decided on.  I pulled the note out and asked Scott if this was still our name for him.  The name was Josiah Scott.  We both have loved this name for so long and dreamed through many losses of someday naming a child this.  I was actually the one who became more apprehensive about the name once we learned that we were having a boy, but a quick Google search of what the name meant helped me to come back to that name. Josiah means "Yahweh has healed" or "Yahweh supports and heals." This felt perfect for this child and for our journey to him. Obviously my prior promise to myself to name this child Helene if they survived was neglected as a kindness to our son. 

There's so much more I could say, but these essays are becoming so long.  I suppose if you want to know more, we'll have to meet for (decaf) coffee sometime or catch up in real life somehow.  I'll end with saying that I held on to promises from Scripture for many months in this journey when I wasn't sure of what the outcome would be.  I believed what the Psalms said, that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living;  I just didn't know what that would look like.  I accepted at some point that it might mean that we did not have biological children and pursued adoption and foster care as we had desired anyways, just with a different timeline than we thought.  I believed that what was sown in tears, we would reap with joy, but again-- I couldn't predict how the Lord would accomplish this.  There were years of hoping, of praying, of waiting, without much to show for it outwardly. Inwardly, my faith was being deepened and I was being sanctified in ways I would never have chosen.  Even as I sit here fearing pregnancy complications, stillbirth, childhood cancer, and all of these things for Josiah, I rest in the promises of God, knowing that I cannot control the days ahead, but I can trust the One who does. 

XO,

C