More Than I Can Ask or Imagine

I saw a rainbow.  I knew it was all going to be ok.  I didn't know how ok it was going to be though.  I didn't know because God gives us more than we could ever possibly ask or imagine.

I was gestational diabetic with Riley.  I failed my 1 hour glucose test on Monday this last week.  To truly diagnose gestational diabetes a woman has to fail the 1 hour test and then she has to take a 3 hour glucose test.  If she fails the 3 hour test then she is diagnosed.  Typically a woman is not diagnosed just based on the 1 hour test.  But since I had it with Riley and I failed the 1 hour test this time around, we all pretty much assumed I would fail the 3 hour test as well. I met with a nutritionist, started following my diabetic diet plan, got all my supplies to monitor my blood sugar and started testing it six times a day.  My doctor was convinced that I had it enough to go ahead and let me move forward with all those things.  I didn't want to take the 3 hour glucose test because I didn't really want to sit in my doctor's office for three hours and put all that sugar in my body for the test just to be diagnosed with something I already knew I had.  But my doctor convinced me to do it so on Thursday this week I went in for the three hour test.  By the end of the test I had been fasting for over 16 hours and only had drank water and the sugary test drink in that time.  When I was driving to meet Jason after the test, I started to feel really dizzy, my heart was racing and I got really hot and a little disoriented.  I checked my blood sugar.  It was 50.  My blood sugar was too low, not too high at all.  It dropped low enough to make me sick.  I ate lunch and after eating I started to feel better.  I think it was a clue to the news to come...

On Friday the nurse called me with the results of the 3 hour test....I passed!  Not just passed but passed with flying colors!  All 4 of my levels were way under the cut off to be diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  The nurse said sometimes people fail the 1 hour test but pass the 3 hour and that is why you have to take the 3 hour to be diagnosed.  She said I do not have gestational diabetes right now!  I will do the 3 hour test again at 26 weeks because I could still get it as the pregnancy progresses and the hormones get stronger and stronger that cause my insulin levels to get out of whack, but for now, I am good and the longer I go in the pregnancy without being diabetic the better!  I may still develop this complication later in my my pregnancy but having to deal with it for two or three months is way better than having to deal with it for four or five months. 

Last night we spent the evening on the lake with Jason's cousins and their new boat.  The weather was absolutely perfect, the sun was shining and when it went down we watched the most beautiful sunset.  Riley loved the boat and "driving", she played and ran around and asked about everything on the boat, she talked up a storm.  I ate strawberries and didn't have to worry about them raising my blood sugar.  It was a perfect evening.  Thank you God for blessing me with more than I could have ever asked or imagined, not just a baby that is going to be ok despite complications, but a pregnancy free of the complication to begin with (so far, fingers crossed!!), not just for a little girl who is talking, but for a little girl who never stops talking, for family and a beautiful sunset.  Thank you God for bringing joy back into a heart that has been sad for so long. 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. - Ephesians 3: 20 - 21

I love you always and forever and no matter what.  

  

On the Pontoon!

                                                                   Bathing Beauty

                                                               Riley driving the boat

                                                       Pregnant toes, watching the sun set

                                          Riley and I cuddling while we watch the sunset

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Two posts in one day.  What could possibly warrant that?

After receiving the news that I am once again gestational diabetic and after being terrified by the new research and what it suggests I had a pretty bad afternoon.  So bad that I could not even take Riley to her dance class tonight.  I had to call Jason to come get her and take her.  When they got home Riley must have said "I want macanona and cheese!" like 20 times.  I finally gave her some and she started crying because she didn't like it.  "I want Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets!"  I am exhausted and in no mood to fight with her so I preheat the oven to cook her chicken nuggets when she suddenly falls on the floor crying.  "What's wrong??!!" I say. "I want to play with Adler!" I look out the window and our neighbor's little girl, Adler, is outside and suddenly Riley has no interest in eating.  She just wants to go play and she is throwing yet another fit.  All the while Jason is trying to explain to me why he thinks I am freaking out over nothing and our baby is fine.  So I do something I have been too scared to do since I got pregnant...I grab my phone and ear buds, I put on my tennis shoes, I leave a note on the counter that says, "went for a walk" and I walk around my whole neighborhood.  And I don't just stroll.  I walk hard.  The kind of walk that attempts to release all the stress. 

While I am walking I think about how I haven't seen a rainbow since I got pregnant.  I think to myself that if I could ever use one, it's right now.  I have this feeling that I should turn around and look back behind me.  I look back, nothing.  I look back again and even a third time, nothing.  No rainbow.  I can't find one.  I can't find God.  I am scared and alone.  I walk on, thoughts swirling in my head.  A few minutes later I stop dead in my tracks when I look up to see a tiny sliver of a rainbow peaking through the clouds.  I stood there on the sidewalk while cars whizzed past me on the busy street and just stared at it and cried.  There He was.  God showed up.  He spoke to me.  He told me it is all going to be all right, with Riley, with the baby.  They are both going to be ok.  I was so humbled.  I said over and over as I cried, "Thank you.  Thank you.  I love you.  I love you."  Before I walked on, I blew a kiss up to a place that I can't see, to a place somewhere over the rainbow.  I blew a kiss to God.  I blew a kiss to my children.  And for the first time since I got pregnant I felt peace.

I continued walking and crying and looking at the sky.  The clouds suddenly broke and there were clear skies and the sun shined so bright.  And I thought, isn't this just how it is, we look behind.  We look behind to a past that haunts us, to fears that are destroying us, we look back because we are too paralyzed to look forward.  And then when we are at our lowest, our most weak and afraid, God shows up and in an instant, the skies are clear, the sun shines, we see a rainbow, we feel peace and with every step we take forward we are one step closer out of the storm and into the light and beauty.  I can tell you I have had few experiences like this with God.  And I can tell you this, at least in my life, God shows up like this when we are in the dark.  This is the secret treasure that is hidden in the dark places of our lives, the amazement, wonder, beauty, glory and healing power of God that is near impossible to see unless you are in the dark place.  And this is how you know you have just had an encounter with God, like the real, up close and personal kind that happens but a few times in a life time.  You know you have had that because suddenly it is all ok.  Six miscarriages are ok.  Being terrified for your children's health and well being is ok.  It is all ok because it is all worth it to experience God like this, even for just a moment.  To be so sure and so full of faith.  To be so humbled.  It is all worth it to be close to the One who loves us so much he sent his Son to die for us.  And I finally understand what it means when the bible says to be thankful in ALL things.  I am thankful because I never would have experienced God like this if not for the heart ache I have suffered.

I come home.  Jason is waiting for me.  He hugs me and says, "It's all going to be ok".  "I know.  It is." I reply as we hug and Riley sits quietly eating her chicken nuggets.  It is all going to be ok because we love a God who shows up when we need him most.  Who loves me enough to take my greatest hurts and fears and use them to reflect his glory.  Who sends us a rainbow in the midst of the storm to restore our hope.  Who leads us out of the storm and into clear skies.  Who is blessing me with this beautiful rainbow baby.  Who lives in us, around us and somewhere over the rainbow.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.

I Suck at Having Babies!

Simply said, I suck at having babies.  My immune system attacks my own children, I miscarry 90% of the time and even when I do carry a baby to term, it is not without a major pregnancy complication to manage, gestational diabetes.  I was diagnosed with that at 28 weeks with Riley.  I am going to start the "I suck at having babies club".  I have several friends who are trying to have their second child after an easy, uneventful first pregnancy.  Some of them are now facing the shock and pain of miscarriages, some of them are finding out they are having trouble conceiving at all this second time and one of them lost her uterus to cancer when she was only in her mid-twenties.  She had no children at the time and that effectively ended any chance of her ever carrying her own child.  Join the club ladies....why do so many of us suck at having babies??!!  If I could drink we would all go out tonight and toast to that.  Rain check?

I vividly remember the day two sweet ladies from Infant Toddler Services walked into my living room to evaluate Riley when I suspected she had a speech delay.  They were so kind and gentle as they evaluated her and they pointed out many positive things they saw in Riley throughout the evaluation.  But in the end, they said Riley did have a speech delay significant enough that she qualified for speech therapy services.  I naively asked the question I wish I never had...."She has met all her developmental milestones up to this point.  Why would she suddenly be behind on this one?  What could cause this?" "Well, speech delays are associated with autism and that could be one reason", they answered me.  All at once the air was sucked right out of my chest.  I couldn't breath.  I couldn't talk.  I couldn't think.  On a cold December morning I sat there on my living room floor, Christmas lights twinkling from the mantel and a beautiful tree smiling down at us, and I slipped away from the lights, the hope, the one shred of happiness I had left.  I slipped away from it all.  Exactly one week prior I had delivered my sleeping baby.  I was postpartum and still cramping and bleeding from the procedure.  Exactly one week prior we found out Vickie's cancer had returned.  And now this.  But miscarriages, I could handle.  Cancer, I could handle.  My one miracle baby girl, the only one who made it into this world alive, the light of my life, my sweet girl having autism.  That I could not handle.  It was too much and I just slipped away.  I'm still not completely back.  The anxiety, fear and worry that "autism" caused this mother is more than I can describe.  Riley was eventually evaluated at KU and by perhaps one of God's greatest acts of mercy and grace in my life, she scored within the normal range.  They told me she was not autistic.  Her speech blossomed with therapy and after just six months, she was discharged.  Riley is still slow to come around with speech.  She acquires new language skills on the tale end of the "normal" range according to developmental charts.  I still touch base with her speech therapist from time to time to update her on Riley.  She tells me Riley is doing great and being a little behind is fine, as long as the skills are coming.  I only need to get concerned if she stops progressing.  She has been out of therapy for a year now and she is progressing fine, on her own time.  A study released in 2012, two years after Riley's birth, has sent shivers down my spine at the realization of the bullet we may have dodged. 

A major study recently conducted by researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute found that mothers with gestational diabetes are more likely to have children with autism and other developmental delays.  When I came across this study I nearly had a panic attack.  I had no risk factors for gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Riley.  I was not overweight.  I was not obese.  I had never been diabetic before.  No one in my immediate family has diabetes.  Unfortunately, diabetes runs strongly on my father's side of the family, effecting my grandmother, two out of three of my aunts and one of my cousins.  I must have inherited the gene somehow.  Exercise and healthy eating (ok not that healthy, but healthy enough :)) has kept me from becoming diabetic in my non pregnant life, but pregnancy is just more than my body can take.  It pushes my diabetic-predisposed genes over the edge and I become diabetic while pregnant.  It happened with Riley and I found out today it is happening again with this pregnancy.  I am already sticking myself with a needle once a day to give myself medicine to help keep this pregnancy, I am already stressed to the max just worrying if this baby is going to make it.  Now I will have to stick myself with a needle an additional three to four times a day to test my blood sugar and I will have the added stress of yet another pregnancy complication that adds to my high-risk status....even more doctors appointments, even more ultrasounds, more consults with perinatologists and nutritionists, a strict diet to adhere to....but even so, I could manage all that.  The one thing that frightens me to my very core is this new study (found here) linking gestational diabetes to autism.  Is this why Riley was late to talk?  Will this cause problems for baby girl I am carrying now?  Stupid, stupid genetics.  I knew I was at risk for getting this again with this pregnancy.  I have been on an anti diabetic medication since I became pregnant and I have been watching my diet so closely that I actually lost five lbs in the my first trimester and I have yet to gain a single pound in this pregnancy.  I am 21 weeks and weigh less than I did when I got pregnant!  I have done everything I could to prevent this but again I say, stupid genetics!

To my list of things to worry about I will add, will my baby have developmental delays or autism?  "I can't do this I can't do this" I cry to myself.  "I was so stupid to get pregnant again.  I should have just been happy with the one beautiful, healthy child I have."  Breath in.  Breath out.  "You can do this.  You can do this.  You have to."  I do have to and I will.  I was so well controlled with Riley.  I ate perfectly and only had two blood sugar spikes after I was diagnosed.  I exercised every day.  I can do this again.  Please, please God keep our baby girl healthy.  Please protect her little brain from any harm.  My baby is breech right now.  I hope she turns so I don't need a c-section.  But if she doesn't, while they are in there perhaps a little tying of the tubes is in order.  I don't think I can ever be pregnant again...because I suck at having babies!  To my sweet little girl, hang in there baby.  I know it's tough inside mommy's messed up body.  I'm doing everything in my power to keep you safe and healthy.  The rest is up to God.  Hold tight to Him little one.  I don't carry babies very well, but lucky for us He does.  He is carrying me right now and He is carrying you.  Press into Him sweet one.  Feel his nail scarred hands as they hold you, protect you, heal you and as they do the same for your mother.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.

Am I Dreaming?

20 weeks today.  Half way there!  I can hardly believe it.  We have come such a long way.  I need to pinch myself!  I have been a little more relaxed since my last "episode" which resulted in a 8:00 am call to my doctor and an appt with her an hour later.  Everything was perfectly fine.  Baby was still growing perfectly, my uterus was measuring perfectly, I am just a little crazy is all.  I saw a perinatologist today.  While I was there I met with a genetic counselor who went over mine and Jason's family background.  Because my sister was born with a whole in her heart and a condition called cardiomyopathy runs in my family she said we have a greater risk than normal of having a baby with a heart defect.  So during my ultra sound with the perinatologist we took a good look at baby girl's heart.  It looked great, no defects seen, at least nothing that can be detected by ultra sound.  All baby's organs and anatomy looked good.  Fluid was good, umbilical cord and placenta looked good.  We looked over this pregnancy with a fine tooth comb today and I got an A+ and was sent on my way.  Perinatologist said she does not need to see me back unless something else comes up that my OB thinks I need to be seen for.  So to celebrate, my mom and I went shopping for the baby and looked at paint samples for the nursery. Ouch, I just had to pinch myself again.

I never gave up hope that I would have another baby one day.  It was that hope that drove me to keep trying, keep searching for answers.  It was that hope that kept me fighting through the grief, through the litany of painful physical tests, through the stress on my family, I just kept hoping and praying and believing and trying.  But even so, there is a part of me that never believed I would be sitting here this pregnant ever again.  It is truly a miracle.  I feel this little girl kick and wiggle and move every day.  I watch as I grow rounder and rounder and I really do have to pinch myself sometimes.  How is this possible after so many losses?  I don't even know what this is.  For me, what I know is this, pregnancy ends in miscarriage, period.  Yes, I have Riley who is also a miracle.  But I thought I got my miracle and we are each allotted one per life time.  I got mine, no more.  I don't know how, or I have forgotten how, to be pregnant and actually have a live, healthy baby at the end of it.  This is so foreign to me. Wonderful but foreign.

20 more weeks and our little girl will be here.  I'm showing, I'm feeling her  move, we are starting her nursery.  It's really happening and it's not a dream. To the God who hears our prayers and gives us more than we could ask or imagine, thank you.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.

Going Crazy

It's 4:30 in the morning. I have dozed off and on all night but never really slept.  I finally get out of bed at 3:30.  In the quiet, still, darkness of my house while everyone else is asleep, I sit in my kitchen eating cereal and drinking orange juice while I quietly cry.  I have vowed several times to put this fear behind me and move forward with this pregnancy in joy and happiness but it is becoming apparent to me that may not happen.  This fear will just be my constant companion until she is born and as much as I long to experience the joy of this pregnancy, it is just so hard for me.  For me, perhaps, the joy comes after birth, but not a moment before. 

Two days ago I came down with the stomach flu.  For an entire day I could not eat or barely drink anything.  I checked my baby's heart beat and it was 168, high. My doctor told me anything between 120 and 160 is normal.  Jason told me not to worry.  It was probably just because I was a little dehydrated.  She has been moving and kicking up a storm in response to my illness which was a little reassuring and also frightening.  I do not remember feeling Riley move this much this early and I wonder if something is wrong that is causing her to move so much.  Is she in distress?  When I got out of bed at 3:30 this morning I checked her heart rate twice, 130's.  Now it's low.  And now she is not moving much.  This is torture.  When she is moving and her hear rate is high, I worry.  When she is not moving and her heart rate is low, I worry.  Any little thing, like an episode of the stomach flu terrifies me.  I look at the clock and count the hours until I can call my doctor in the morning.  I pray she will survive until then.  I wonder if I am going crazy.  Earlier this evening in a moment of exasperation my husband says to me, "I need a vacation!  My parents are a mess, you're sick, you're pregnant, I'm missing work!" The toll is too much for him and I know I cannot burden him with this pregnancy or my fears any longer.  Which means when I call the doctor this morning to see if she can squeeze me in before she starts seeing patients, I will not ask him to stay home with Riley, I will have to wake her up and take her with me.  This is exhausting.

I hope I will find that I am just worrying for nothing when I see my doctor.  I very likely am, but with my history I just can't be too careful.  It's been 20 minutes since I drank my sugary OJ and ate my cereal.  I check her heart beat again, 140.  I think I am definitely crazy.  But who loses six babies and doesn't become just a little bit crazy?

I love you always and forever and no matter what.

Part Two

For two years I have been following the blog of a mother who lost her four year old daughter in a tragic car accident.  I read her latest post today and couldn't help but share it and piggy back it on my own post from earlier today.  She spoke straight to my heart today and said what I was feeling far more eloquently than I ever could.

Eyes on the Horizon
http://www.rachelsuzking.blogspot.com/

Why do I suddenly want to celebrate and share that our little baby girl is coming?  Because I want to set my eyes on the horizon.  I want to focus on the beauty made possible by this storm we have endured.  I don't want the dark, ugly dirt under my feet to grab my attention and be my focus anymore.  The trials I have endured were not meant to give me a spirit of fear.  They were meant for my good.  (2 Timothy 1:7, Genesis 50:20) We could spend our whole lives trying to figure out why bad things happen.  We could spin our heads and never know all the answers.  Until the day our glasses are removed we will never see the beauty in all its divine fullness.  But I can finally rest in the only answer I do know to be true.  Why did I have to endure the loss of six children....because in that pain God's glory is more beautifully reflected.  How could a rainbow ever be so beautiful if not for the storm and clouds that make it possible?

I love you always and forever and no matter what. 

The Age of Viability

I sit in my doctor's office yesterday having a conversation with my doctor's nurse.  She asks me excitedly if I'm feeling the baby move yet.  I think they want me to start feeling movement so I will be reassured and calm down a little bit.  I tell her I have felt the baby move a little here and there but not like the big, consistent kicks and punches you feel when you get a little further along.  She then says, "Well our next goal is to get you to viability.  You can do it!".  Viability, meaning 24 weeks, the age at which a baby can survive outside of their mother's womb.  But just because they can survive at just 24 weeks does not mean that they all do and even the ones that do can have life long complications associated with being born so premature.  No, as much as I want this baby safely out of me and in my arms, I know it is not time and 24 weeks is way too early.  I suppose if it was deliver at 24 weeks or lose another baby I would of course deliver her, but I want more than that.  I want her to grow safely inside of me all the way to term.  No premature babies for us please.  Six more weeks to go and she will be "viable".  I admit it is a little reassuring to know that once I hit that milestone, if anything were to go wrong, she would have a chance outside of me.  But I just wonder if this is even a conversation "normal" women have with their doctors.  I hate it.  I don't want to have this conversation.  I just want her to stay safe inside me for five more months.

Viable.  The definition of viable is capable of living.  To me, this baby has been viable since day one.  All of them have been.  Maybe they couldn't survive outside the womb yet but they were capable of living.  They lived for a few days, a few weeks, a few months and then they went to another place to live.  But they still live on.  They are still viable, capable of living in the heart of their mother.  Our little baby life is capable of living.  She is doing it right now :).  And because all life is valuable and has meaning and purpose, I just can't hide this little life anymore.  I announced on my blog I am pregnant and my whole family and many close friends know that I am pregnant.  But we still have not really officially announced it.  If a person does not know I'm pregnant, I don't tell them.  I just don't really talk about it.  But I don't want to hide this life behind my fear anymore.  She is life.  She is valuable.  She is a gift.  She is viable and she deserves to be celebrated.  So I resolve from here on out to celebrate this little life.  To tell people she exists.  To talk about her.  To plan for her.  To have hopes and dreams for her.  She is my darling girl and she deserves all that.  I fear I may never know her.  I have faith that I will.  But either way it doesn't matter, she deserves to be celebrated.  I am going to muster up all the courage I have and proceed as if there is no reason to believe she won't soon be here on this earth alive and well.  I will still battle the fear, I know.  But I will no longer allow it to stop us from celebrating that we have been given one of God's most precious gifts, children, and we have been given eight of them, six in heaven, two on earth.  How blessed we are.  Let's celebrate!

I love you always and forever and no matter what.