only days away from announcing to our families that we were going to have a child.
But twenty-seven days later, I still wasn’t pregnant. Depression was immediate, but I didn’t let it stop me. I worked hard to not let the sadness take over and got myself geared up for round two of Clomid.
“Maybe there was still some of the birth control in my system,” I thought. “I hope that this next go-around would be the one that gets it done.” I could feel myself get excited again.
The days seemed to drag on, but twenty-nine days later, I still wasn’t pregnant. I called the doctor to let him know that I wasn’t pregnant. He informed me that I could only do six rounds of Clomid and if I still wasn’t pregnant, we would have to try something different. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
What was I going to do? Who could I turn to?
The thought of an end date on this medication was almost more than I could bear. What would we do then? If my body couldn’t get pregnant to begin with, if regulating my cycle didn’t help, and if Clomid didn’t help, what would we do? I couldn’t stand the thought that this wouldn’t work. I had to stay focused. Keeping my eyes focused on the process was hard because the medicine wasn’t helping. The process wasn’t working.
All this time went by and Jordan, the strong, quiet type, was as supportive as he could be, but the fact was, there was little he could do to help. He never really came out and said it, but there seemed to be a calm assurance that, with enough time, the process would work, and we would have a child, but the fact that neither of us knew the Lord, the hope that he shared was just as weak as mine.
I could feel my discouragement and depression start to drive a wedge in between us. I noticed that we talked less and fought more. I heard myself become angry at little things and would speak so harshly to Jordan. I really became harsh and cold to everyone during those months, but Jordan was steady. Seeing him so focused helped me not to give up.
Round three.
After almost seven months of treatment and medication, I finally became pregnant. I could hardly wait to tell everyone the great news of our new baby. Jordan and I were overjoyed at the thought of having a baby together.
I enjoyed every bit of being pregnant. I worked so hard to become pregnant; I wasn’t going to let any part of it be negative. I tried to take every piece of advice I ever got and make it work for my baby. I had nausea for about two weeks, but quickly learned that as long as I snacked on something, I was fine. Plus, I was able to convince Jordan that I needed whatever food I craved because I was eating for two.
With each sonogram, I grew more and more in love with the baby growing inside of me and at twenty weeks, we discovered we were having a boy!
One day while I was working, I felt something crawl across the inside of my stomach. Having seen the movie Aliens, my immediate thought was terrifying, but after a few more flutters, I realized it was my baby moving. I can’t even describe the awe of that moment. As the months passed, when I felt my baby move, I would stop and just soak in every moment. I would let people feel if they were around when he moved.
At the time, I worked a full-time job at a chiropractic office. I was the Assistant Manager and handled all the insurance billing. The job I was asked to do, along with the environment that surrounded me, wore on me every day.
My boss had a feeling that I would want to quit after having the baby, so she became even more difficult to work with. Negativity and stress began to grow within me, and every passing day, my work and my ability to be at that particular job became increasingly difficult.
Stress and anger at work continued to build to the point that we could no longer ignore what was going on. At 30 weeks, my blood pressure began to rise to a point that was not safe for my baby or for me. My doctor made it clear that I was going to have to stop cleaning the house, doing laundry, and most importantly I was going to have to quit my job.
All I could think was, “OH, NO! I can’t be put on bed rest. I don’t know if my boss will approve. She will be even more upset with me.”
Jordan knew my fears of not being able to work, so he escorted me to the office to inform them of my doctor’s decision. As I bawled like a baby, out of fear and worry of what they would say, I told my boss that I had to be put on bed rest.
My manager was stunned.
“Today? Right now? You can’t finish the week? When will you be back? What am I supposed to do while you’re gone? Well, I guess if that’s what your doctors says, go home, but you will have to use this time off as your vacation time and you will not be paid for your six week maternity leave.”
I didn’t know what to say or think. I was glad that I didn’t have to go back to work for a while, but the way that I was treated, even in that moment, made it difficult to relax. I struggled to be okay with being at home instead of working, but I continued to tell myself that it was good to be able to rest and help my baby grow strong in a much safer environment.
The first day or two of lying around was great. Although I was getting lots of rest, it drove me crazy how dirty the house was and I wasn’t getting to clean it. The stress seemed to build as my work would call me to ask questions.
“Where’s this?”
“Why is that done like that?”
“What does this mean?“
Half the time the answer was simple and it seemed like they were just calling for the sake of bugging me. It got to the point that I didn’t just hate when the phone rang; I even began to fear it.
I was bed-ridden in every sense of the term. I wasn’t allowed to do for myself and I was constantly being told to relax. How was I supposed to relax? I was working just as hard laying there as I was before.
Soon, I was hospitalized for the night, because of all the “rest” I was getting. The doctors monitored the baby and everything seemed fine, so I was told to go back to my doctor the following week.
At my 35-week checkup, my blood pressure was 200/100 and I was sent straight to the hospital for a procedure that would test my amniotic fluid to determine if the baby would be able to survive on his own. Something inside the amniotic fluid allows the doctors to know if the baby’s lungs have developed to the point that he is able to breathe on his own.
Just the thought of having to go through another test made me stress even more, which wasn’t good for my blood pressure or the baby.
What if I couldn’t support him and his lungs aren’t developed? What then? Doubt, fear, and worry do not come close to describing how anxious I felt in those moments.
After being admitted to the hospital, three or four nurses and a doctor walked into my room and began to explain the procedure to me. A needle as long as my arm would be inserted into my bulging stomach, while a nurse used an ultrasound machine to guide the doctor to my uterus without injuring me or the baby.
Easy, right?
What they failed to explain was how they expected me to just lay there and let this happen, or how they could keep my baby from flopping his way right into this giant needle, or how painful it was to have a needle poked into my pregnant belly!
All I could really do was hang on tightly to Jordan’s hand and watch the monitor.
Jordan, on the other hand, was calm. He stood next to the bed holding my hand. He spoke very little and was gentle as usual. His calm demeanor was always such an encouragement to me. Some people may have found his unflappability to be unnerving, but I found that it calmed me. When beepers and buzzers and monitors and doctors couldn’t seem to get quiet for even a few seconds, Jordan was always calm; he would just hold my hand and smile.
After collecting a sample, they slowly removed the needle. I’m not sure which hurt more, needle going in or out, but if they had taken any longer to get that thing out of me, I would have punched someone.
The physical pain began to subside, but the worry remained constant. The beep of the monitors