Hindsight.

Dear Me,

This is yourself from two years in the future.  For you, it is May 20, 2012.  Right now you are pregnant with your second son.  You are now in your third trimester and your belly is getting bigger by the day.  You are healthy, you are content, and you are understandably, very happy.  You and Rob have come a long way.  Explanations of all of the difficult days over the preceding two years are not necessary other than to put into perspective how truly happy you two are at this moment.  You have found that the grief that you two endured before only enhances your joy now.

As you read this, you are likely fantasizing about the future.  You spend most of your free time immersing yourself in articles about babies and how to handle colic.  You like to wonder about your son's hair color, the shape of his smile, and the smell of his baby-fresh skin.  You and Rob already decided that you are going to name your baby Edward Henry; a name that you absolutely adore.  And as of today, you are planning on calling him Teddy as a nickname. 

But as happy as you are, you can also admit to yourself and to others that this pregnancy has been a tenuous one.  You have taken a total of eight pregnancy tests to not only confirm that you were pregnant in the first place but to also make sure that you were still pregnant after your worries got the better of you.  You know yourself well enough to have expected that you would be scared to be pregnant again after suffering loss but you never could have prepared yourself for the day to day questions and scares that frequently pop into your head.  Rest assured that you are doing everything that you can to take care of your baby and you are doing a great job.

However, despite your best intentions and efforts, your baby is coming sooner than you thought he would.  Much sooner, in fact.

In three days time you will start to feel a little pain on the lower right side of your abdomen.  It will not be a searing pain but it will be constant enough to make you uncomfortable.  You will go to bed that night and you will have a vivid dream that you are in labor.  And as you go through the motions of the next day the pain will increasingly get worse.  You will try your hardest not to worry too much because on that day, more than any other day that came before, you will be resolved to not think about the worst case scenario.  

Erin, since you will be trying so valiantly not to worry that day you will not recognize that you are in premature labor.  

I know that it sounds crazy but because you will be trying so hard not to overreact you will not understand that your pains are actually genuine contractions.  Since you are only 28 weeks and 1 day pregnant on May 24, 2012, the possibility of having your son today will not even enter your mind.  You basically thought you had a free pass on trauma with babies, pregnancies, and deliveries since you already experienced a lot of it beforehand but what you thought should happen and what will actually happen will be very different.

You will be scared on this day.  You will be worried and you will be disbelieving.  You will feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having another son in the NICU again.  And you will cry.

But you will get to meet him:

And see this:

And when you see your son's face for the first time you will realize then and there that the little boy that you were expecting to call Teddy is actually not Teddy at all.  He is and has always meant to be Eddie.  He is scrappy, he is determined, and he plunges head-first into any and everything and he never ever gives up. 

And in a day or two you will be able to do this:     

The days and weeks after these ones will be long and I will not lie to you - there are some hard times ahead.  Eddie will live in the NICU for nine weeks and there will be moments when you will be seized with absolute terror.  You will want to run away, you will want to hide, and you will wish that he could have been born on his due date.  You will feel incredibly lonely as you sit by him in the hospital and you will get frustrated by the turn your life is taking.  But you will not be able to change any of it.  The only thing that you can truly control is your faith.  This piece of advice is no surprise to you but it bears repeating and I hope you keep it in mind as you enter the days that lie ahead of you.  Have faith.  Have faith in your own capacity to withstand the unimaginable, in your relationships with people that truly love you, and have faith in Eddie.  Have faith that not everything that starts out scary has to end scary.  And most of all, continue to have faith in Him.

Erin, be of good courage.  Let the NICU redeem itself for you.  Let other people help you.  Take heart in the examples of the good people around you.  Lean on Rob, your parents, your siblings, your friends, and on your church.  And allow your wounds to heal even if they do so in unexpected ways.

From the onset these days will seem like they will be endless and you will not immediately see a way out of them but I promise that they will end and you will be forever changed because of them.  Eddie will only be 2 lbs and 8 oz when he is born but take comfort in knowing that he is big enough to heal most of the fissures in your broken heart and just small enough to save some room in there for his older brother too.

Enjoy these last few days of your pregnancy and look forward with hope.  I know you think that you are happy now but you have no idea what lies ahead and how much happier you will become because of it.

Always,
Yourself

Saved.

It was overcast that morning but still hot.  The air was sticky and heavy and we had not slept well.  Truth be told, we had not slept well for six weeks.  As I brushed my teeth that morning I remember looking in the mirror and thinking about the day ahead.  I would pump, wash my parts, and then repeat this process four or five more times.  I would leave the unit to eat lunch and dinner but then I would return.  I would talk with nurses, a doctor or two, and other moms, but I would mostly sit in tense silence.  Rob and I would talk by the bedside and Rob would ask questions about procedures and equipment.  And over the course of the day, there would be A's and B's; although some of them would be scary, most of them would be minor.

As I thought about what would happen that day and what every day had been like for the past month, it felt like it had finally happened.  As if the string that was flirting with the flame had finally burned through its last thread.  And it snapped.  

The snap had everything to do with being in the same place for weeks on end and doing the same things each and every day but doing most of them against my will.  And wishing we ,and especially, our baby, were somewhere else.  It was emotional exhaustion, it was likely due to postpartum hormones, and it was the inevitable result of experiencing such extreme emotions over the course of one day for many days in a row.  At that moment it felt as if a vital neuron that connected one piece of my brain with another had been completely severed. 

We traveled our familiar route to the hospital that morning and as we turned a corner I told Rob that this was the day that I was going to have my nervous breakdown.  I was only half surprised by my conviction.  Rob may have thought I was joking but I said it with certainty.  The collapse of my sanity loomed ahead of me like an event.  The clock was ticking and there were merely hours to go.

I had been on the brink of collapse from the moment that I saw our 2 1/2 pound baby in his incubator on the day that he was born.  For the first four days of Eddie's life I lived in terror.  We did not know if he, like Henry, would leave us.  After one week he seemed to be stable but he was so tiny and had such incredible obstacles ahead of him; obstacles unlike any that I had ever imagined. At 28 weeks gestation, he had to develop and grow and do all of the things that should have been taking place within me and with my help.  As I sat by his bedside day after day I would wrestle with questions that I never dared ask aloud: how was Eddie going to make it through and do everything that needed to be done?  How was he going to go home?  And most of all, how was he going to safely come out of a place that up until that time had only meant death and devastation to us?  

From the moment I discovered I was pregnant with him, I loved Eddie carefully.  With the kind of love that wants to be uninhibited and naive but knows too much to be easy.  He had my heart completely, but he also had the scars that came with it.  The sleepless nights, the tears, the resentment, the faith, and all of the other emotions of a wounded mother.  

That day, without even being around them, I knew that the alarms on his monitors had sealed my fate.  For the past week or so Eddie had been going through a particularly rough period where his doctors were weaning him off of caffeine.  Up until then, he was given caffeine to help keep his heart rate up so he could breathe more easily.  Once they started cutting back, Eddie's body had to remember to breathe on its own and sometimes he would forget.  These little spells of forgetting (A's and B's) could last for just a second or they could be longer and if that were the case, he would become gray and limp and have to be tickled or touched in order to start breathing again.  Even though we knew his spells were normal and even comparatively mild, it was still difficult to watch.  And although we knew he would come out of them, we still silently prayed during each one.  Hoping that he would become stronger.  That there would come a time and a day when he could breathe freely.

Out of all of the sensory memories I have with Henry's time in the NICU, the monitors were the ones that I associated the most with his stay.  After his passing I hoped that our subsequent experiences with our children would make the monitors' jarring sounds a distant and dreadful memory but instead, it was the opposite.  Although in some ways it felt like an eternity, Henry was only in the NICU for four days.  Eddie was there for 61.

That morning as we walked to Eddie's room I immediately felt my body tense.  The doctors, pharmacists, and nurses had already gathered around him and were going to do their rounds and talk about how he was doing, what he needed, and if anything needed to change in his treatment.  I left Rob with the group so I could pump in the other room.  I do not remember my exact thoughts as I pumped that morning but my ears strained, searching for the sounds of alarms - Eddie's alarms.  I would hear a ding and a beep and then more frantic beeps and I would wonder if it were him.  If it was my baby who was having a bit of trouble at that moment.

I cleaned my pump parts slowly and thoroughly and shuffled into the room.  Wishing that I could be home, on vacation, in the bathroom.  Anywhere but there.  As much as I loved and love Eddie, it was agony to be in his room all day.  Truthfully, nothing triggered my "flight" instincts like having to sit by my two boys in the NICU.  Yes, I wanted to see them and help them and be their advocate but I was virtually powerless when they were at their most vulnerable and I could not bear to see them with tubes, under lights, and with leads on their heads and on their hearts. And on that day I could not stand to be helpless anymore.  I had gone as far as I could and could not and did not want to go any further.

As I made my way to Eddie's side, Rob turned to me with a jubilant grin.  He took my hands in his and told me that Eddie would be able to try nursing for the first time that day.  That Eddie had made enough progress and taken enough strides that his doctors felt like he was ready.  

Without going into too much detail, I will tell you that that news saved me from a mental breakdown.  

That the promise of nursing one of my babies for the very first time and of immediately providing him with something that he needed and that would soothe him, brought me back from the edge of collapse.  And even though there were still difficult days after that morning, that after that, things were not quite so hard to take.  The beeping gradually subsided, and eventually, altogether stopped.  Eddie came home.  And on the 24th he will be turning 18 months old.

If one believed in coincidences, one would think that what happened that morning was the perfect one.  It was a wonderful coincidence that I had the opportunity to do something with Eddie that I had been dreaming of for a long time on what happened to be the day when I was basically finished.  That may in fact be true, and if so, I am grateful.  But there are so many inexplicable coincidences, consequences, phenomena, and hardships in this life.  And as a person who has experienced a few of these things firsthand I do not merely believe in coincidence or happenstance.  

I believe in faith.  I believe in hope.  And I believe in mercy.  I believe in God, His Son, Jesus Christ, and I believe in the Holy Ghost.  I believe in families and in human decency and goodness.  I believe that mistakes and frailties are inevitable but that they are not unforgivable.  And I believe in love.  I believe that love saved me that day and that it has saved me throughout my life when I have been at my weakest moments.  And when I have I wanted to simply stop.  

My heart is full of love for my brave little preemie tonight.  He is currently cutting four teeth, battling through a nasty cold, and is waking up at all hours during the night.  And, oh, how I love him!  He is full of life, curiosity, and passion.  He lives to be outside or to be opening something new.  He hardly sits down during the day unless he is eating or taking his nap and even then, he usually changes position.  He screams, he giggles, and he babbles.  He has a one-sided love affair with our "doggie" (poor Riggins) and thinks that every animal or any other object that moves is a doggie too.  And lately, he will not go to sleep unless he can nuzzle his head into a blanket and snuggle up with a board book.

Happy 18 months, our amazing Eddie.  You have saved us - in so many, many ways.

Wow.

Last Saturday I stumbled upon a bin of Eddie's clothes and as I opened the lid I gasped at what was lying on the top.  Above all of his newborn and 0-3 month clothes were tiny pajamas, delicate little hats, and the smallest most perfect onesies I have ever seen.  Clothes so miniature that one would unwittingly mistake them for doll clothes if not for the "p" on the label.  I gaped over the size of these tiny treasures.  Of how they fit within my forearm and how my hand almost stretched over the entire torso of each outfit.  Of how the clothes almost disappeared as I held them against my chest.

I saw clothes, but most of all, I saw a journey.  Visual reminders of a boy so eager to be part of the world and join his family that he literally could not be contained.  A brave, joyful soul who spent the first nine weeks of his life in the hospital and in the loving care of attentive and incredible nurses.  A boy who was affectionately dubbed as "the mascot of the NICU" for his sweet nature and his ability to continually exceed expectations.  But most of all, evidence of a fighter and of a boy who fought ounce by little ounce, to go home.

A preemie onesie and one of Eddie's 6 month onesies 

I now look at these preemie clothes each day with a solid, energetic, and healthy baby on my hip.  He misses nothing and notices everything.  He sees that I am holding something and so he lunges and lurches for the fabric too - ever curious and always willing to participate.  He is now over 17 lbs and has more than tripled in size since the day he came home from the hospital.

A standard-sized board book and a progression of onesies

And of all of the words and phrases that I could think of, write about, or say when I piece his incredible journey together, one frequently comes to mind:  wow.

The first week after he was born

Last week 

We will be celebrating Eddie's very first birthday next Friday and as we lead up to that jubilant event I cannot help but think of the day he was born.  I think of how that day started at home with a vivid dream and ended in the hospital.  A day of utter terror over his early birth but also a day that reawakened a love so complete that when the doctor announced that our son was coming and there was no way to stop him that I could not help but be excited.  That even though I knew Eddie was coming 12 weeks early and that he would face enormous odds, that I found myself grinning.  That even though we had again found ourselves in an unthinkable situation, that I simply could not wait to see him.  To meet this beautiful being who was obviously just as excited to see us. 

Holding each other for the first time

Oh, Eddie, how we love you!  Oh, how we adore you and your mega-watt smile and easy laughter.  We love your enormous and beautiful blue eyes and your perfect bottom teeth.  We are so thankful for your happy nature and curious spirit.  You bring such joy into our home each and every day.  We are so humbled to have you in our family and are so profoundly grateful for your good health.  This year has been crazy.  And nothing like we could have ever imagined.  It started out so scary and much of it was spent inside and away from people, but it has turned out to be one of the best of our lives.  Thank you for letting us accompany you on this journey and for trusting us to take care of you.  We do not know what the future holds but we know that with you in it, that it will be better...and that it will undoubtedly be exciting.

Love always,

Your Mama and Papa

Growing.

Eddie will be turning three weeks old on Wednesday and I can scarcely believe where the time has gone.  I initially intended to update my blog weekly but much like other homes with new babies, ours has been hustling and bustling.  I am constantly amazed by how quickly the hours fly by and I have found myself saying time again that it is almost a full time job to just update our family and friends (good thing it isn't a job though, because if it were, I would have been fired days ago).     

Over the past week, Eddie made great strides and not only re-gained the ounces he lost in the first two weeks but he has exceeded his birth weight.  At almost 31 weeks, he is eating well and is now up to a fighting 2 pounds and 11 ounces.  He has "graduated" twice and was moved from the first room in the NICU to be with the "big kids" in a more open room with older, more stable babies.  

First week in the NICU

He is one of the smaller babies in the unit but what he lacks in size he makes up for in personality and feistiness.  It seems that not more than a day or two goes by before a nurse or doctor remarks on Eddie's fighting or feisty spirit and he continues to live up to pugilistic nickname (he gets particularly upset when he has a dirty diaper or has to get it changed).  He is full of determination and curiosity and has multiple periods throughout the day when he is alert and is taking in his surroundings.  But for the most part, much of his time each day is spent eating and sleeping in his isolette (or incubator) so he can continue to grow.  

Needing some peace and quiet - first week in the NICU

Eddie's lungs are still developing so he is breathing with the help of a high flow nasal cannula.  He is doing remarkably well for a baby his age and the cannula provides him with a continuous flow of air to remind him to breathe.  His caregivers are weaning him off of his machine in stages so he does not have to work too hard and can use most of his energy to grow.

Mom's first time holding Eddie 

I am exhausted when I think about what has transpired over the last three weeks.  I can only imagine how Eddie feels.  He made his debut in a big way and we have been running to catch up to him ever since.  When I look too far forward, I feel overwhelmed by uncertainty.  I think about the weeks ahead and how much has to happen before our little one can come home and it feels like a daily battle to remind myself to simply live in the present.  To stop myself from thinking about "what if's" and "maybe's" and to just focus on the here and now because Eddie is here and we are his parents now.  And we have much to celebrate.

We have experienced many emotions since Eddie's arrival but one of the greatest has been gratitude.  As you know from my last post, his birth was completely unexpected and we do not know what would have happened if just one thing would have been off on May 24th.  What if we would not have made it to the hospital in time?  What if Rob were out of town?  Or what if my doctor would not have just happened to already be in the hospital?  It seems that each time we talk about the events leading up to his birth it becomes more and more apparent how carefully our family was watched over that day.  I like to believe that Henry, ever the watchful big brother, was the one who prompted me to get to the hospital so his little buddy could enter our family as safely as possible.  And I also like to think of him, along with several others, being by Eddie's side at the moments when we cannot be.

We may not know exactly what lies ahead, but we do know that we have a new addition to our family and he has already made our lives that much more sweet.  I am eager to watch our little fighter gain weight and continue to make strides in his development and growth...and, knowing Eddie, I imagine that each and every one of them will come in his own time and in his own way.

Eddie.

One week ago this morning I woke up with a start after a particularly vivid dream.  I went to bed the night before with a slight ache on the lower right side of my abdomen that was just uncomfortable enough to make me stop and pay attention.  The ache carried over into my subconscious and that night I dreamt that I went into labor.  The contractions, the delivery room, the IV, were all so real that it took me some time to believe that it did not actually happen.

My little ache accompanied me as I went through the motions of my day.  As far as days go, it was rather non-typical since we had a doctor's appointment in the morning and I had an event for work that night.  Our appointment was standard and everything checked out beautifully.  Kaempfer's heart beat was perfect, all of my stats were spot on, and my doctor told me to call back later in the day if my little ache persisted. Rob and I then went to get lunch and I returned to my desk to prepare for the evening ahead.  Yet as the day progressed my ache did too and by the late afternoon it was becoming more forceful and coming in set increments.  Worried, I laid on my side and drank a lot of water thinking the ache would dissipate.  It did not.  

Knowing it would at least ease my mind to call my doctor, I called the nurse and she transferred me to OB Emergency Services.  The nurse that I spoke with advised me to go home, take a warm bath and drink copious amounts of water.  If my ache continued, she wanted me to come in.  I settled my affairs at work and on the drive home my ache transitioned from a mere ache to a pain.  I waddled up the stairs to my house and drew a bath immediately, hoping it would help.  It did not.  In fact, it was while I was in the bath trying to relax that one of my pains caused my stomach to tighten and sent a jolt of pain straight through my body. I cried aloud and a single word came into my mind, screaming at me to pay attention. "Hospital."

Rob raced home, running every red light and stop sign that came into his path and we checked into OB Emergency Services at 4:00 p.m.  At about 4:10 p.m. they notified me that I was fully dilated and that my baby was coming today.

I cannot easily relay the rest of this story since what followed in the next hour involved a lot of people rushing around.  A quick ultra sound was administered and it was discovered that not only was Kaempfer breech but he was also frank.  There were then multiple pokes and emergency shots, hurried phone calls to parents, and an emergency C-section - all for the sake of a tiny babe in a hurry to make his dramatic debut.  And finally, there was a hearty scream from a baby born 12 weeks earlier than expected.  

So it would appear that much like his brother before him, Kaempfer decided to be born on his own time and his own unique way and his arrival suddenly made a  non-typical day a birth day.

Edward Henry Koelliker

May 24, 2012

5:12 p.m.

2 lbs., 8 oz.

Edward Henry came into this world in a frenzy and has been fighting ever since.  Rob was truly inspired on the day he confidently gave our little Eddie his German nickname since he has already had to slug it out in the ring and so far, he is keeping his head tucked and getting in some money shots.

Eddie will live in the NICU for several weeks and it turns out that my plans to "expect the unexpected" with our little one have truly come to fruition.  We are in the midst of making our regular trips between the hospital and our home and we are very much riding the emotional roller coaster that all parents must ride with a child in the NICU.  But today was a good day and we will continue to appreciate good days.

Welcome to the world, sweet Eddie.  You are the cutest prize-fighter around.

Humbled.

I am probably a proud person.  I enjoy those rare situations when I know the "right" answers.  I like to be able to follow multiple conversations about culture and current events and "be in the know."  And unfortunately, in certain scenarios, I have a difficult time with authority.  All of these things alone do not necessarily make me proud.  I think that I am not alone in enjoying being in control and being a part of things.  If your home was anything like mine growing up, your mother likely motivated you to clean or take an after school job by teaching you to take pride in your work.  The years that my mom spent coercing me to enjoy responsibility and do my best did not fall on deaf ears and I do find satisfaction in a job well done.  But I do know that I have a fatal flaw that some of you probably share: I think that by merely knowing an emotion or situation exists that I will be exempt from experiencing it.

A post that I shared on this blog in December 2010 is a prime example of my thinking.  It was our first Christmas without Henry and even before the season came I knew it would be wrenchingly hard.  Just one year before we were cutting down our tree and taking pictures with my swollen belly.  In 2009 Henry (who was still our Sprout at the time) received his first presents under the tree and was already being spoiled by his grandparents.  Each festive, delicious meal I ate that holiday season was carefully savored, because in my mind, it was the last time in a long time that I would be able to fully indulge myself without my attention being diverted to an infant, toddler, child, etc. We dreamed big and imagined future Christmases filled with our own family.    

And even though Christmas had already come and gone in February 2010, I oddly thought about it quite often during that first month.  I thought about the heartache that would surely come.  The bittersweet emotions that we would have to endure being seemingly empty-handed in such a joyous and loving season.  But my thinking did not stop at Christmas.  I thought of my birthday, Rob's birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, and Halloween.  Each holiday and event seemed unbearable since it would pointedly remind us of who and what we were missing.  I dwelled on these special events a lot and since I spent so much time thinking about them I thought that I had outsmarted myself.  Just thinking about living through those impending days was difficult but I expected that since I had already gone through the motions that surely they would not be as bad as I thought.  That I would be sufficiently prepared for the pain and that they might be tolerable or even enjoyable.  But as I admitted in my post in 2010, Christmas still hurt and the emotions came even though I was anticipating them.

And two years later, I am surprisingly learning the same lesson.  While I was thinking about Christmas during that first year I was also thinking about being pregnant again.  I yearned for the sensation of feeling a living, growing person safe inside my belly and of carrying new life.  But I also knew that it would be hard.  My doctor counseled me after Henry's passing and told me that moving forward, all of my subsequent pregnancies would be emotional, frightening, and amazing.  My family and friends said similar things and we all agreed that even though it would be tough at times, it would be a time for great celebration.  So why am I then surprised by the myriad of emotions that I am feeling during my current pregnancy with our little Kaempfer?

I knew this would be unnerving at times.  I knew that I would be a mess over tiny scares and minimal aches and pains.  I had ample time to think through everything already and to expect what was undoubtedly coming my way.  But again, the emotions that I thought I had already thought through are here anyway.  And again, I am surprised.  I do get alarmed over each ache and pain.  I am more vigilant about my body and its processes than I have ever been and I monitor them all with characteristic diligence.  I regularly talk myself out of rational and irrational fears that stem from anything between dry skin to searing round ligament pain around my belly.  Yes, my name is probably becoming well-known in my doctor's office and I visit it frequently for reassurance and comfort.  I hold my breath during every ultrasound and doppler reading, exhaling only when we see or hear our son.  And I am superstitious.  I avoid certain activities or situations for no apparent reason and embrace others all for the sake of feeling better.  

But unlike Christmas 2010, which did have some high points but was ultimately difficult, my pregnancy with Kaempfer has proven to be everything that I dreamed it would be in an overwhelmingly positive way.  Yes, I do still fear most everything.  And yes, I have been bracing myself for something that might unexpectedly arise.  But just like my family and I suspected, this pregnancy has truly been cause for celebration and I am embracing the elation I feel from expecting our son.  I feel appropriately humbled to be in this situation again.  I grin each time a new person learns of our happy news and shares in our joy.  I giggle when I see Kaempfer tap dance on ultrasound and I feel such joy in hearing Rob talk about him that I cannot help but beam.  The love that I feel for the active boy who is my constant companion brings me to my knees and it enhances the feelings that I have for just about everyone, but especially for Rob.  I know that this is only the beginning of a very long road, but we have had an encouraging start and I am grateful for it.

***

So I suppose that in a roundabout way, my pride actually helps me in this situation since I am able to enjoy it more - right???

Fighter.

For the past two years, I have hungered for the opportunity of being pregnant again.  There were days when I wanted to be pregnant so badly that I convinced myself that I was and that we finally would get a second chance at leading the life that we craved.  Sometimes my symptoms were so vivid that I would have no choice to convince myself that this was it, that our suffering at last was over and that we could try to move forward.  But these days were just that, only 24 hours, and I was always confronted with a harsh reality on the next pregnancy test.  Test after test confirmed what I already knew but was so desperately fighting against.  As much as I yearned to be pregnant again, I had a gnawing feeling after Henry passed that getting another child in our family would take much longer than I wanted.  But I fought on, hoping that my feeling was just a fear and not the truth.

I knew that it was not healthy for me to take so many pregnancy tests.  Not only was it expensive to keep buying them but it grew increasingly more emotionally damaging to see so many negative results.  Each one seemed to almost mock me and test my resolve pushing me to the limit of what I felt like I could bear.  The single pink line that I saw again and again was a brutal visual reminder that I could not get what I wanted at that moment.  That what I felt like we deserved was still out of my control and beyond my comprehension.  I understood that what I was doing was bordering on obsession and that I would probably feel better if I simply stopped.  But I could not stop.  Stopping meant losing my resolve, it meant giving into reason and ignoring a dream that seemed to be forever beyond my reach.  Stopping meant accepting defeat and accepting one more unexplained complication in my life.

And slowly, the more lonely pink lines that I saw the lonelier and angrier I became.  In my desperation I started to almost beg the single line to be joined by another.  Hadn't we been through enough?  How many people deal with infertility after losing their firstborn child?  Shouldn't our loss alone have guaranteed a relatively easy life?  I bitterly asked myself these questions for months. And then a year.  And then almost two.  And as time dragged on my anger over these questions only intensified and increased.  There was no easy answer to any of my demands and if there was I was not likely to listen.  Any lessons that could have been learned from the heartache of trying to conceive after a loss were lost on me and I simply wanted the pain to end.

We are pregnant now and are about to reach an important milestone this week.  On Wednesday, I will be 20 weeks along (4 1/2 months) and will be at the half-way mark of this experience.  Reaching this point would almost seem like everything that I could have hoped for after my all-consuming quest to become pregnant again.  Yet I find that this time my feelings are more complicated.  And even though the sting of losing Henry has lessened over time, the terrors of such an experience will likely never fully leave, particularly when I am thinking and worrying about another child.

From the onset, I admittedly approached this pregnancy with competing emotions.  The elation I felt one day morphed into extreme anxiety the next and although I could not contain my joy over the reality of being pregnant again I found myself constantly battling my innermost fears.  Could the unthinkable happen again?  Did I have the courage to put myself in another situation where I might get hurt?  Could I really do this?  But fear was not the only complex emotion I initially experienced during my first trimester.  Yes, I was pregnant again and no longer "infertile" but I was still vulnerable to the emotions that come from such an experience.  The tears, countless tests, and the innumerable hypothetical conversations with Rob about our circumstances were not going to be erased anytime soon.  Because although the heartache we felt and feel for Henry is very much separate from our battle with trying to have another child it is also indelibly connected to the pain of not being able to have what we wanted when we wanted it.  And I know that that is something that I will never forget because it is not something that is merely lived through, it is a constant battle.

I like to believe that Rob and I are "fighters."  That with the help of the other that we are able to withstand punches and unexpected blows and get up instead of getting knocked out.  I like to think of our family and friends as people in our corner who motivate and inspire us to keep moving even when we grow weary and want to throw in the towel.  I also believe that Henry is a fighter and that he fought for every second of his life here on earth and that he mainly fought for the opportunity to spend time with us.  And when I think about it, it feels like our little family has been battling some one or some thing for two years; that we have seen a couple of rounds in the ring and have learned things along the way.

It is then no surprise to me that at just 8 weeks along in this pregnancy that Rob officially dubbed our little one "Kaempfer" (pronounced kemp-fer), which is German for "fighter."  Although he is only the size of a coconut, he already "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee" and is constantly on the move and honing his boxing skills.  It is my prayer that he stays that way.  And more importantly, that he keeps fighting.