We're Pregnant Again!

Well, it is with this post that I am announcing, albeit with only very slightly suppressed enthusiasm, that my wife and I are expecting another little one again. I say with "suppressed enthusiasm", as it was almost a year ago that we were in the same boat. At that point, I was absolutely delighted, and started researching baby books again and planning for the future, etc. However, it wasn't meant to be, and last October, we lost the baby through a miscarriage. If I am honest with myself, I think that it would be a fair statement to say that the miscarriage has weighed on me for the good portion of the past year (if you wish to read more about our experience with the miscarriage, please check my blog entries from the past few months).

This experience has affected me much more than I had anticipated, and while I'm sure some people thought that I should have moved on after some time, the fact of the matter is that it was difficult to do so for some reason. It's ironic that about 2-3 years ago, one of my colleagues at work lost his baby through a miscarriage. He was devastated and took a month off work. My manager at the time allowed him the time off, but seemed to think it was excessive, and in a way, I did as well - after all, who mourns for an unknown baby for that long???). He returned back to "normal" a couple of months later, but for me, I don't think I returned to "normal" until maybe 8 months later. In retrospect, I strongly believe that the reason why I took this so hard and took so long to mourn is because of my inherent belief in the sanctity of life, at any level, including in utero. I have been vociferously against abortion for years, but I've never really figured out why I seem to be so much more passionate about that issue than any of the other hot-topic issues that seem to permeate Christian discussions (like euthanasia, homosexuality, capital punishment, etc.). I really think it has to do with my personal belief that a baby, no matter now small, even a just-created fetus, is a God-created being with a soul. So when my own baby essentially died, it was, for me, was as painful as anyone close to me dying (which thankfully has been very far and few between), but it was truly worse, since it was part of myself and part of my wife dying. Sure, people may say that I did not ever know the child per se, but sorry folks, I don't believe that. I believe that every parent has a spiritual connection to their unborn child, even if it is at a subconscious level. It's hard to explain and put into words. Anyway, I think it also revaled to me that I valued life a lot more than I had ever thought about, particularly innocent life.

This experience has also helped me to be more sensitive to other people's experiences of mourning, since I never know when I will be actually walking in their shoes...

It has definitely been a few challenging years in the family planning department, for us. Part of it had to do with how long we tried to conceive again, thinking that perhaps one or both of us may have been infertile. The caveat in all this is that I am not one of those types who will try to conceive at all costs, or do anything to make pregnancy a reality. Some people may go the medical route with fertility drugs and artificial insemination or surrogate mothering, but from the outset, I told my wife that I wasn't interested in those options (though I certainly don't begrudge those who do), and I was prepared for the fact that we may never get pregnant again. While I do not know why God allowed this to happen to us, I think it's safe to say that my wife and I accepted it for what it was and hopefully one day we will know why it happened to us.

I spent the past 9-10 months or so pondering a lot of this. I stood in front of our church and told our congregation one Sunday morning this past April, that throughout the process, I was never upset or mad at God for what happened. I still believe this. I simply did not understand why it happened, though I have an inkling that God may be preparing us to minister to other couples who have gone through the same thing. But over time, I did develop both acceptance of what occurred, as well as having a peace towards the future, whether it was a future with more kids, or us enjoying the little boy that we already have, who is already such a blessing.

This brings us to a few months ago, when one day, my wife called me to come see her in the bathroom. Judging by the tone of her voice, I suspected that she had taken a pregnancy test. I have known my wife for 15 years this year, and after all that time, I have a pretty good sense of what she's thinking by what she says (or saying it in a less diplomatic way, I have pretty much figured her out and know what she's up to most of the time... :-)). I was right on this one, and as I looked at the + and - lines that indicated pregnancy on that overpriced testing instrument, I let out only a slight smile. She asked, "aren't you excited?" I said, "we'll see" and I went back to doing whatever I was doing (probably writing an entry in this here blog). Honestly, it was a bit surreal at that point, but at the same time, I believe I had unintentionally erected some mental barriers to potentially cushion me in the event we have another miscarriage. To this day, I know those barriers are still there and I have no intention of deliberately removing them. Experiencing a miscarriage has made me a bit cynical about the whole pregnancy process. The apprehension increases as the days wear on, but I have found it has provided me a more balanced outlook on life, and perhaps exposing my fallacy in thinking that I can simply plan out the future, ignoring God's will in the process, which I think I was doing to a large degree last time. The Bible does say to manage each day at a time, as each day has its own troubles (my grossly paraphrased Matthew 6:34).

My wife is around 12 weeks now, and it is only until tonight, that I decided to go back on babycenter.com to register the pregnancy and look up what the baby is doing now, and what we can expect, etc. I am getting excited again, but it is a reserved excitement. I remember last time around, doing all this at 5-6 weeks, and getting into the heavy reading again, simply assuming that it was simply a matter of time until the baby was born, simply like putting your leftovers from dinner last night in the microwave oven, setting the time and expecting a "ding" in a few minutes - simply routine. This time, I was almost in a state of denial until about a week ago, when we told our boy and filmed a video of him announcing the pregnancy, which we have since sent out to family and friends. Of course, holding this good news inside, while we both wanted so badly to tell people, was tremendously difficult, but at the same time, I think it was a wise decision, and we can certainly better appreciate why people usually wait until 12 weeks or 3 months, or whatever, to tell everyone.

Now that I set some context here, by revisiting the past and quickly touching on the present, I'd like to take a bit of time (and I mean a bit, since it's getting pretty late, according to the clock, and I'm starting to fade out a bit here) to discuss the future. Now, you may think that this is counter-intuititive, based on what I had already said, so I should explain. When I mean discussing the future, I don't mean how we will set up a baby room, what names to pick, and what keep-myself-awake exercises I will need to do for a screaming infant who can't sleep at night. Of course, all those things are fun to think about, but I not thinking in that vein right now. What I am thinking about is what kind of father will I be the second time? Would I change anything from the first time? Would my wife change anything this time around? If it is a girl, how would I relate? (honestly, this has been an interesting one, since my son and I do a lot - and I mean a LOT of what has been traditionally considered father-son activities. I have no idea what adjustments I'll have to make if we have a girl - I'm sure my wife will be delighted though, since I'm sure she's getting tired with the ever-increasing levels of testosterone that my son and I bring to the kitchen table every night).

In the meantime, I am ultra-sensitive to anything my wife is experiencing these days - she says that she is sore and I respond lightning-quick, "where??", and I proceed to mentally catalog all of our medical emergency numbers in case I need to place a call right away. She will call me to the bathroom and say, "come see this", and I think, "uh-oh...blood", when all she wanted to show me was the fact that I can't seem to aim my clothes into the laundry hamper. She will tell me that she needs to lie down, and I am thinking , "is this bad?" My son would brush up against her belly as he walked by and I'd tear a strip out of him for the accidental nudge. Yes folks, I am on edge...just a slight bit.

However, at the same time, there is no other feeling in the world like this. Knowing that God is crafting up another little child for us to take care of really brings me a lot of joy (since I found out we are expecting again, I have almost always referred to this child as baby #3). I am sure I speak on behalf of my wife when I say that we would absolutely appreciate your prayers as we go through this exciting, albeit nervous time. Thanks for reading all this.