No Rest For The Weary...

I awoke at 5am with two thoughts on my mind... 1) I'm STARVING and 2) I can't sleep. What caused me to be unable to sleep is wherein lies the story. Too many things on my mind, I guess- mostly thoughts of Tuesday (the sonogram appt) and what it holds, what it will mean. I have really tried not to worry about that and have really done well with that (for me)... until now. So by 6am, I was out of bed, with a bowl of cereal in hand and my laptop on my lap. I have been sleeping really well lately (again- for me) so this is unusual. For a person who typically sleeps a 4-6 hour night, 10 hours a night is like a dream come true! That has been the BEST part of this pregnancy! But this morning I guess my mind overtook my body and so, alas, here I am...

I suppose to understand the source of my worry, you'd have to know where I've been. The last sonogram I had was 7 years ago when I was pregnant with my precious "baby butterfly"- Kalann Joy. That day was supposed to be a joyous one for us. We had even removed our girls from school early to go with us to see if we (my ex-husband and I) were having a boy or a girl. We were all SO excited! Even though it was so long ago and so much has transpired since then, I can still remember that day so vividly. The look on the sonographer's face and just knowing. When she asked the girls to wait out in the hall while she went to get the Dr., I knew- something was horribly wrong. I had never had a problem in a pregnancy before- at least not anything of this magnitude so I didn't know WHAT it was, I just knew that it was really bad. And when the Dr. came in and confirmed what the sonographer had seen, my world collapsed. I remember the words "pregnancy is not 'viable'" and I remember thinking what the he** does that mean?? I'm sorry for the expletive, but in that moment- that's what I thought. I remember looking at her with fear in my eyes and my heart breaking as I heard her say words I had no clue of the meaning to- just knowing they were devastating to my world. I had known this Dr. for many years at this point, she had been with me through one pregnancy and my pre-cancerous "scare"- I knew her not to be a person who would overdramatize a situation. But there was no mistaking the look on her face or her next words... "your baby will not live, I'm sorry". I remember those words turning over and over again in my mind as they hit upon nothingness and I failed to absorb them. I remember saying "I don't understand" and I remember thinking "this can't be happening, I have never had a problem with a baby before". I must've spoken these words because I remember her explaining that it was a "fluke" thing and that "these things just sometimes happen". From there, I believe I went into shock because the next thing I remember is sitting at a restaurant with J and the girls and trying to pretend like everything was okay for the girls because we didn't want to tell them until we had another sono the next day. The Dr. recommended it as a confirmation because it was a highly diagnostic, special imaging, blah blah blah. They could see more, basically. But when we went for the "high tech" version of the sonogram, there was no mistaking that blank darkness above our precious baby's eyes where her brain should've been. Even to the untrained eye, that was evident. I remember them "giving us time" as we tried to process what was the inevitable loss of our baby- that was, in every other way, "perfect". I remember thinking- how can this be? How can I see this baby's heartbeat on the screen, see her moving like a normal baby, have all her limbs, her toes, her fingers- everything, and yet know she is going to die? It didn't make sense to me.

Then there was the barrage of "there are things we can do"... "options". "Options"? Options for what? Options that will make my baby live? No... there were none of those. This was a death sentence, no way out. There was nothing- short of a God-appointed miracle- that was going to make my baby live. So what were these "options"? I really was in too much shock to even absorb what they were suggesting. Of course, they put it in all kinds of medical terminology so that it wasn't the ugly truth, but I finally got what it was they were suggesting- abortion. They wanted me to abort my precious butterfly. I remember getting home and collapsing on the bed and dissolving into tears. I remember phone call after phone call from relatives and friends that had obviously been informed by J as to what was happening. I took none of them. I could not speak, I could not think, I could not function. I could only cry. And I remember laying there in my despair and thinking of everything we'd just been through and the Dr's words and "options" and I will never forget what happened next... she moved for the first time. Or, rather, I FELT her move for the first time. Two little kicks, that was all. But it was right as my mind passed over the word "options". And I remember the horror setting in as I fully absorbed what that meant and asking God to forgive me that I had not immediately refuted it. There was no way I would ever. When my Dr. brought it up again, I asked her- "what is making this baby live? If she cannot live outside of me without a brain, what is making her live now?" She said- basically- it was me. I said to her "so I am this baby's lifeline right now? Without me, she ceases to live?" She confirmed that was true. So I told her- "then there is no way that I will cease to be that. God is going to have to take the very breath from her and make her heart stop beating because I will not. That's not my job, it's His". And that was that.

I settled in for the long, hard next 3 months that would- in ways- feel like an eternity, and yet- go by in a whisper, in the blink of an eye. When it was all said and done, I would pray for just one more day of it, just one more day to have her back with me- safe inside my tummy where I knew she would continue to live. Even though it was a miserable pregnancy as I gained enormous amounts of water weight (a condition of anencephaly) and, by the end of it, my Dr. said I had enough water to be carrying triplets- I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. What Kalann did to my life, I could never measure nor fully explain. I prayed- and believed- for a miracle every single day and would not listen to any naysayers. I rebuked them. I found joy in every movement, every moment, every heartbeat. My faith was stronger than ever and she touched lives. I was in awe of it. For a baby that never even touched this earth, to see how she affected people and renewed their faith because of OUR journey- it was remarkable. Sometimes now, I wonder how my faith could've been so strong in such extreme times then and can falter so much over lesser things now. The only explanation that I had for it was- it's God. God gives us the measure of grace we need to handle each situation. In extreme ones- like this- it was an extreme measure of grace. I needed it- I would've died without it. And that's not to say there were times when I didn't wish that I could. Sometimes the pain became so real and so unbearable that I just wanted to go away, to not have to feel it anymore. The thought of being separated from my precious baby in the end was just too much for me. And then I would think of my other girls... still little at the time- just 5 & 10- and I would know that I had to go on for them. So I would somehow find the strength to make it through that day, and then the next, and the next, and so on. It was a long journey- a heartbreaking one, but one I would never have done without. It forever changed me. And- sometimes- I know the Lord knows I need just that moment back so he sends me a butterfly that crosses my path and makes me smile- just knowing...