just because something looks different doesn't mean something is wrong
March 4, 2023
We tried for a solid 6 months to get pregnant. While that might not seem like an eternity, it surely feels like it when you’re in the midst of it.
I remember often thinking, I am doing everything right, it wasn’t this hard the first time, there must be something wrong. My body must be broken. Something is not right.
8 weeks in, our first ultrasound, baby looks good. Okay okay, a little sigh of relief.
I remember being 10 weeks and feeling like I came into awareness that I had been holding my breath since I had found out. I was filled with so much fear. It’s like all a sudden I took a birds eye view of my situation, the 8+ months at that point of “its baby time”, trying and trying, finally getting pregnant, and then holding tightly. Surely it took so long, something must still be wrong, chances are high baby won’t make it, is baby healthy? Is my body working now? Or its just an illusion. Literally a swirl of thoughts and anxieties.
11 weeks came and I had another ultrasound. More peace in my spirit— okay we are crossing the first trimester threshold. Up till that week, I would google almost incessantly “chances of miscarriage at __ weeks”. Baby was on the screen dancing and wiggling and I took another deep breath. Maybe its going to be ok, he is healthy, soften, savor.
19 weeks came and we had our anatomy scan. He measures right on par. His little (lonnnnggg) legs are swimming, he’s tapping his head, touching his face, everything is ok. But the Tech notices my placenta is low lying. “it could be previa, you will come back at 28 weeks and we will check again. Most cases resolve themselves.”
Okay but what if I am not “most cases”? What is at stake here? I leave the appt and start to google Placenta Previa. If it doesn’t resolve and isn’t a “most cases” case, pre term labor, bed rest, induction, c section. I start to think all worst cases, and then reel myself back in. Pray it resolves. And then holding till week 28.
Week 28 comes, I have a check up, Doc measures my uterus. It measures 24 weeks. Requests that when we check the placenta this week, to have baby measured because they don’t like to see baby measure more than 3 weeks +/-. This is the day I get to book the additional ultrasound for my placenta, and I thankfully get in just 5 days later when they typically book two weeks out at least.
5 long days, is everything ok? Is baby ok? is baby small? Is he ok?
We get to the ultrasound—
previa has resolved. baby measures almost a week AHEAD ?! All is well, BIG exhale. Can I relax? Tears of relief and joy.
Three days later, I get a call from the Doctor. In the notes for the ultrasound, the Tech noticed that my cervix has begun to thin earlier than they like to see. I am almost 29 weeks and they don’t like to see this happen until 35 weeks.
We are leaving for Mexico in two weeks and I am on my hands and knees praying God please let baby stay in. I cannot be having a premature baby, in Mexico nonetheless !!!!!!
So I hold. I get checked a few days before we leave, it’s a different doctor who seems to not be concerned about it at all… its fine!! its fine!! go!! no worries!
….
Mexico is beautiful, I try to lay low and rest as much as I can. 3/4 of the way through the trip, I see the birds eye view again, I am holding. I am tensing. Gripping. Closed. I am having lightening (shocks/pain in crotch) everyday all day, I am so scared that I might have baby and be stranded there.
I arrive home, I can breathe. All is ok.
I have an appt and I talk to doc, she checks me— “1cm dilated and 60% effaced, I’d suggest no more traveling!!”.
I don’t have any more plans so I am okay with this restriction.
A couple weeks go by, I cross over 34 weeks, I begin to soften in a way I haven’t this whole time.
As I prepare for the end and as he grows and I know he’s healthy and strong, I am home and if something goes haywire, I will cross the bridge and receive the care I need— I can breathe again. In a way that doesn’t require holding in between breaths. I don’t know what the next four weeks hold, I don’t know when my baby boy will want to come out, but for the first time in the last year, I feel I am not wondering if something is wrong.
April 5th, 2023
I was curious if I had actually posted this yet the other day and I came on here to a drafted post.
I chuckled (probably so i wouldn’t cry lol) because I had just crossed over to 39 weeks.
I thought— I just can’t believe it. After all the fear, after all the waiting, after all the “this doesn’t look right, lets check again”, my boy is (do I dare use the over used word by all people—) COZY in there.
I’ve made the joke SO many times— “What could it even be like being full term? I have never done it….”
“Whats the due date?” “April 7? 8? 9? But no way he will stay in till then.”
Don’t get me wrong, I know every pregnancy is so different, and the fact that my first born came three weeks early was not likely a factor in the potential of him coming early. But what did have me convinced was alllllllll the things that were cause for concern, all the things that pointed to the possibility of pre term labor, all the stress and anxieties of things just looking a little different, and needed to be checked out again.
At my last three appointments, the last three weeks, they preform a cervical exam checking dialation and effacement. It’s always “WOAH! Baby is LOW!”
Week 37 — 70% effaced, 2cm dilated
Week 38 — 70% effaced, 3cm dilated
Week 39 — 80%, 4cm
So slow, so steady.
Every day feels like groundhog day the last almost four weeks. I feel wildly present, taking life one day at a time. Every time I make plans or have something on the calendar already thats coming up, I think yeahhhh I will probably have to cancel. Probably won’t make it! And then the day comes and goes.
All the doctors give me a reassured, “you’ll go into labor”, absolutely no talk of induction. I just don’t believe anything right now lol. I feel like I can’t. Nothing is real. I have literally had a few days in the last week having the thought like “is there actually a baby in there?” Have I been gaslit this whole time, and it all doesn’t exist? It’s so very strange.
I am however so grateful for all the time and space I have felt and held the last few weeks. I had spent a solid month in preparation, really once we got home from Mexico. Washing all the things, sorting, etc. I feel I have been prepping hard for months, because at this point I really have! The last few weeks have been special and focused on a million little things that have been in the back of my mind to do for my home and for work, and I just take it one day at a time. One task at a time. It feels really good, like a purge of old tasks and it is really probably saving my sanity in this waiting time.
Moral of the story— It’s always been about surrender. And just because something unfolds in a way you could never planned or imagined, does'n’t mean that something is wrong, or not for you. In fact, its the most FOR you it could ever be. We are souls, not robots. We have a divine destiny, written in the stars. I have been toying so hard with this statement the last several months in my classes—
Even when it DOES work out how we envisioned it, it still wasn’t up to us.
It’s so easy to get sucked into this feeling that when something unfolds or plays out how we “manifested” or prayed for it to, like we had some part or role in making it happen. Trust me, I am a firm believer that we can only SEE what we allow ourselves to SEE, and therefore we can only RECIEVE what we allow ourselves to SEE. We do need the optics and the openness, the awareness and the ability to accept what is on its way to us, and thats just it. Thats all we can do,
A R R I V E
Into the fullness of here. The fullness of NOW.
It’s all we ever have and it’s all we will ever have. The softening and surrendering has been such a gift. My future brain who thinks she controls the timing of all things, feels like she’s waiting just on the other side of my presence.
I am grateful bb Boy will be fully cooked in there (I mean he is, get out lol) AND I have learned so much about steadiness in this journey. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t let the opinions and words get you wrapped in a anxious ball. One day at a time. Soften. Settle. Arrive. Stay steady. Find the current, the one that runs steady under all the desire to plan and project and protect.
I am ultimately returning to a place within that is more me than ever before.
