The Other Reason I’ve Been MIA

In March Justin and I started discussing more permanent forms of birth control. After two back-to-back miscarriages (four total for me), I was told with my age and history that IF I were to conceive again, the pregnancy would have somewhere in the neighborhood of a 90% chance of “spontaneously aborting.”

That chapter of my life was closed, and while I was sad about it, I was mostly at peace. I mean, how many women get to be called mom by five pretty amazing girls? I felt like my heart and soul in general had been in a long process of healing all kinds of hurt that I’d been saving up for years as I never had the mental, emotional, or time capacity to deal with. 

When life hands you one crisis after another, you just roll with it and pack any issues away into a suitcase to be dealt with later. The only problem with this approach is that you eventually run out of closet space for the suitcases, and the mess must be dealt with.

In March of LAST year, I knew things needed to be dealt with. The world had fallen apart in so many ways, and my world had fallen apart alongside it in so many ways as well. I had my third miscarriage that month — the second in a year and half — and the scales tipped over into something’s gotta give territory.

We made the decision that month to pull our kids from private school for a million reasons, one of which was so that I could quit my job and become a full time stay-at-home mom. What’s that phrase? Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I joined a bible study and spent more time trying to figure out what the hell God wanted from me. I spent time with my kids, spent time getting more involved in community service, spent time continuing to fight for children and the future of our freedom, spent time in a fertility clinic when the last elusive pregnancy just wasn’t happening. Spent time wondering when life would stop feeling like one point of chaos to the next.

I took a pregnancy test on Thanksgiving day and burst into happy tears when it was positive. We lost that baby five weeks later. I was told those 90% odds.

I accepted it, and started looking at the bright side, because that’s what I do. There’s this story about a little boy who is so optimistic about everything that he doesn’t even get upset when gifted a huge pile of manure instead of Christmas presents. When asked why he’s so excited about a pile of poop, he exclaims, “With all this manure, there must be a pony around here somewhere!”

So I started looking for the pony. My job as president of our local charity league was going to be a helluva lot easier without a newborn. I never wanted to have babies past 39 anyway, and I’d just recently hit 40. Harley is getting bigger every day, and I’d really, really wanted a super close age gap between her and the last one that didn’t happen. 

Having two beautiful intelligent daughters had been so fun when Hannah and Cordelia were small, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I got to do it again, this time with THREE more. And I definitely daydreamed about being out of the baby stage. 

I found healing in Jesus that I never expected, and every time I started to feel the fear setting in that everything was about to fall apart AGAIN, I literally pictured that cross and chanted to myself “Jesus heals, Jesus heals, Jesus heals.” It’s the cheesiest thing in the world, I know! But it worked.

I finally started to feel better. I decided to take a break after we got back from our DC advocacy event. I had been helping Justin with our side business and PAC, including doing all the event planning single-handedly. When you’ve been in a mindset for so many years that people won’t like you if you aren’t doing enough, it’s hard to break it.

No one was putting that pressure on me except myself. Stop it, Jennifer. Just stop.

Our DC trip was perfect. The kids were great, and we roamed the halls of Congress with new friends and old friends, meeting with politicians to share everything we’ve learned in the past three years about why we must put children first, and not sacrifice them at the whims of our adult anxieties. 

We had an afterparty at a restaurant on the Hill, and rented out the entire upstairs bar and balcony area. We had people there from ages newborn to 70s, all happily mingling, laughing, eating, drinking, and generally being merry. 

I knew I was ok not having another baby, because I knew I could do good in the world. Justin and I had brought those amazing people together for a great event, for a perfect evening of fun and connection. My heart was full. Thank you Jesus.

We decided to look into the snippety-snip procedure just to avoid any whoopsies.

Two days later I got an unexpected positive on a pregnancy test. I’d only even taken it because I was a couple days late and I wanted to have wine with lunch and thought — let’s just make sure we are in the clear for sav blanc. 

Jesus heals. Jesus help me be ok if you take this baby home. Jesus heals. Jesus heals. Jesus heals.

Seven weeks — they sent me to a specialist for my “high risk” pregnancy. High risk because of my history of miscarriages and my very advanced maternal age. Never has a flickering heartbeat looked so gorgeous on a black and white ultrasound screen.

I had five more ultrasounds over the course of the next several weeks, each time nearly fully convinced I’d hear the words I’d gotten used to, “I’m sorry but your baby has no heartbeat.” Instead every time I saw this child, he or she had done something wild like GROW ARMS AND LEGS.

At 12 weeks, I think I finally accepted that this is happening. I’m 17 weeks now — getting close to halfway — and I’m only just now telling you lovely people about it. I finally had to tell people in my everyday life because a) I’m starting to show beyond just looking fat, and b) Arya tells every single person friend and stranger alike, “Mommy has a baby in her tummy.”

So that’s what I’ve been up to in my little “break” from chaos. But this is the kind of controlled chaos I welcome. Baby will be here just in time for Christmas, and I already have every single woman on my charity league board vying for turns to hold the newborn at meetings.

About a week after finding out and not telling a soul, my bible study group happened to be reading the passage with the verse, “For this child I have prayed.” Somehow I held it together, and I just prayed for this kiddo, and I prayed to be ok if the pregnancy would end.

Somewhere in the last month, I’ve stopped praying to be ok with a potential loss. This baby seems to be here to stay, and I could not be more grateful.

And may I never forget that every single time I make plans — God laughs.