Precious Angel

My Update

As of October 15, I was supposed to be 3 months pregnant. It would have been a joyous time spreading the news to family and friends. Sadly, things have not gone as planned. I am sharing my story because I feel it will help me heal.

Overall, this second pregnancy was an exciting time for P and me - yes, this one was planned. It was such a good pregnancy too, I didn't have any morning sickness... which is absolutely amazing. I felt very not-pregnant since it was nothing like having Adelaide. It was cool to think that our kids would be close in age.

P was away on a business trip when I went in for my first ultrasound by myself - thinking nothing of it. The ultrasound technician noticed that I didn't drink enough water (or early enough, anyways) and then was unable to find a fetus. It turns out I had a condition called "Blighted Ovum". Basically, it means that there's a gestation sac (where the baby is supposed to develop) but the egg never grows - usually from a chromosomal abnormality. In terms of me, my body thinks it's pregnant but eventually realizes that there's no baby and naturally miscarries.

I found out about the condition on Sept 27th (9 weeks 3 days preggo) and the wait to actually miscarry was/is excruciatingly annoying and frustrating. I'm in a state where I know I'm not really pregnant but I have no control over when my body will miscarry - do I plan to stay home the entire time? I don't know! Not only is it hard to lose a baby mentally, emotionally and physically but waiting weeks for it to happens has really taken a toll on me.

On the emotional side of things, there are a lot of things I didn't realize were big for me. I never noticed how much I wanted kids to be close together in age - both to get the sleepless stage over with and for them to grow up close and play together. Seeing other families with children close in age also adds a bit of pressure - though fully self inflicted and subconscious (until I reflect on it). I also realized that I took my pregnancy with Adelaide for granted. The pregnancy with her was "easy" (without many scares) and quite textbook. Other than a lot of morning sickness (to remind me that she was growing big and strong), I loved growing her.

There are times where I feel an overwhelming feeling of loss and other times that I feel that I've accepted how things have turned out. I love everything about our little (or big, depending how you count) family. Adelaide is cute, learning, keeps me busy and smiling. I struggle with people who talk about babies/pregnancies and there are days I want to shout at the world. But other days, I'm just happy to see the joy that all babies bring. It doesn't help that Adelaide has developed a fascination with babies now and peeking into every infant car seat and stroller we pass. The world will not stop because of what's going on with me, no matter how much I want it to :)

The Trouble Continues

So on the note about the world continuing to spin... I found out about the baby (or non-baby, however you think about it) on a Tuesday. On Thursday I had to go to the airport to pick P up to head down to Calgary. We needed to apply for another US Visa for P since he hasn't received his permanent residency approval yet (almost two years and waiting!). While walking towards the consulate building, we realize that we cannot find P's passport! Knowing that we left that morning with it, we wander around downtown Calgary for 5 hours (by foot) retracing our steps with no luck. So to add onto our horrible week, we have an added stress of needing to deal with a passport issue!

The more we wander around, the more I lose hope of finding it. We were told by the people in the buildings we approach that no one (including them) would want to go to a police station to return it. (It was too far and out of the way) By the end of the day, we realize that to replace P's passport, we'll need to go to an in-person interview at the Australian Consulate. The closest one is in Vancouver. We gave the police a few days in hopes that someone returns the passport but in the end, we knew that we'd need to get a new one. We made the decision on Monday evening to head to Vancouver but how? With it being last minute, flight prices were incredibly high and points were ridiculous.

Travel Plans

I had to decide whether I wanted to stay home since I wasn't bleeding yet or we drive as a family to Vancouver. In the end, I decided that staying home waiting without P around would be harder for me. So P made an appointment for the interview on Thursday morning and we would drive to Vancouver Wednesday bright and early.

So on Wednesday, we started the drive at 6 am in the morning and with a couple stops here and there, we were in Vancouver by about 10pm. We got settled and went straight to bed (after the mandatory email checking, of course). We were able to get everything we needed to get done on Thursday - including visiting my old workplace and a few friends so we decided to leave Vancouver on Friday morning.

We traveled from Vancouver to Calgary over 3 days (2 sleeps). Hung out in Calgary for a bit and on my couple of hours alone with Adelaide while P was in a business meeting, I drop her stuffed monkey - which I've grown a particular connection with and Adelaide likes using it as an ice breaker. I've basically reached the conclusion that downtown Calgary eats things that are important to our family and I really don't want to go back there... :) I'm sure Adelaide's monkey is in a good new home and looking online, there are no replacements since it's an older model monkey. I'm happy Adelaide hasn't attached to it as much as I have.

Conclusion

It's been a very long time since I've blogged and having a super long, depressing one is probably not a good way to start up again. Things have been hard in the last few weeks, which gives me a stronger reason to vent but during the past year, there just hasn't been much interesting happening.

On a completely separate note, the new house stuff is coming along well and we'll most likely move in December (ack - it's supposed to be a record cold year). Whatever, I think we've dealt with worse :) Now I just need to take this blogging time and go pack stuff.

Afterword

P posted with this note and I find it very true...

This blog entry from Emily is written after-the-fact, and I think it is better to read it as "how we're all feeling now". The last couple of weeks were harder for our little family than she says.