Last year the Earl and his wife suffered a miscarriage. I was the first person they told when they got a positive test and the only call when things were not looking like it was going to last...The Earl, desperate to help his wife asked me to ask my IF "friends" if any of them had taken this hormone or that hormone and what the chances were of it helping stop a miscarriage. I was touched that he felt this close to me and I was heartbroken for them as the pregnancy ended and I could offer no help to stop it.
About two months ago, I got a call after dinner from The Earl again. "It looks like she is pregnant again. I suggested that she wait to tell anyone about it until it was much farther along this time." Last time she was 6weeks along when she told friends at a dinner out, within a week she lost the pregnancy. I told him congratulations as I hung up the phone and thought of their other two children at home....how the youngest was now possibly going to be a middle child.
The Earls wife comes from a line of woman who enter menopause in their late 30's. One sister had a child as a teen and now is unable to have another, and the other is in the middle of multiple years of IF treatments to create a family of their own. So the fact that the Earl's wife had gotten pregnant in her mid 30's twice in this last year was surprising on it's own.
Yesterday I picked up the eldest from school, with the younger one in tow, as The Earl and his wife went to the doctor for the 11 week confirmation ultrasound. I was asked to help because if our mother caught wind of a Dr's appointment she would ask a machine gun line of questions that they didn't want to answer yet. So I was the confidant again.
When the appointment was over and they came to pick up the children, they had no reactions on their faces. There were others here, and they were not able to speak freely or openly. None the less, it made my mind wander to the dark places, and I imagined the worst scenarios....chemical pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy...still child.
Once the room was cleared and the children were shuffled away and en route to home with the Earls wife; The Earl showed me the ultrasound. In it, a kicking moving thing that looked like a baby kangaroo...flickering shimmering heart. I could hear the voice of the ultrasound tech, high pitched and giggly. I turned to The Earl and said "that is what an tech sounds like when you have a baby in you? They sound so happy. Wow I never got to hear that..." He didn't say a thing....but maybe at that moment realized what this was like for me. I hugged him and said congratulations again and packed up my things to head home.
They made it look so easy.
1 comment:
Oh this post hit home for me in so many ways. I never tried to get pregnant, but the fact that I can't has been weighing on me lately. And then I see a friend who is pregnant again for the 2nd or 3rd time and I think "how nice it must be for it to be that easy". And while i know it isn't so easy for everyone.. and while I know there aer so many challenges of being a parent... I still sometimes wonder what it is like, to look at that ultrasound and say "hey, that's my baby!"
Hugs to you.
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