Tag: pregnancy

MIRACLE!

And also, a boy!!! I can’t even type it without laughing a little. So crazy, right? I actually really wrestled for a week or so with how to share this news with you all. How can I share a part of it, when I’m leaving out the details of why it was so special, so timely, so needed, and why it’s SO more than okay.  It’s wonderful and amazing and we cannot wait to meet him.

First things first, I had sent in a sample to Reveal Gender DNA ( you can email them too: admin@revealgenderdna.com). They will do the gender test with a blood sample as soon as 10 weeks and it takes 3-5 days to get results back. I was waiting impatiently for those results over a weekend a couple weeks ago, when I was simply walking down the hallway and felt a warm gush.

If you’ve ever experienced blood loss when pregnant, or worse, blood loss that results in miscarriage, you know how terrible it can be. I knew it was blood without even having to check and I fell to my knees and just sobbed and sobbed.

Not again, please no, not again. 

I had no idea what this baby was gender-wise, but I was devastated at the thought of losing it.

After resting and a confident blessing from Russ that all was well, tt had let up and I was feeling movement so I was cleared to wait for my regular appointment after the weekend.

The next morning the gender reveal test came in via email.

I couldn’t bring myself to open it, I told Russ I’d just wait for him to get home from work. When he finally got home and opened the email, before he even started reading it I was bawling again. The weight of what that email carried overcame me. I’ll tell you why…

As a young teen I had a really important experience where I felt the presence of my daughter – or who I perceived to be my daughter. I felt her presence a few times throughout my teens. Took a lot of comfort in her, loved dreaming about her, and interpreted from all of these really private sacred experiences that she would be the evidence of God’s grace in my life. Someone so important, someone that would save me. Later in life I took that “pencil” test (maybe you tried with a crystal?) that everyone “swears” is accurate down to their miscarriages.

Boy, Boy, Boy, Girl, Boy. Every single time. For years.

So every time I got pregnant and learned the gender I was like, yep! Yep. Yep! I took comfort that this time — this time would be my girl. I put the hope of her on a shelf while I waited for her turn I was sure would come.

When Russ read out loud that it was a boy, I felt ALL of that come crashing down on me. I started to spiral! That damn pencil!!! Do I not understand how my own personal intuition works? Am I making up these spiritual experiences? Did I make the wrong choice somewhere down the line that changed my future? Did I completely misread what I thought God was trying to tell me??

Russ’ reaction snapped me back to the present — “My bad, babe. It’s my bad.” We laughed. “It IS your bad!” I whimpered. I excused myself out to the patio not wanting my kids to see, not wanting to upset Russ, not knowing what the heck I was even feeling. Of course the whole family came out within minutes. Russ not knowing what to say, and then the boys asking why mom was crying.

Russ told them “We’re having another boy!”

Hayes: Says nothing, but simply sucks air through his teeth literally making this face 😬 in sympathy.

Cal: Turns his head away from me, drops his head low and whispers under his breath “Not another one.”

Raleigh: thinks he has a baby in his belly so he just points to his belly and then starts chasing a bird.

I just laughed and laughed. If they had thrown fits or cried or had any over-the-top reaction it might have made it worse, but they were perfect and totally cheered me up.

Meanwhile all the while, I am still waiting for my appointment to confirm that baby boy is okay and realize I haven’t really felt movement.  I notice it most typically at night or first thing in the morning, so I laid in bed waiting for movement and couldn’t feel any either time.

I start to panic a bit and so I go to borrow my friend’s at-home heart doppler. I can find and hear my heartbeat, Russ’, my big boys’, but when I bring it to my stomach — nothing. I try and over and over, rolling it over all the swollen parts of me and it makes no sound.

My appointment is the next day but I call the midwife and she says to come right in. With the only opening in their schedule the timing is bad for us. Russ can’t go with me, he has to go get the boys from school. So I go alone. Even though I was alone the last time I heard I was losing a pregnancy and I swore that would never happen ever again. But now, I can feel myself turning numb. It has been an emotional weekend already and I just can’t summon anything. Courage, gumption, vulnerability — to call a soul.

Parking, walking, checking in, waiting, waiting. Finally the ultrasound tech comes to the waiting room and walks me back. I think about how she has the worst job ever.

I lay down on table, warm goo – you know the drill, and I hold my breath…

THERE HE IS. His perfect little heart, fluttering. His beautiful profile, his floating flailing arms, those tucked up frog legs. And an unmistakable penis. All I could do was laugh through the relieved tears.

Shaking my head that this beating heart and floating flailing arms hid from me all weekend, I whisper “that little stinker.” And then I told the tech “That’s a penis isn’t it?” and she said “It’s still early, but yes I think it is!” And I said laughing, “Of course it is.” She looks confused. “He’s my 4th boy.” The first time I have said it out loud. And we both laugh.

It is one thing to read an email and it is altogether another to see it on a big screen TV. But do you want to know what?

Any trace amounts of sadness from mourning the loss of the girl I thought was coming, was gone. In this moment and every moment after my heart aches with gratitude that he is okay. He is healthy. He is coming, and he has an identity and a purpose and a place in our family, and I get to be his mom. How lucky am I?

I know this whole experience was for my benefit. I felt every emotion as it came, but I was given much needed perspective, and quickly. Our view as humans in this moment is so limited. We can barely see passed our own noses, but I felt God painting this masterpiece right in front of my eyes.

For all the parents who never see that heartbeat, who have to mourn losses so much bigger and more vast. There is so much suffering and loss, and THIS is not one of those things. This is a blessing. HE. is a blessing. He is a miracle. And I will not accept anything less when I tell the news, or when I finally get to hold him and see his face. Or when we go to the grocery store and all 4 of them are acting a fool. THIS is a blessing.

All my love,

Emily Frame.

Potentially eternally, and gratefully, #boymom.