I Fell in Love with a Chocolate Chip Mermaid: The Beginning

I don't think I've ever had any "huge dreams" for my life. When asked as a child what I wanted to "be" when I grew up, I don't remember having any specific job in mind. I just thought I at least wanted to be a wife and a Mom.

After Rob and I got married, we assumed that we had complete control over our family planning. We planned to spend our first 5 years as just the two of us, buy a house, and simply start trying and conceive our first little one in, perhaps, just a matter of months after that. That's pretty much how it goes for most people, I thought. I don't think the concern of not carrying a pregnancy to term even crossed my mind. It just wasn't something I heard of enough.

During our first 4 years of marriage, we were carefree. We watched our friends and families have "ooops" babies, and just felt happy for them and relieved for ourselves. We prided ourselves on our responsible planning, consistent birth control use, and easy child-free existence. I would get another period, and we would high-five and laugh. 

We bought our house just before our 4th anniversary in October 2015. By this point, we still weren't trying for a baby, but we weren't necessarily trying to avoid getting pregnant either. We decided we were happy either way. We figured we kind of wanted to stick to our "5 years of marriage first" plan and work on our home for another year before really trying. 

That November we got the news that changed everything. 

We were busy tearing down wallpaper and painting the kitchen and dining room when I started to wonder where my period was. I didn't keep track of my cycle then and almost didn't notice I was late. I took my FIRST EVER pregnancy test, and my world was changed forever when I saw a faint positive line.

My excitement level went through the roof, rising way above my excitement for house projects and paint colors. I was going to be a Mom! I downloaded a pregnancy app and read about our baby's development. I tracked his or her size and appearance and dreamt up Summer inspired nursery themes and baby names for our August baby, while Rob remained (wisely) cautious.

When we realized we couldn't keep it a secret and that we truly had NO IDEA how to proceed with a pregnancy, we decided we would tell our parents. We snuck cinnamon buns into their ovens with my positive pregnancy test. Our Moms jumped around their kitchens and screamed with joy. It was every bit how I thought announcing a pregnancy should be.

I made my first appointment with a doctor, and on November 16th, 2015, I wrote my first letter to our first little one in their own journal.

Later that day, I was working in my Etsy room when I felt intense cramps. I ran to the bathroom to find what I feared the most. Blood. Anxiety, fear, and sadness came over me in a way that I can't describe in words. 

I panicked and screamed for Rob. I hate making phone calls, but I called my doctor without much hesitation. I choked through my description of what was happening while Rob called the nearby hospitals to find out what their E.R. waiting times were. I sent worried texts to my Mom and best friend while we waited for an agonizing 3 hours in the E.R. 

I won't forget the moment the doctor dropped my pee onto a pregnancy test with a tiny eye dropper. "And you are..." he said casually and quietly "..not pregnant."

My heart sank. Rob told the doctor that my tests were faintly positive before and we asked him to test again. Our eyes were glued to that second plastic screen, and our hearts dropped deeper as we hoped for even the faintest second line to appear. 

It didn't. 

I felt dead inside as the doctor prepped for blood work. Normally, I dread blood work with everything that is within me, but at this point, I felt like I had nothing worse to dread. The doctor sent us back into the waiting room while the results of the blood test were read. "It's okay, you can just try again." he said, as if this was a simple thing we were just given to process.

While we waited, I began bleeding in clots. While shaking and sobbing in the public hospital bathroom, I couldn't help but think that our baby was in those blood clots and that I couldn't just flush him or her down the toilet like a dead goldfish. I reached into the toilet and rolled anything that felt like anything into a wad of toilet paper and kept it in my pocket to inspect later.

The things we do for love.

I was put in a hospital bed while a few nurses came through who calmly and sympathetically confirmed that I wasn't, in fact, pregnant (anymore). They didn't seem to understand that I had those positive tests at home. I was handed an information packet about periods as if I had never heard of a period before.

I updated my Mom and best friend and Rob called his parents to retract our happy news on the way home. I don't know how to describe the time after this. I was in denial and I was hurting. Something I had so much excitement for was snatched away in a matter of moments. We didn't tell our friends that I was pregnant, but after this loss, we ended up telling our friends because we needed the support.

While it wasn't in our original plan, this loss left a void and we started trying for another baby as soon as we could.

To our "chocolate chip mermaid baby",
you will always be our first.