I’m scanning my morning pages from the past year, indulging in those little moments and memories that would have been long forgotten, had I not taken some precious minutes to record and empty my brain each morning.
It’s been hard to keep this habit up these last few months, especially in the early days of my current pregnancy, when everything felt so fragile and tender and the last thing I wanted to do was speak (or write) my pregnancy into the world for fear it would be snatched away.
But I do have some glimpses of that time period that now feels so foreign and foggy: the autumn of exhaustion and bottled up hope and shadows of worry that accompanied every fleeting feeling of joy.
I tend to look back on my first trimester as all dark and dreary. But it’s nice to see how magically it all unfolded, even in the renewed hope and power I was feeling on the exact day of this baby’s conception.
A timeline of those early days, as told through (pieces of) my journal entries…
A Red Moon Cycle
October 13, 2023
…And I’m ovulating today, which means I’m much more in the mood to think about baby things. Yesterday I found out two people I follow are pregnant again. One just two months after miscarriage. For both, I just knew it was going to happen sooner than later. Happy for them. And also for me. Because I know it’s just a matter of time. […] My infection should be all healed up by now. It’s time, it’s time, it’s time.
October 14, 2023
[…] In a similar vein to justice…redemption. I’ve never heard that word used to describe a rainbow pregnancy after miscarriage, but Ashlynn Eaton did so when she announced her pregnancy. […] And when she described this occasion as redemption, trusting in God that redemption is part of the journey, it just struck me so strongly. It’s not for nothing. There will be happiness. There will be a rising. I feel like I’m already on my way to that. Having come so far from where I was just a few months ago.
[…] It’s a cloudy, overcast day, perhaps some rain. Today is a day for introspection, to get cozy, to get these little home and family projects done. And, maybe, to make a baby. I’m still ovulating. Right on the new moon, and how powerful that feels to have my body sync in that particular way with the lunar cycle. Even after the topsy turviness of chemical pregnancies and being so off with cycles in the past—that my body always seems to recalibrate to this.
October 15, 2023
[…] Since I’ve been ovulating this weekend, I’m really just letting myself have that hope and happiness that this might be the start of something new and lasting.
Lucky Number Sevens
October 26, 2023
Oh my. Woke up, wide awake at…6:30ish? I didn’t think much of it in the moment, since we have my stepdaughter today and I always wake up naturally early for school drop-offs. But I just felt like I should test, even though we were going to wait until I missed my period to even see. But I just felt like I should, on the chance that I am, so that I can start progesterone and give this baby a fighting chance.
Started to see a line almost instantly. Magic. And this is what it’s like to look at a pregnancy test and just cry. Worry and fear but more hope than I ever thought I could have at this stage. We have a long way to go. I don’t think I’ll ever have a moment where I take this for granted, don’t think I’ll ever have a moment where I just think this pregnancy is safe, and that everything will be all right. Nothing will be all right until baby is in our arms.
It’s hard to have these thoughts, because it feels like a betrayal to my body. Do I trust her to carry this baby? Do I trust that my own body will be able to make it to the finish line? I, of all minds, should have that unwavering trust and confidence. I am in partnership with my body, after all. She needs to trust me to take care of her and cheer her on and love her and forgive and hold accountability to my own toxic thoughts that aren’t helping.
So for now, we pray and hope, and take things one minuscule step at a time. […]
Cautious to even open up a pregnancy app, or even call my OB even though the fertility clinic said I could. I don’t want to jinx it. This isn’t a secret, it’s just private. And I’m happy to wait. To wait and see what comes of this. The line is strong, thank the universe.
But I did take a look at a due date calculator. 7/7. Lucky number sevens, and I was just listening to a podcast on the meaning of numbers and the power of serendipitous seven. I hope this is our sevens baby.
I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I also don’t want to deny myself and my body the joy of it all too, even if we aren’t telling anyone just yet.
[…]
And to think, this was the cycle that I released so much pressures around health. Exercise and movement has been nonexistent, but the living has been there. The trips to the city. The rainy afternoon putting down the trampoline and raking leaves. The long walk with Nala to the vet. The friendship bracelets and seeing family and ordering the good stuff at restaurants.
[…]
I was expecting to give birth this month, to the baby from my first pregnancy. And after so many months of loss and negative tests and wondering if we’ll ever see a line again, I’m just grateful that this month still has some joy in this area. Not just the sadness and grief of thinking what could have been, for our first baby due mid-October. A different kind of 9 months, right? And now this babe. This one that I hope will stay with us.
Happy Anticipation
October 27, 2023
It’s happening. Wide awake at 3:30am, the tell-tale sign of pregnancy for me: insomnia. And I’m happy to have it. Savoring these signs that something is actually happening in my body, that this might be the time that we make it through. A July baby. Meaning we still have eight whole months to prepare. Meaning that my first trimester will be mostly in these slower work months and everyone is in a holiday mode, so that might be helpful. July, which means we’d have the warm days of summer to adjust as a new family of four, and an excuse to keep the traveling tame. I don’t mind. I’m good with anything. Just grateful I get to have these moments, these daydreams, this happy anticipation once again.