Monday morning after a night of little sleep, my husband and I anxiously crawled out of bed to take our third pregnancy test of the month. After still having a negative result on the first day of my missed period, we decided to wait a full week before testing again to make sure we'd see a positive result. A week had passed an still no period. All the signs of pregnancy were there. Nervously I sat there, taking yet another life changing pee as my husband stood anxiously next to me. One minutes passed; one line. Two minutes passed; still one line. Three minutes passed and the test still read negative. I was utterly confused. Frustration and disbelief consumed me. How could it be negative? I was showing signs! I had missed my period! What else could it be? My husband and I stood there, glaring at the test with accusing eyes. It was a lie, it had to be. I know my body better than a messily piece of plastic! It had to be wrong!
The walk-in clinic opened at 8am. We sat impatiently waiting outside their door until they let us in. We were the first in and the first to leave. They took a sample of blood and set it off to the lab right away. Knowing the history of my incompetent cervix, the doctor took the test very seriously and promised to give us results within the day incase we needed to schedule out an obgyn appointment as soon as possible. For nearly 5 hours we sat next to our cell phones, delicately placed in the best reception spots around the apartment.
The call finally came. "I'm sorry I don't have better news to give you Mrs. Belousek but unfortunately your tests came back negative. You're not pregnant. Chances are your hormones are having an echo from your miscarriage. Sometimes after a miscarriage, a woman's body can have a relapse in hormones that can cause her to miss her period and feel the symptoms of pregnancy. This just means you might have to wait a little longer for your period to kick back in before you can try for a baby again."
...an echo of our loss....we have to wait longer before we can try again?.....
Quietly I thanked the doctor and hung up the phone. There was silence for what felt like eternity. Tears fell quietly without even so much as a blink to my eyes as I stared wide-eyed at the floor. In that moment I hated myself. I hated my body for tricking me. I hated myself for giving up my hopes for another pregnancy. I hated my body for not having it's period when it should, forcing me to wait even longer. That evening my husband held me tight as I screamed and cried hysterically, reaching out to Joey's urn, cursing my body and wanting to hurt myself because of it. My body had let us down again and I wanted to hurt it for doing so.
My husband quietly cried as he stroked my hair, coaxing me to breathe in-between my sobbing. I had reached rock bottom again and was fighting the call to climb back up. I didn't want to pick myself up only to fall hard again. I wanted to stay on the bottom where I felt I deserved to be. For the first time since we had lost Joey, I had found hope in a new life. I came to realize I was ready to move forward again, excited even to be pregnant again. For the first time in months, my husband was rubbing my tummy again, kissing it and whispering words of love to a prospecting new life. But he was whispering to nothing, nothing but an echo of his lost son. I couldn't stand to disappoint him again.
I found my breath again as my husband sat there rocking me in his arms. And in time, we somehow managed to stretch out a withered smile and even croak out a broken laugh at inside jokes we told each other in attempts to see the spark in each other's eyes again. With his amazing strength and understanding, my husband held my hand as he guided me back up from rock bottom. "I want you to look at Joey," he said with an encouraging stare, "look at him and tell him it was not your fault. Because Tiny," he said placing a hand gently on my cheek, "it was not your fault." I turned my head to his little urn where, even in the dim lighting, it shown soft and golden like the sun. It was hard to believe my own words, but as I spoke them, I started to find their truth.
"Joey...it was not my fault that you had to go. I tried to take care of you and hang on to you as best as I could. If it was up to me, I would've given my life in place of yours. I tried to give you a good home inside me while you were here. Oh Joey, I miss you so much! I love you and I always will. It wasn't my fault you had to go...it wasn't what I wanted." My husband held me again as we both cried in the silent company of our little boy. Gently my husband wiped away my tears and whispered "this is where hope is born."
Later that night, we decided we wanted to officially start trying again after I get my next period. The experience showed us how ready we really are and how much we want to try again. Though we may not know how we'll afford everything, we know we'll find a way to make things work. We were convinced we were pregnant this month, and we were ready and willing to step up and do all that was necessary to give the baby the best start. And though it turned out to be negative this time, we realized just how far we were willing to go to have a successful pregnancy. We want to have another baby.
Today I woke up and I started my period.
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