Brian and I found out we were pregnant with baby #3 on Christmas Day 2017. Our Christmas Eve tradition for the past 5 years has been to drive around with the kid/s looking at Christmas lights. This past Christmas Eve I just wasn’t feeling well.. not enough to prevent me from wanting to kick off our inaugural Christmas Eve tradition since moving to Oahu with my family, but enough to call it quits about an hour in and wanting to head home to rest. Brian and I stayed up late putting the finishing touches on the kids stockings and display of gifts.. I’m pretty sure we were more excited about the next morning than they were. We woke up Christmas morning and although I felt even worse than the night before, I put on a brave face for the kids who walked downstairs to a GIANT pile of Christmas presents; new bicycles, a tool set for Hudson that Brian had picked out, toys, treats.. you name it and it was under our tree. I watched my family open gifts for about 45 minutes before excusing myself and coming back upstairs to rest. I was in full blown flu mode. I slept for about an hour before waking up and thinking to myself I might be pregnant.
Brian and I had recently experienced two miscarriages; one in April in Gig Harbor and another in October here in Hawaii’s. They were both devastating and neither of us were emotionally prepared for how hard they would be to get through. Because I had just experienced this second miscarriage weeks prior, I didn’t really let myself believe I could be pregnant but I also thought back to both pregnancies with Izzy and Hudson and with both of them I came down with the flu before and during finding out I was pregnant.. so I laid in bed and started to get my hopes up. I finally worked up the nerve to take a pregnancy test and sure enough, the test came back clear as day “Pregnant.” I couldn’t believe it. I took the other one I had and same thing.. this time a + sign. I put them in my bedside table and waited for Brian to come upstairs to check on me as I knew he would. Sure enough about 30 minutes later he came upstairs with ice water and laid down next to me. We talked for a minute before I said, “I forgot I have one more present for you!” I rolled over, grabbed the test and showed it to him. He laughed and grabbed me and kissed me.. flu infected lips and all.
For the past 7 months I have looked forward to Tuesday’s. Tuesday is the beginning of my pregnancy week and each time the week rolled over to Tuesday, Brian and I would lay in bed at the end of the day and talk about our baby growing in my belly. Thinking of names and planning out all of the great adventures we’d take her on. We’ve speculated how Isabel and Hudson will get along with her, how she’ll fit in with our current lifestyle (she better be damn cool!) and we both spoke very openly on these Tuesday nights about how adding a 3rd baby to our family will change things; with another baby comes added expenses, we now have to buy a new car that can fit 3 car seats, it’s another mouth to feed, another college tuition, another human being relying on us to take care of her and we only have 2 sets of hands between the two of us! But we wanted this baby so bad. We were so lucky to be parents to Izzy and Hudson, we wanted just one more and then we could/would stop. We talked about wanting 3 kids together before I think we even exchanged “I love you’s” (which was Valentines Day 2013- quite literally just a few weeks after we’d reconnected after all those years- perhaps another topic to post and reflect about). Anyways, I loved these Tuesday nights in bed with him and they became such a part of our routine.
I no longer look forward to Tuesday’s. I now lay in the bed we’ve shared together these past 5 1/2 years and I dread Sunday’s. I lay here each Saturday night and re-play the phone call from the dive shop I got on Sunday, May 20, 2018. I re-play the words said to me, my automatic panic despite not having any facts, just automatically assuming the worst. I re-play racing to the ER, running as fast as my pregnant belly would allow me into the ER waiting room, begging for someone to tell me what was going on. I re-play hearing the receptionist call back to the nurses station asking if a Dr. could come out to speak with the wife of the patient in room one, who then corrected herself to say “I mean the quiet room now” and me thinking to myself, what does that mean!? Is quiet room good because he needs to get some rest after whatever just happened?? I re-play standing in the hallway as the Dr and security guard walked out the double door and I knew even as she was asking me to follow her to a private room that I wouldn’t make it. I re-play the look on her face and how her eyes told me the answer to my first question before she was even able to speak the words. I re-play what happened next. I re-play what happened next the most of any other thing that happened that day. I’ll dread and cherish those 60 minutes for the rest of my entire life. The tears come to my eyes every single Saturday night as I re-play these thoughts, words, feelings, images. But I can’t stop. He was the best part of my life. I’m broken without him here.
I no longer look forward to Tuesday’s. I now look forward to the day when I don’t dread Sunday’s as much.
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