Just Because You Can't See it Doesn't Mean it Isn't There

I love being a mom! I remember when Brinley was a baby my mom told me that being a mom wasn’t always fun and since then I have had a few of those not so fun moments she was talking about, but even during those times I know that I am extremely blessed.

Becoming a mom has been a very defining moment for me. I’m different now. Everything I thought I knew before I was a mom has changed. I act different. I think different. I am different and that’s because I have something that no one but a mom can understand. I believe there is no greater love on earth than a mother’s love. Although having so much love for another human being is amazing, it comes with a heavy burden- a constant worry- a responsibility to protect and safe guard.

Life doesn’t always work out as we plan, but it always works out. We didn’t plan on having our kids 4 years apart. That’s just how it worked out and when the time finally came to have another baby we were ready. We wanted it right then.

When we went to the Dr. for the first time we went in extremely excited and left wondering if something was terribly wrong. My Dr. performed two separate ultrasounds, but there were no signs that our baby was still alive. All we saw on the screen was black, no baby, no heartbeat. I was supposed to be 10 weeks and at 10 weeks this is a very bad sign. I was told to come back in a week. I couldn’t get out of that office soon enough. My eyes were filled with tears and people kept asking me when my due date was and trying to get medical information out of me and I just wanted to get out of the building. When the doors opened and I stepped out into the parking lot I just cried. That love that only a mother can have was getting to me. I wanted my body to be able to protect this little baby and I was wondering if I had failed.

I googled the situation. It’s actually really common, in some cases you just aren’t far enough along in the pregnancy to see the baby and in other cases the baby just quit developing and died. You then miscarry the baby. I read so much about both of these outcomes and I was scared to death and didn’t know how I could wait a week to find out.

Somewhere in the middle of the week I started to bleed and I sat down in the closet and cried my hear out. This was my child and I didn’t want to lose it. I was doing everything I could to protect it, but I didn’t know if it was enough. I felt like I had already failed as a mother. I realized that when my friends had lost their babies in the past I had always said the wrong things. I didn’t realize how hard it was, until that moment where I may or may not have been experiencing it, but the thought came to me ‘just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there’.

When I looked at that screen just days earlier all I saw was a sack filled with darkness. To me it looked empty. Little did I know that my baby was not only in there, but its heart had begun to develop and was already circulating blood. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I was then blessed with extreme nausea and that alone gave me enough faith to get through the next few days.

When we went back we were able to see the baby and hear a relieving healthy heart beat. Turns out the little stinker just likes to play hide and seek. I just wasn’t as far along in the pregnancy as my Dr. and I had thought. I know that some moms aren’t this lucky. I feel like I have more of an understanding of what it feels like to have a miscarriage although I didn’t actually have one. I realize that I can love a little cluster of cells that isn’t even visible to me, because that little cluster of cells was my child. My mom was right, being a mom isn’t always fun, but it’s always worth it!

And a bump to prove it

This is either going to be one gigantic baby or I'm going to be left with a ton of work to do 6 months from now, either way I can't wait to kiss it's face off.