Is it Mistaken Joy or a Lesson in Hope?

So when does the bond between a mother and child begin? Is it when she feels the baby move within her? Is it once the infant is born, and placed on the mother's chest, wet and crying through squinting eyes? Or is the process of bonding unique to each parent? As I type this, I can see just how much my own experiences are tempering my questions. What about adoptive parents or instances of surrogacy? Does the bonding begin for them as soon as they hold their child, or does it begin to develop while the legal aspects of the adoption are still in the works?

According to an article on WebMD, "It begins to happen even before the baby is born -- when you feel the first little flutters in your belly or see your baby kick on the ultrasound screen. Your baby also starts getting to know you in the womb through the sound of your voice" (Shroff, Amita. "Forming a Bond With Your Baby -- Why It Isn't Always Immediate." WebMD. WebMD, 15 Sept. 2016. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.).

So...yeah, obviously. This is not a life-changing quote, and maybe I shouldn't even bother using it because of that observation, but I guess I feel like I need someone else to say what I am thinking myself. Bonding is not only important for babies, but for the caregivers as well! What this quote doesn't say is that I tend to think that the bonding begins to happen as soon as the parent thinks there is a chance of a child, especially when that child has been highly anticipated. Now, I am by no means an expert in this field; I haven't done extensive research, but I know how I personally feel.

I don't know exactly when my *now* crazy toddler was conceived, but I know how I felt as soon as I took the home pregnancy test and saw that it was positive. I had been talking to a girlfriend who was also trying to become pregnant. She was trying to conceive a second child while I was trying to conceive my first. I just kept waiting for my period to come, and it didn't. As I left work for home I stopped at the drugstore to pick up a pee stick – you know what I mean. Now I know that those tests are supposed to be taken in the morning, but in my naivety I took it in the afternoon. The hormone levels must have been pretty high to show that it was positive even in the afternoon, but I made my husband look at it just to be sure. We were so excited that we couldn't wait to tell my mother-in-law, who just happened to be visiting us at the time. I had a great first pregnancy and an easy delivery as well. Rose-colored, right?

Thirteen months after my first (biological) son was born I had my first menses, and so I thought, "Okay! We're ready to try again!" I waited, a bit impatiently, to see if my period would rear its ugly head again in four weeks, but when it didn't I took another home pregnancy test. In my excitement I took it in the afternoon, not paying attention to the product's guidelines to use it first thing in the morning. It came back negative. That night I dreamt that the pregnancy test's little window was colored in purple instead of filled with an ominous line. The next morning I took it as soon as I woke up, and – low and behold, it was positive!

"Yes!"

I have a mom's Bible study group on Thursday mornings and it was all I could do to not tell them. I hadn't told my husband yet, and it just didn't seem fair to tell these women before the father. When he came home I wanted to run to the door and show him the stick, to jump up and down, and to be a ridiculous goof. I didn't though. I waited for him to go upstairs to change, and then happen-chance to see the test on the bathroom ledge just above the sink.

When he saw it, he confirmed that it was positive – we were going to have another baby! We immediately started talking about getting the now junk-laden room that was going to be an office switched to a nursery. We called his mom and mine, and then I tried to hold off on telling anyone else until my dad and stepmom came for their pre-planned visit.

I was just so excited!

I know, logically, that I cannot feel a baby move within me just a couple of weeks in, but I could have sworn I did. Just a day or two after I took the home pregnancy test I tried to relax and soak in the warm tub, and as I did I started to cry. I was just so unbelievably grateful for the gift God had given to me again. I remember how at peace I felt in my first pregnancy. Finding out that we were going to have a boy gave me a sense of who was inside me, who was pushing and growing. I knew he was going to be an amazing little boy even then. That night, just a couple of weeks ago, covered in warm water and anticipation, I thought I knew this second child was going to be a little miracle too.

Several days later I started to spot. Not a lot, but enough to concern me. I called to make an appointment with an OB-GYN, but their office couldn't get me in until May. While that date made sense for a healthy pregnancy check up, it didn't cut it for me in that very nervous moment.

The next morning I woke up to bleeding that seemed like a full-fledged period; yet the cramps seemed like so much more than the previous period, and so much more than I remembered from before my pregnancy. All I could do was come downstairs and cry. What was happening? I had just gone through a week of highs, thinking that something beautiful was growing in me, and now....

I ended up going to see my general practitioner that afternoon. I had to know what was going on. As soon as I walked back to the exam room she saw me and said, "Where's my baby?!" My toddler is her baby whenever we go in because she thinks he is just the cutest thing. She loves our well-visit appointments because it gives her a chance to squeeze him, and since he is a pretty healthy kid we don't usually have a lot to worry about.

No. This time it was just me. There was no toddler running around the exam room, trying to get into the trash or tear the paper off of the exam bed. Thankfully my busy boy was back at home, napping mostly, while my visiting parents watched him.

By the time the doctor came in she already had the low-down from the nurse.
I thought I was pregnant, but I was bleeding.
Was I having a miscarriage?
Was I not pregnant to begin with?

My mind was just a bundle of thoughts getting more and more tightly knotted. Why had I told people so soon? What was going on inside of me? Why could I not control the emotions and hold in the tears? Somehow, seeing my doctor's face and explaining the situation brought all of the uncertainty to the surface. As I walked into her arms, accepting the hug that I so desperately needed, I hoped that she could tell me I had not been pregnant to begin with. I couldn't stand the idea of it being a miscarriage.

I had been thanking God for another child, and the idea of that gift being taken back was heart-wrenching.

And so she ordered blood work and a sonogram – both of which required a day of waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting to find out, while I continued to bleed, was not easy.

The technician who performed the sonogram was nice, and while she could not tell me definitively, she said it did not look like there had been a pregnancy. The doctor at the facility would obviously have to look at the images though.

And so I came home to wait for my own doctor to call back with both the blood and sonogram results.  I stayed up in bed, and tried to shut the world out by covering my face with the blanket. I paid no attention to the wanderings of my busy little boy – my husband could do that. I slept.

I, who had been overcome with joy and the desire to tell the whole world that I WAS PREGNANT AGAIN just a couple of days before, was now trying to crawl into a hole.

It was mistaken joy.

The doctor called around 4 PM to tell me that the blood work and the sonogram suggested that there had been no pregnancy. Despite my disappointment, it was a flood of relief that poured over me, and I told her as much. I assumed it had been a false positive on the home pregnancy test. She encouraged me to rest, and assured me that we should keep trying.

Yes. Keep trying. My husband had said the very same thing, but I couldn't think about the beauty of intimacy while coming down off of an emotional roller-coaster.

My husband did not know what to do with the version of me that had come out. He is not used to that withdrawn, quiet, stone-faced version of his wife. Now I know that everything is going to be okay, but at the time I couldn't rationally think through much of anything.

This is the first blog post I have worked on that has taken me several days to write. I just can't seem to wrap my head around what happened. In a way, the roller-coaster of emotions continues into today. Talking and writing about this is helping me to sort through the emotions, but also to learn about miscarriage.

Apparently, the false positive that I thought the home pregnancy test had given me was actually not the likely reality. One of the women who God has given me to turn to has herself been schooled in the tears that come with loss. A chemical pregnancy is something that I have never heard of, at least not until yesterday.

"While they [chemical pregnancy or the more commonly known miscarriage] are both types of miscarriage, the difference is based on when pregnancy is lost. If the loss occurs very close to when the period was due, with bleeding starting before the period is a week late, this would be classified as a 'chemical pregnancy' or an 'early miscarriage.' Doctors will say a pregnancy loss at 6 weeks gestation or more is a miscarriage.  The embryo will have implanted in the uterus and it would have been possible to see the embryo with an ultrasound. ("What Is A Chemical Pregnancy?" BabyHopes Fertility Articles. N.p., 06 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.).

I had not gotten to six weeks, and so it was impossible to see any evidence of an embryo when I went in for the ultrasound.

When my doctor called I was relieved to hear that there had been no pregnancy, according to the blood work and sonogram results, and yet I questioned my sanity.

How could I have been so emotionally invested if there was no pregnancy? 

Today, as I look to different sources of information and try to educate myself, I can see that (hopefully) I was not crazy to be falling in love with a life inside of me after all. I felt like I was singing to the baby at church on Palm Sunday. I was planning a summer road trip in anticipation of being in the first trimester and dealing with exhaustion. I was deciding who to tell and who to wait for. The stirrings in my womb very well may have been the dividing of cells. I was not crazy to cry in gratitude to God for another life planted within me. I can't help but think of the verse, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13). Sadly, those stirrings did not continue to be a sign of beauty, but the sloughing of a lining that was not nourishing a new life.

And so I return to my initial question: when does the bond between a mother and child begin? 

I think it can start long before the six week mark. With increased technology in our hands, available for purchase at every corner drugstore, women today can know if they are pregnant long before the typical OB-GYN appointment would be scheduled.

"If you use a pregnancy test, before your period is actually late, the pregnancy test can show a positive for an impending chemical pregnancy AND  a viable pregnancy. If an early miscarriage does occur then you will have to deal with the crushing sadness that comes with your period arriving a little late when you weren’t expecting it at all. However, if you simply wait for your period to be late then the emotional stress could be avoided because you wouldn’t have known about the pregnancy in the first place" ("What Is A Chemical Pregnancy?" BabyHopes Fertility Articles. N.p., 06 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.).

At first I wanted to believe that the home pregnancy test had given me a 'false positive' because I didn't want to think about the loss. Now, I can look at it differently. I am glad that I knew a soul was being knit together inside of me, even if it did not continue. I think that God has tried to wrap His own loving arms around me through the words of several beautiful women in my life. While I have been on a roller-coaster of emotions, I have also been surrounded by supportive women, both near and far, who have gone through the very same thing as I have.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

This verse is written out on an index card in my medicine cabinet. I put it there before I thought I was pregnant, and while I couldn't give my anxiousness over to God completely in the moment, I could see it and read it.

Things happen in God's time, and not mine. That is a hard reality, but one I need to be reminded of. Yesterday, three women were put into my life at just the right time. One woman was a teacher, a voice of knowledge, experience, and sympathy. Another, sadly, was a woman going through almost exactly what I had gone through at almost the same time. The third, and perhaps the most beautiful, was a woman announcing her own healthy pregnancy. She is a reminder of what I can continue to try for. Maybe each of us can pray the prayer from Philippians – yes with ourselves in mind, but also with the women in mind who are bravely striving towards and in motherhood.

I pray, dear Lord, that you send your Spirit down into the hearts and minds of women who long to be mothers. I ask that you guide them through pain, loss, AND joy! Show them how to be your ambassadors!

Joy is not meant to be a mistake. Joy is meant to be a blessing.

And yet, if I did not face loss then maybe joy would not feel as bright, uplifting, and beautiful.
Mistaken joy might be the wrong way to phrase it.
Perhaps it is a lesson in loss, a lesson in waiting, and a lesson in hope.