Rainbow babies

We always talked about a big family.
When I met Drew within an hour of our first conversation I asked him about kids.
I said I wanted 5.
He said he wasn't sure, maybe baby goats would be okay.
We settled at 4.
Happy wife, happy life, right?


Flash forward 8 years. (Its amazing to me that its been that long since we've been married, closer to 10 years from that conversation). Two beautiful boys later, a new house, lots of success around us. We were settling into our new digs and decided it was time to start trying for number three.

At first it went something like this:

We got pregnant so easy with the boys, lets not start until we're certain 9 months from now is ideal. Yes, thats a fantastic idea. I hope its a girl. Lets figure out what the world of research says about girls. Oh, it says that you should have sex before you ovulate because girl sperm live longer than boy sperm. Sounds like an easy plan. Hop to it.

Three months later it went something like this:
Whats going on? This is so weird. Were we just lucky to get pregnant so fast with the first two? I wonder if we should forget the girl plan and just try for the whole week. That must be it.

Six months into the adventure:
I've spent a stupid amount on pregnancy tests. This is frustrating and so depressing. It's a rollercoaster every month. The two week window is not my friend. Remember when we were planning for the "best" month to have a baby?! ha ha. That was funny stuff! A baby any time would be a blessing.

Seven months into trying:
Well, that doctors visit was not exciting. I'm apparently near "advanced maternal age" and my progesterone is very low. My doctor thinks I'm not ovulating. But what if I'm just ovulating late. Maybe we are just missing the right window?

Three weeks later: Holy shit. I'm pregnant!
Seven weeks after that: holy shit. I just had a miscarriage. Miscarriages tear your heart open. I had no idea how intense this would be. I can't do this over and over again.

Three months later: well, a round of Clomid and we're back to the two week window. I hate the waiting. I hate the anxiety. I'm not planning our life around this anymore. We have to have some sense of normalcy, I can't let the depression of loss run my life. Sigh. My heart hurts.

And then, a total of 1 year and 2 months after we started trying, Clomid looks like its done its work. My progesterone is up and this lovely message showed up on the test the day after my birthday:

At this point though I have a protected sense of being non-pregnant. In fact, I'm treating this first 10 weeks as though loss is imminent,  because I can't manage the heart break again. Its the residual shell left from the first time that makes me ignore all things pregnancy.  My chin is looking something like a 12 year old's and I puked at a restaurant for no apparent reasons a week or so ago, as the weeks continued I've been more nauseous than I've ever been in my life. I'm pretty sure I can't be any more tired, sore, or delerious. We'll see how things go.

Really though I feel something like this:

There's a fairly new label for babies that come after loss. They are called rainbow babies. I love this label. Its fitting, after you lose something intensely, and then find yourself with a precious gift, like a rainbow after a storm. Here's the classic photo flooding the interwebs- 10 women who've experienced loss and then months later, their rainbow of joy.

Fingers crossed for our own Rainbow baby.