Gold Star Mom Day

I took my kids to noon mass and Confession.  Gold star mom day.  Only there was a little more to it than that.   I know this is going to read like an exaggeration but I promise that it's not.  All the events described herein really did happen to the degree in which they are described.  

This is how it went down. 

Rolled into noon mass a little late.  No biggie.  Jesus totally understood because I was busy trying to get my short story ready to submit and I lost track of time.  Fine.  We can take care of it in Confession.

Mass was normal.  Kids were good.  

After mass, heading toward the front to get in line for Confession, #2 boy child grabbed the front of his pants and started dancing.  Change in plans.  Bathroom break.   #1 boy got in line for Confession.  Boy #2 and #3 went with me ISO a bathroom.  My DD stayed in the church "to pray."  Rookie move.

Sons were warned not to leave the lobby area after finishing in the bathroom.  Of course, one of them did.  After an extensive search of the church bathroom, he was found wandering and whispering loudly praying with his twin in the church. 

I got into line, which was a sitting line or we never would have made it.  There were at least sixteen people in front of us and only one priest.  TWO HOURS later, it was my turn.  

During this time I had to hiss at one of my kids to remove his hand from his pants, break up several arguments, threaten to take away all screens for the rest of eternity and give a number of soul-chilling glares.  The twins nearly burned the church down - twice, were kindly reprimanded by an older woman (for nearly burning the church down), understood "proper church movement" to mean running in flip flops, repeatedly head-butted my stomach tried to fall asleep on me, "read" the Latin passages on the wall in loud whispers, killed my phone battery, and got into a fight with the newly sin-free #2 son while I was in the confessional.  I almost made #2 get back in line and was sorely tempted to do something that would require me to get back in line as well.  

Thankfully my grace held.  It held by a thread.

By this time I was so hungry that I was ready to eat a hymnal.  My #2 son was clutching his stomach and prophesying his own death from starvation.  My #3 boy was eyeing the candles with devious intent.  And my girl was draining the last bit of battery from my phone.  

I said my penance quickly because I knew God didn't want #2 son to die of hunger, grabbed my purse and turned to leave.  

But wait a minute.  I was missing one.

My growling, broody #1 son, the 13 year old, was still in the front pew.  His head was bowed in prayer?  I looked around.  My other three were literally running for the doors like a pack of rabid wolverines.  

But look.  I wanted to shout and point.  One of my kids was being good.  There was grace.  He's praying.  Did anyone else see that?  One of my kids was good!

He finished praying, stood, genuflected and turned.  Was that happiness radiating from his face?  

"Thanks, Mom."  

That's what he said to me as we caught up to each other.  I realized through my haze of frazzled nerves, nausea and hunger that he hadn't uttered a word of complaint during the entire ordeal.   Not only that, he was thanking me.  During the last two hours #2 brother had poked him, made quiet farting noises and whispered that he smelled stinky butt, kicked him, and did numerous inappropriate things that bored little boys do to engage older brothers.   

Plus my oldest was just as hungry as the rest of us, maybe even more so because he's been growing roughly one inch every three hours.

In spite of all this, my #1 was smiling and thanking me.

One of my kids is good.  Hooray!

HPT + - really!?! - Low HCG Success Story

I'm pregnant and it turns out that zombie body parts sometimes work.  My zombie uterus has been supporting life for 14 weeks so far.

It was touch and go for a while after the embryo adoption and transfer in May.

One day before my scheduled HCG blood test, I took an HPT.  It was negative.  I cried.  I knew, I just knew that there was no way I could be this far out from our transfer (11 days post transfer, 14 days past ovulation) and get a negative test.

The following day, I took my last HPT.  There was a ghost of a ghost of a line.  I mean, it was so light I stood in the bathroom for a very long time squinting at the stick.  Then I called my DH in.  He was skeptical and rightly so.  We both wanted this baby to live so much that it hurt.  It was easy to conclude the ghost line was more a product of an active imagination than the chemical presence of a miracle baby.

But I felt better.  A line is a line is a line.

So I went to my blood test feeling somewhat hopeful.  That would be the last hope I felt for about a month.

Later that afternoon my doctor called.  It was the doctor, not the nurse.  That's never a good sign.  He was calling to tell me my HCG result was 29.

I bit my lip and pinched the bridge of my nose to keep the tears at bay.  29 was very low.  It was ridiculously low.  I knew what it meant, even though the doctor was nothing but positive.  He said there we'd wait and see what the next numbers were.  But I knew that a 29 meant that this was probably not a viable pregnancy.

Two days later.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I was at 62 and in agony.

I shut myself inside my bedroom and wept.  Sixty-freeking-two at 17 days post ovulation.  That's a failing pregnancy.  That's a dying baby.  Still, my doctor, who once again called me, said this baby had a 50-50 shot.

My mom and dad were visiting.  My mom went off for a walk when I told her, tears streaming down my face, that her fifth living grandchild was on its way to becoming her 12th miscarried grandchild.  We didn't tell the kids anything during this time.  We just held on and waited for the numbers to drop.  Or rather, that's what I did.

Every time I did an internet search of "low HCG" or "low HCG success stories" I got tale after sad tale of miscarriages and chemical pregnancies.  I found a total of five stories where the moms gave birth to a healthy baby.  There were tens, probably hundreds, of heartbreaking stories.  Babies lost a 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks.  Babies lost after what seemed to be a perfect rise in HCG levels.  There was a depressing medical study quoted over and over by savvy net-moms that gave my baby a thirty percent chance of live birth.

DH, who is an eternal pessimist and is currently obsessed with Ebola, was calm and even peaceful while I was falling apart.  He said, "You're planning a funeral for a child who is alive.  You're acting like this pregnancy is already over.  Stop it.  You need to be happy for the gift we have right now.  You're pregnant."  He hugged me and a huge "proud papa" grin spread across his face.  "You're pregnant right now.  Enjoy it!"

He was so right but what a struggle it was to enjoy something I was convinced I was going to lose.  Every few days for two weeks, I went in for blood work.  The numbers slowly climbed but there was never the huge jump I had seen with my first two pregnancies. This baby, this pregnancy, was slow to rise but the rise was steady and doubling as it should.

Finally after two weeks, the doctor stopped the blood work and told me to schedule an ultrasound.  I thought I was 5 weeks and 6 days when I went in, which was just barely, barely far enough along to sometimes see a heartbeat.

It was the Feast of St. Anthony, finder of lost things.  Since he's so good at finding lost things and since me and St. Tony go way back, (for a while had quite a contentious relationship) I asked him to help us find the baby's heartbeat.

I desperately needed to see the heartbeat.

It was ridiculously early to expect that we'd see one.  And when they got the ultrasound on the baby, we realized that seeing a heartbeat was going to be even more difficult than we thought.  The baby measured 5 weeks 4 days.

Probable late implantation, smaller baby, it didn't look good.

But then it all came into focus.

The sonographer sounded awed when he said, "This is the earliest I've ever seen the heartbeat.  It's right there."  He pointed to a flicker on the screen.

DH counted the beats.  120 beats per minute.

The heart was strong.  The baby, the tiny, bitty, smaller than a sesame seed baby, was miraculously alive. A sesame seed, people!  We saw a heart beat inside a baby who was the size of a sesame seed.  God is completely amazing.  So was the guy who did the ultrasound.

Now, I'm 14 weeks.  The morning sickness is gradually getting better.  I'm still easily tired.  I have an inexplicable case of hives that come and go and get worse when my nausea is especially bad.  I crave cream cheese.  I can't tolerate sugar.  Mexican food, my usual stand-by when pregnant, makes me sick.

So yeah, I'm pregnant.  All bets are that it's a girl but we won't find out for sure for a few more weeks.