This will, very likely, be my last post here.
I once promised that I would keep updating this blog as long as our family kept expanding and so, here I am. The update: I just gave birth to our 6th child. About three weeks ago. Let’s call her Red. We could also call her Last, Final, or Grand Finale because, unless there is some miraculous accident in the years ahead, there will be no more babies after her.
This baby did not come easily. First, there was a year of begging and negotiating and praying that my husband would agree to one more. Then there was a year of trying and crying, coupled with more supplements than I can count, acupuncture, naturopath appointments, and blood draws nearly every week. And then there were two strong lines on a pregnancy test, and hCG levels that were rising just as they should. But.
But there was no heartbeat.
And to make a long story short: No heartbeat. No bleeding. My body did not want to let that baby go. So first there were pills, then more pills, then a frightening hemorrhage that landed me in the ER, followed by a D&C. I nearly lost consciousness more than once during that emergency. I also nearly needed a blood transfusion. I recall begging for them to not let me die. And I remember my husband at my side, holding my hand, promising I would be okay.
One month later, in a twist of events, I was pregnant again. And though there was bleeding for eighteen weeks of that pregnancy, too, that baby stuck. Our little Red.
The pregnancy was easy, even at 40 years old. My blood pressure had never been better. My blood sugar, though sometimes wonky, stayed steady. I felt strong and healthy and full of energy. The pregnancy was bliss, but the birth was something else. I planned for a dreamy waterbirth at home, the peaceful birth that I didn’t get with our last, but it became an emergency when there was too much blood. A presumed placental abruption. As the EMTs arrived in my bedroom, I didn’t expect my baby to survive.
But she did.
She was born swiftly on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. She was a bloody mess, but she was alive and I’d never been so relieved and so thankful for my baby to have arrived.
And then our story took another turn: sweet little Red could not maintain her oxygen levels and, by the end of her first day, she had been transferred to her third hospital and was diagnosed with a heart defect. There were moments I didn’t know if she’d ever make it home.
But she did.
After ten days in the hospital, we brought her home and she is now living a mostly normal baby life. She has a heart condition that will forever affect her, but she gets to be held in my arms without cords and wires and tubes, she can nurse on her own, she has finally met her five siblings, and we get to be together as a family every day now. I don’t know what the future will hold, but I am trying to stay present in this moment and be grateful for what I have right now, though I’m still grieving the birth and earliest days of her life that were very different than what I had expected.
And so here I am, writing my last post, signing off for good, saying thank you for coming along on this journey, and wishing whomever finds this blog the very happiest life and the family they hope to one day have. Even if fertility is part of your story, there’s hope.
There’s always hope.
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