I took 52 home pregnancy tests….all were negative.
The 53rd, albeit barely, was positive.
There were years of my life when pregnancy glared me in the face. Everyone around me was getting pregnant and having babies, while I was obsessively taking pregnancy test after pregnancy test praying for two pink lines.
As I wondered what was wrong with me, my dreams of motherhood slowly began to vanish with each negative test. The pain was overwhelming, debilitating even. It wasn’t the kind of pain that made me cry all of the time, but rather the kind that overwhelmed my heart; a kind of pain that I couldn’t escape.
And then there was that 53rd pregnancy test, the one that had two very, very faint lines.
This news came with disbelief, glimmers of excitement, but mostly, reservation. I kept asking myself, “After so many months of negative pregnancy tests, how in the world did a positive JUST show up?” I had a hard time believing that after so much gut wrenching disappointment, we’d finally see a positive test.
These faint lines showed up just two weeks after we were told that we only had a 3% chance of becoming pregnant on our own…and at that point we were already making plans to move forward with infertility treatments.
With that reality, it was impossible to believe that all of my hopes and dreams had miraculously come true in that one, unexpected moment.
Several days later I had a miscarriage.
In that moment, I was devastated. Like knock me to the ground and take the breath right out of me kind of devastated. That one little glimmer of hope that I had, that I wrapped up into my heart and held onto so tightly, was taken from my husband and I in a short moment.
I was confused, angry.
Believe it or not, I actually was kind of mad at myself for even taking that pregnancy test, blaming myself, as if my choices played a part in this miscarriage. I had so many emotions going through me at once and I felt alone.
All alone.
Alone and grieving a loss.
My husband consoled me, we consoled each other, yet each of us were experiencing grief in our own way.
Like infertility, miscarriage is such a painful experience, a lot of times people don’t really talk about it…and that’s ok too! But I found that being open and honest about what was happening to me garnered more support, people who understood, cared, and could simply lend a quiet shoulder to cry on.
The more time that had passed, time that allowed me to process my feelings and move forward, I began to turn my experience from grief to HOPE.
Out of that loss, and those dark, lonely moments, I began to believe that something wonderful could one day happen for us. Those faint pink lines helped me to finally have faith that there was a plan.
That while my journey was difficult and trying, someday, somehow, my dream of becoming a mother would come true.
Finding hope helped to combat my grief. It forced me to lean into my feelings and turn my anger and despair into something that would fuel my fight and give me something to look forward to one day.
Now clearly, things didn’t go as my husband and I had originally thought they might, but we knew that we couldn’t give up on a dream that we knew was destined to come true.
Sometimes, against all odds, we can still find hope. Even in the worst circumstances, honor your feelings, notice them and give them space in your life, but never ever lose hope.
In the words of one very wise woman, “always believe that something wonderful is about to happen”.
