The Very Beginning - Strike One

So, if this is going to be about motherhood, parenthood, I should start from the beginning.


Our quest to become parents started before we even knew we wanted it. We had taken the first six years of our marriage having fun. We hung out with friends, went to parties till all hours of the night, drank and some of our fondest married memories took place hanging out with good friends on Lake Hopatcong (ah the party cove!). We truely embraced just having the two of us to worry about (and mending the bumps along the way) knowing that we were not ready to be parents yet.


We had visited my husband's family in Belgium in the spring of 2005. Upon our return, I had become late and thought that just maybe I was pregnant. Well, to our abosolute shock we were; we were soooo excited. We eagerly called everyone under the sun even before making our first doctor's appointment; we couldn't have been more than six weeks pregnant.


Then two days later I started bleeding. I knew in my heart that this was a sign of what to come. We met my doctor at the hospital for an ultrasound. The technician was nice enough but you could tell there was something wrong and she told us our first devasting outcome...a spontaneous abortion. ABORTION! What the hell was this woman thinking I thought to myself; why was this the term they chose to corrolate to miscarriage when that was the furthest thing that I wanted. Nevertheless, it's the term used for early term miscarriage. There was a sac but no heartbeat. We were devasted; I just cried laying there on the exam table with my husband stroking my hair.

The second part of our nightmare came when we had to "untell" everyone. It wasn't the fact of telling them the bad news as it was feeling as if I had failed at the pregnancy. The ultrasound picture is still in my childrens' room and it sits next to the picture of my mother. This was truely only the beginging.