I want to give a HUGE thanks to Nicole for having me as a guest blogger! Love ya girl!
By November
Have you ever wanted something so badly it made your heart hurt? Have you ever gotten so close to finally achieving the thing you want and before the happiness of it settles in, it is ripped away from you, breaking your heart? Do you have something that keeps showing up in your life? You know, like a recurring theme? My name is Mrs. S. and I have, I have and I do. Let me explain.
It all started shortly after Mr. Superman and I got married, back in 2007. We knew we wanted kids right away so we tried. We tried and we tried and we tried. It seemed everyone around us was either posting on Facebook about ‘finally’ expecting (two months after tying the knot) or they were sharing their oh so fabulous news about being parents for the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time. I tried not to get upset. I tried not to be jealous, but God was beginning to test me more rigorously than ever. Girls I had been friends with in high school emailing me about their dire situations of being “knocked up and it’s too late for abortion.” I was on the verge of a break down. Then, it happened. Before the news of impending mommyhood and feelings of elation could sink in though, I was mourning my angel. Estimates were “miscarriage at 7 weeks.” I didn’t care about the details or reasons why. I felt like I was living a nightmare. The one thing we had been praying for, waiting for, dreaming about and wishing for, was gone. Our angel baby #1.
Fast forward to 2009. Our dream of being parents seemed unreachable but we continued to dream it. Life ‘happened’ to us a few times and we found ourselves living in Taylorsville, Utah, on the West side of Salt Lake. Mr. Superman had enlisted in the United States Air Force and I was trying to reconcile myself to the idea of being apart from him for his four months of BMT and Tech School. I would often muse aloud about how badly I wished I could get pregnant before he left so I could have a piece of him with me and feel like I had someone to take care of. “Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could have a baby by November?” I asked this question so often, I’m sure Mr. Superman would have thought his day incomplete if he didn’t hear it at least once. Maybe if I wished, dreamt, and thought it hard enough, it would happen.
Our lives were on hold. Mr. Superman had signed his contract with the USAF but we hadn’t yet been given a date of departure. We willed the days on so we could begin our new adventure. He was working for his grandfather’s company as part of the apartment maintenance crew for the complexes he owned. I on the other hand, was at home jobless and beginning to get very sick. My illness progressed to the point that anytime I would eat even a cracker, it would come right back up. I was weak and in severe pain. We didn’t have health insurance so I just kept telling everyone it was the flu. I also kept telling Mr. Superman that I wouldn’t mind throwing up every few minutes if I knew it was for my baby. I just wouldn’t mind it under those circumstances. I knew it couldn’t be a baby though. Aunt Flow had already visited twice since getting sick. Mr. Superman would beg me to go to the doctor but me being the practical person I am knew we couldn’t even begin to afford it.
We kept praying I would get better and one night after bedtime prayer, I had this overwhelming knowledge come over me that no matter our financial situation, I needed to get to the doctor. Mr. Superman called his mom and arranged for her to pick me up the next morning to take me to an urgent care.
After getting seen in urgent care and hooked up to an IV for two hours, they called the nearest emergency room and had me transferred because they felt it was something more serious than they were ready or prepared to deal with. Mr. Superman was phoned and I was admitted to Alta View Hospital. After taking blood samples they rushed me to get a CT Scan to determine whether or not the excruciating pain in my right side was from a ruptured appendix. My nurse was a complete sweetheart. She was a bubbly blond with a baby bump. I asked her when she was due. “November!” she responded. “That’s great.” I said with a smile and I meant it. I could tell she was genuinely ecstatic. She asked if I had any children. I told her none here on Earth. She told me about her angel baby. After the CT Scan I was returned to my room and twenty minutes later my nurse came in. She wasn’t smiling. “I’m not supposed to tell you this. It’s the doctor’s job but I had to come in and tell you so you had some sort of warning. Sweetie, it’s not your appendix. You’re experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. Your right fallopian tube is about to burst and it has to be removed. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. I could tell she felt guilty for having to tell me that I had lost another baby while she herself was expecting. My throat closed, I couldn’t breathe, and my head was spinning. “What? Are they sure?” They were. Within thirty minutes the ER doctor had confirmed it and the on call OB surgeon had been called in. I was being wheeled to surgery. I was in the room where my baby would be taken out of me. I would then be sent home, once again, empty. All I could feel was the emptiness, the screaming silence, the aching hollowness, and the echoes of my dreams dying around me. “If it would have been a healthy and viable pregnancy, you would have had the baby by November. I’m sorry for your loss Ma’am.”
After surgery, I was told I was a miracle. In the thirty-five years my surgeon had been practicing medicine, he had never seen an ectopic pregnancy go passed 6 weeks without rupturing the fallopian tube, let alone the 9-½ weeks mine had progressed to. If I had waited even another hour, it would have ruptured and the toxins that had built up in the last 2- ½ months would have killed me. In the 5 weeks of bed rest that followed, all of my Lord’s tender mercies that had manifested themselves through our experience had begun to add up.
The morning my MIL took me to the doctor, she had two different appointments canceled allowing her to get to me 4 hours sooner than planned. The urgent care center had taken me straight back and wasted no time in getting me to the ER. My RN at the hospital was sensitive to my case and knew exactly what I was going through. The on call OB surgeon had 35 years worth of experience and the minute he came into my room, put me at ease. He reminded me of my dad. He was a brother in my faith. He was heaven sent. Mr. Superman and I, in the days spent at the hospital, and the weeks preceding were both blessed with substantial and overwhelming feelings of rightness. This was supposed to happen. Our baby girl was back with her Father and our Angel Baby #1. Yes, I said baby girl. This was our Angel Baby #2.
A few weeks after getting released from the hospital, Mr. Superman got his departure dates for BMT. When I asked him if they had given him any idea of when he’d be home, his response was, “By November.” Sure enough, he was finished up and home by November.
