Treasures In Heaven

I rarely open the little green chest that sits at the foot of our bed. When I do, I usually open it only a couple of inches and slide things within, but today while organizing the house…I paused. It’s becoming fuller as the years go by. Peter’s baby blanket. Little children’s books we’ve picked up at thrift stores. Vintage baby clothes.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took out the three ziplock bags filled with cards or little gifts and faded pregnancy tests, each with a name and date. Noel Ferguson. Leo Ferguson. Lucy and Jack Ferguson (they would be a month old this week). It hurt when I filled the ziplock bags and hurts still how their entire existence on earth can fit into a little baggie.

That evening I went to bed early, and soon I found myself practicing the bilateral stimulation that I recently learned in therapy. It’s a physical tapping on your shoulders to help with symptoms of ptsd. It was Day 22 of my cycle, and hormones were starting to rock me.

“It’s okay,” I told myself. Tap tap tap. “You’re okay. And your babies are okay. No one is dying. They are safe and they are in Heaven.” Tap tap tap. “My body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. We’re really grateful I have healthy cycles. This is a good thing.” Tap tap tap.

It’s usually the nausea that spikes this anxious response during pms because it’s like a cortisol shot blows off in my head that sirens: Am I pregnant?! Which can also be translated as: Warning! Warning! Warning! because to my hijacked mind, pregnancy signals death. It sucks.

“Peter,” I called from bed. “Can you come here?”

He came.

“What if I’m pregnant?” I asked. “And what if I’m not? It’s a lose-lose.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, squeezing my feet. (Physical touch is the most calming thing to me and grounds me immediatley).

“If I am pregnant, it’s always SUCH an exhausting mind game, and it’s so scary and hard. If I’m not pregnant, it’s always SUCH a mind game and scary and hard,” I said.

Pregnancy or no pregnancy sometimes feels like a lose-lose situation. Having a baby is a total win. I want to become pregnant more than anything. And I don’t want to become pregnant more than anything.

There’s no escaping this body, and I try to love it, but it’s hard to overcome trauma when it’s your skin and bones that’s causing it. People keep telling me it wasn’t my fault that we lost our babies, but I don’t understand who else’s fault it could be. It was my body. It was me.

A few days later I had my virtual follow up with the Reproductive Immunologist we saw earlier this summer in Chicago. I NEVER thought I would be traveling half way across the country to visit a doctor, but it’s out last ditch effort to figure out what’s happening with my body before moving forward with adoption.

My NapRo doctor believes I may have an auto-immune issue, which is why we went this route because on her end, everything now looks fine (hormones are good and the stage four endometriosis is gone, and yet I still lost our twins). But during that virtual meeting, I quickly became overwhelmed as I tried to keep pace with all of the info: “These levels are good, that’s fine, but this and this and this are not good. That’s off. That’s overactive. We need to lower this and raise that. So we’re going to prescribe this to take on that day, schedule a biopsy for this day of your cycle, and once you do this you can do that. Oh, and cut out carbs.”

I swear to goodness, if potato chips and pasta are what’s keeping me from having a healthy baby, I am going to lose my freaking mind. And yet, so long carbs. It was nice indulging you.

I broke down in tears after that meeting though, not just because I felt overwhelmed by it all, but because we weren’t able to pinpoint any specific issue, and I SO HOPED that we would.

In short, from my first follow up with my reproductive immunologist, I learned I have a few mutated genes that point towards a blood clotting issue, along with an overactive immune system, and a very low follicle count and borderline premature ovarian failure. Those last two things made me panic, yet I have to remind myself that though not easy, I am capable of becoming pregnant! I’ve had several friends who were able to narrow down the causes of their infertility or miscarriages: a septum uterus, removal of endometriosis, but for me it could be any number of things, and it’s just so overwhelming trying to address it all. I know the importance of simply doing what I can and/or doing what I feel comfortable with. I know I have the freedom to say no to things.

And it all truly and deeply just serves to remind me that ultimately, it’s not this or that doctor, this or that prescription, nor this or that diagnosis that will result in a healthy baby. It is indubitably the Lord’s will.

And the only thing I can do is to lock my eyes on Heaven, offering to the Lord again and again my blood and my babies, because I know one day we will all be united there. We can’t store our treasures on this earth because we can’t take it with us when we go.

To end this rather tough article, I want to share a poem I wrote earlier this year. Peter said it’s probably the most powerful thing I’ve ever written on this cross, and I’ve written a lot about it. It’s very raw and real about miscarrying our twins, so for any woman who is easily triggered, I want to really warn you as it is titled, “I Threw Out The Strainer Today.”

I Threw Out The Strainer Today

I threw out the strainer today.

I buy the same one off of Amazon, 

every time we find out our baby has died.

It’s been a little over a month since we lost our twins.

The strainer’s been in the linen closet since, unused.

The labor happened quickly.

It gets easier each time.

A fact that I deeply, deeply hate.

One day, will it be so easy that even the pain is taken from me?

The first one I hemorrhaged. 

The second one was hard.

This one was fast.

I was leaning against our bedroom window, swaying.

I’ve seen that when women are going into labor—like real labor.

It helped.

Then I tiptoed out of the room when I felt the urge.

To push. 

“I think it’s happening,” I told Peter.

I caught him off guard.

“Do you want to try and catch them again?”

He faltered. It’s traumatic.

They were coming. 

“We need to decide now.”

I sit on the toilet. 

They came.

I threw out the strainer today.