This is a post I would usually call family and close friends about first.  If you are among that number and become offended after reading this that you are reading the news instead of hearing it, I’m sorry; I just didn’t have it in me to call anyone.  In fact, I only called my mother and my mother-in-law.

Sunday night, we had a positive home pregnancy test.  Monday morning, I went in for blood work at the specialist’s office.  The results showed a faint positive, with the progesterone and hcg levels extremely low unless we were extremely early in the pregnancy (realistically, both numbers should have been at least 5 times higher than they were).  The repeat hcg level on Wednesday showed that it had dropped (in half) from Monday instead of doubling.  The repeat blood work was unnecessary: by Tuesday I was cramping and by Wednesday I had started bleeding.  It was too early to do a d&c, which means there is no pathology to perform.  Next Wednesday, I go back for another blood draw to ensure that the hcg level has dropped back to zero, and then I will go in for a follow-up with the doctor.

I am so tired – tired of the process; tired of the loss; tired of knowing that every time I think the depths of my disappointment have been exhausted, there is some new and horrifying loss to prove me wrong.  It is beyond bleak to realize that, with the exception of our first pregnancy, we have never made it past week six, which makes pathology impossible/futile.  It is a wordless frustration to know that in six pregnancies, I have accumulated less than a trimester in total actual weeks pregnant.  I am tired of hope and the certain disappointment that will follow; I am tired of feeling ridiculous for hoping that somehow each new pregnancy will follow a different route than the previous ones.  I am tired of the disappointment each loss causes my husband and my family and the friends who have buoyed me through the last several years.

It would be so much easier to know, to have a definitive answer.  It would be a relief to know that either way, I wouldn’t have to have another miscarriage.  Regardless of the anticipated reward for doing so, it does feel remarkably good to quit beating one’s head against the proverbial brick wall.  That said, I don’t know if this is the time to beg God for a reprieve or not.  Jacob wrestled the Angel of the Lord and refused to quit until God blessed him and gave him a new name.  I don’t know if this situation counts as wrestling with the divine, but if I give up too soon, what will I miss?  I am not so laser-focused on having a baby that I think a baby could be the only blessing in this situation.  And the new name references in the Bible have always fascinated me – what beautiful name might I miss if I quit wrestling now?  In my heart I want to ask, “How much more of this can I take?”  But the millisecond I ask, I already know God’s answer: “As much as I give you.”  My human being wishes there were another answer; my eternal being glories in the knowledge of God’s abiding peace.

We had a sign up over the sewing machines in the college costume shop that read: “The Devil’s in the details, AND CURVED SEAMS!”  If you sew, you likely know why that sign was terribly accurate and why I remember that sign so vividly.  But I’ve always wondered at the old saying that inspired our little sign.  Why is it that the Devil lives in the details and not the Lord?  After my uninspired attempt to clean out and clean up my house, I think I know why.

I might be the worst housekeeper on earth: I really, really hate to clean or fold laundry or sort through and throw out piles of junk mail.  My poor, dear husband lived with a laundry fairy and cleaning fairy until we got married.  Sadly, neither fairy chose to follow him into marriage; I think they took one look at our apartment and ran for the hills.  I try to enjoy cleaning, and when that fails, I try to inspire myself to clean anyway, employing verses such as 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  When it becomes apparent that my housekeeping skills are not glorifying God, I resort to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” in an attempt to power through it.  It’s not that any of the tasks at hand is terribly difficult, I just procrastinate until I can plant flowers in the dust or perform weird science experiments on unknown life forms living in my refrigerator.  I don’t want to live in a dirty house, but I don’t want to clean it, and I lack the discipline to keep it up once I do get it clean.  In this case, the Devil certainly is in the details.

I want more than anything to be a good wife – the kind of wife that Proverbs 31 describes – but, I apparently haven’t wanted it badly enough to change my habits.  I’d like to say that the bad habits end here, and from now on, I will be an excellent housekeeper.  I know that I won’t stick to it.  I am a perfectionist at heart, and I tend not to do things that I’m not sure I can master (immediately).  So, if I know I can’t get the entire house clean in a day, I will drag it out so that it takes a week instead.  Of course this makes no sense, and I’m working on it a little every day.  I have actually been somewhat successful, cleaning out all but one crazy room in the house over the last week.  (I’m currently procrastinating that room, sitting in it while typing this blog entry.  Not to worry, I’m headed right back to work on it after this break.)  Also in an attempt to conquer the psycho perfectionism (I think a little bit is good – too much is just nuts), I have been tinkering with learning to play my mom’s old guitar.  I have learned to play three notes so badly that my dogs will not stop barking until I put down the guitar.  It frustrates me to learn so slowly and to play (my three notes) so badly, but I’m learning to laugh at my complete lack of coordination.  I’m also learning how to accept taking the little steps that I can take to reach the larger goals.

In that respect, I’m trying to change the old saying in my life so that Christ is in the details.  He’s often in our big goals or our dreams, but he’s not often found in the preparation required to accomplish those dreams he’s given us.  We’re often willing to make dramatic gestures or grand sacrifices, but (at least in my case) we’re often unwilling to perform the inglorious daily grind with the same gusto.  It will be a miracle if I ever get my whole house clean, but the bigger miracle will be the daily discipline required to both accomplish and maintain that goal for more than a week.  The greatest miracle will be finding God in every detail every day.  To that end, I am trying just a little bit harder or doing just one extra task each day so that I might build up to the total discipline required to follow God with all my strength, all my mind, and all my heart.

I feel like I should apologize for neglecting the blog for the last week, so: I’m sorry that I have been neglectful.  There are two very good reasons, though.  First, I have been working more at the office, which is good, but it is far busier than working at home; and I have been busier at church, helping with our Christmas play and getting back into choir.  Second, the last week was much easier emotionally, which means that I tend to forget to write as I have fewer issues to resolve.  It’s nice to be able to focus on something other than merely surviving for a while.

After finding that I am a mutant a few weeks ago, last week we had the follow-up visit with the specialist to review the whole panel of blood tests.  Everything except one gene mutation was normal.  The short version of the mutation report is that I have a homozygous A1298C mutation of the MTHFR gene.  (I will admit that the first thing I thought of when I saw the name of the gene printed on the report was, “I’d like to buy a vowel…”)  There are five variations of this mutation, and I have the next-to-least serious of them, and one of the two versions that generally isn’t ever symptomatic.  Also generally speaking, most doctors would not test for or even treat this mutation, and specifically not this variation of it.  My doc says we are “way out there” in treating this, and we will not do heparin or anything stronger than baby aspirin unless we have another miscarriage while we’re on this course of action.  According to the published research, we are no more or less likely to miscarry because of the treatment.  However, any homozygous (just a fancy word for duplicate) mutation of the MTHFR gene has been linked to recurrent pregnancy loss, and it appears that the reasons are not completely clear.

I was a little frustrated after the doctor’s visit because it felt like I had been so excited about having an answer, and it turns out that it may just be a whole lot of nothing.  On the other hand, anecdotally, it seems that there are quite a few women who have been able to carry to term after treating the very same variation of the mutation.  And, since I’ve been taking the baby aspirin and folic acid, I have noticed some differences in how I feel, so maybe there’s something to the mutant thing, after all.  I’m really not sure how that leaves me feeling about getting pregnant again, but I’ll keep you posted…

On a brighter note, I have started running again (it probably appears to anyone watching that I am merely limping at a quick pace) a few times a week, and that has helped ease my normal stress and the extra depression tremendously.  And perpetually singing the Christmas music I need to learn for choir and ensemble in the car every day makes everything better; I think it’s a scientifically proven fact that one cannot both sing a Jingle Bell medley and be depressed at the same time.  The biggest challenge for me right now is balance; this is the point at which I will bite off far more than I can chew because I finally feel better, and doing things (acts of service, if you will) make me feel useful, which makes me feel happy, which renews my vicious cycle of finding my value in the things I can accomplish or the ways I can serve others.  I’m not sure that I’ve ever been aware of that as a problem for me, so I think I’m finally heading in the right direction, at least until the next mutation is discovered.

Wednesday morning I got a phone call I wasn’t expecting.  The nurse from the fertility specialist’s office called to tell me about my lab results.  Our appointment is next week, and based on what the doctor said at our last consultation, we wouldn’t be hearing anything until then.  I have been distracting myself from all thoughts of lab work and follow-ups until next week so that I wouldn’t worry about it.  I have also been telling myself that we wouldn’t be getting any new information from these tests since every other test we’ve done indicated that I am “normal.”  But as it happens, sometimes you turn out to be a mutant.

The nurse was calling to tell me that my blood work showed an enzyme that indicates a genetic mutation that causes clotting and thicker blood, which can cause miscarriage.  We will get more details on Wednesday when we go back to see the doctor, but they immediately put me on daily baby aspirin and a super dose of folic acid to combat the clotting factor.  There is a good possibility that I will need to take heparin shots whenever we get pregnant again, although this is a detail I’m sure we will discuss with the doctor next week.  (Of all the injections potentially involved with fertility issues, heparin is sooooooo not a big deal.)  There may be other issues we have to deal with, and it may turn out that this isn’t the issue at all, but I am hopeful for the first time in three years that we could actually have a successful pregnancy.

For those of you who have been praying for us to get some direction, God emphatically answered us – a week early, too!  I’m not sure I can adequately describe how incredible that feels.  I was fully prepared to hear next week that there was no news, and we would just have to try again and see what happened.  “Surprised by Joy” is a poem I remember reading and discussing in a college lit class, and the gist of it was the author had been grieving the loss of a loved one and was surprised to find himself feeling joy again.  Multiply that idea by about a thousand, and it comes close to what I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for the last two days.  Perhaps “Surprised by, Swallowed up, and Walloped over the Head by Joy” would be a more accurate title for my poem.  I remember thinking on Wednesday night, this must be what the great psalmists felt when they wrote such rapturous praise songs to God.  I tried all that night to think of words for my own poetry, but I have been at a complete loss, I am so amazed.

God has been faithful to me in bringing me through the pain and hard work of each miscarriage; providing a possible solution to the physical problem is a blessing above and beyond what I could imagine.  My best friend said that I deserved to finally have some hope, and I can’t say that I disagree – I guess I just want to qualify it a little.  We all deserve “a hope and a future” that God promises to those who follow him, but none of us is entitled to anything.  I feel with all my heart that no one deserves to deal with miscarriage or child loss of any kind, and everyone deserves to have hope for the future.  Enduring five miscarriages does not mean that I am any more deserving of a baby than anyone else, even if that idea does not appeal to my sense of justice and fair play.  It does mean that I am overwhelmed by the hope that we probably can have a baby now that we have an identifiable problem to fix.

I was surprised to find that this news is a mixed bag of emotions (just like everything else in life, I guess).  I am beyond excited that we may finally have an answer and a solution.  There are no words for the desire I feel to have my own child to grow inside me and to love and hold and share diaper duty with my husband; there are certainly no words for the joy that this might actually happen in the next year.  Armed with a new plan of action, the prospect of a new pregnancy is slightly less terrifying, but I know I’ll still be clinging to God for dear life when it does happen.  I feel a little guilty that I am so excited about an answer, as if I may let this good news eclipse the loss of the babies that came before, somehow diminishing their existence.  I also feel a little guilty that we may have an answer while so many others have no idea what to do next.  Having been in that exact position for so long, I know the frustration that comes with hearing that someone else has an answer while you continue to wait.  I will, however, refuse to tell anyone else that their answer is coming (just as I have refused to repeat the phrase, “I know exactly how you feel” to someone who loses a baby).  Every person who deals with loss experiences it differently since we are all unique people in unique circumstances; I can empathize with your loss, but only you can know exactly how you feel.  The reality is that not everyone has the exact same problem getting or staying pregnant, so me telling someone else that they must be a mutant, too, and blood thinners will work for them is both medically and emotionally dangerous.  Pushing false hope on someone is like taking them to a giant cliff and telling them to float gently to the bottom; they will end up more broken and battered than they were, and you have done nothing to walk with them where they are.  At any rate, I know very well the pang of jealousy when someone else finds an answer, and for those of you in that situation right now, I pray for you every day, and it’s okay to feel that way.

Another thing I will not say is that God has finally answered our prayers and we have finally discovered God’s plan for us (to have a baby).  I have so many problems with that line of thinking (and I promise this will be the last rant – for today).  You will find those statements on a lot of Christian web forums that deal with miscarriage and in a lot of Christian books.  My greatest problem with that theology is that God has answered all of our prayers all along, not just this one prayer.  It also implies that what preceded this particular answer was somehow not part of God’s plan, and I refuse to believe that.  The bottom line for me is that God has always been faithful and will always be faithful, even when I can’t see that.  This is an extra blessing that I praise him for with all my heart, but if this single moment is my only testimony to God’s enduring love and faithfulness, then I have failed miserably.  The greater statement of God’s love is getting through the pain and to a point where this is just icing on the cake that is my life.  I am immeasurably grateful for the possibility of a healthy pregnancy, but I don’t want to be more grateful for that than I am for God’s presence in my life and all of the things he has already given me or taught me.  (But it is terribly exciting to find out that God made me a mutant!)

I promised myself I would post something special about getting one thousand page views on my blog (if it ever happened, and I have never been convinced that it would).  It actually happened Thursday night, but I had a few other things written that I wanted to post first.  In case you’re wondering about page views, WordPress counts the number of times each page/post on the blog is viewed and shows them to me in glorious graph form on the “Site Stats” page.  1000 page views do not mean that 1000 people have looked at my blog; it could be the same two people clicking on it over and over again.  Realistically, 1000 views isn’t so many when some sites get more traffic than that in a day, but it doesn’t matter to me – we passed the 1000 mile marker, which is 1000 more than I ever imagined, and we should celebrate.  (Insert your version of the “Happy Dance” here – even if it looks a little weird like mine does.)

I have a sidebar that I’ve sort of wanted to post for a while, but I just haven’t gotten around to it (and it really doesn’t deserve its own post, anyway).  You may have noticed that I don’t refer to anyone directly by name, and there are two reasons for that.  First, I prefer that my family and friends retain as much of their anonymity as possible since they did not choose to write or participate in this blog (I chose it for them).  Their identities are really not a mystery to 99% of the people who read this, but at least they are not exposed to strangers on the interwebs.  Second, I try not to write directly about anyone but me, not for selfish reasons, but because I can only speak to my personal journey.  I may venture a guess at what someone else thinks or feels, but ask my husband, and he’ll tell you I’m usually wrong at reading his mind.  I will also never write specifically about work or personal relationships except in the broadest and usually most positive terms.  It’s not that those things are perfect or even perpetually positive, but those things are the domain of others and not really appropriate for web-wide consumption.  I know that there are people who blog every detail of their lives even when it includes other people, but I will not share someone else’s life for them.  And that’s about all I have to say about that. 😉

I don’t really know what I wanted to say about having 1000 page views except thank you for reading my blog.  It is very special to me to know that you are out there reading my heart, and I hope at least one thing I have written has touched you the way the knowledge of your presence touches me every day.  I know you are there because the stats keep climbing, but I am always surprised when you tell me who you are.  So, September 30 will always be 1000 Page Views Day for me.  You are cordially invited to keep reading and celebrate again with me next year.