Bittersweet Hope

This morning Joe accompanied me to the Infertility Endocrinologist, Shawn Gurtcheff, where she performed an early ultrasound.  We found out several weeks ago that we were expecting and also had a strange "almost period" at the beginning of June.  Was this implantation bleeding?  Could I be further along than usual?
The mind does strange things the night before an ultrasound.  In my early morning dream, an older Eva was followed around by two toddler boys, twins, with dark brown straight hair.

Well, the ultrasound showed a yoke sac, embryo, and fluttering heart beat.  Early, Six weeks.  AND another yoke sac.  A second sac.  Smaller.  No heartbeat or embryo detected.  Dr. Gurtcheff mentioned that it may have been that this sac was not fertilized or that it was not implanted.  "The body will probably reabsorb this sac."

Part of me feels torn.  Happy to have seen a little heart beat fluttering (which does cut down miscarriage rates to less than 50% when seen--but miscarriage is still an option, at least for the next six weeks or so.)  Sad to realize that this baby may have started out as two, one never developing (VTS--Vanishing Twins Syndrome).  This is much more common than we realize and has been brought up more because of technology and early ultrasounds where the second sac is found and identified before the mother, placenta, or baby's body absorbs the second sac.  Hmm.

Fool Hardy to hold out hope  for two--that conceptions and implantation dates could have been different and that might justify the smaller sac not detecting a heart beat yet?  Probably so. Still, I want to hold out hope!

Happy to be pregnant?  Yes.  Feeling like I've been pregnant all ready WAY too long to learn I am only just at the very beginning! Yes.

Estimated baby coming--mid March 2013.

When it Rains, it Pours!

The Korean's have a saying something like 'Bad things happen in 3s."  So, right about now--we would be finished with bad things.
It has rained today--a real answer to prayers--to help in the forest fires that have flared up all over the western states this dry, hot Spring.  It hasn't rained in 36 continuous days here, until today.  Today--we had "rain" inside and out!

About a week ago, we learned that we have a leak in the old, shingles that replaced the newly restored Exercise room.  Joe and I agreed to remove all the shingles ourselves to cut costs...can't in rain.

Joe's car wouldn't start after work, he limped to the car dealership to get it fixed, they stayed late and he tipped well only to have it not start?  Starter need replacing?

Anticipating the beginning of Summer holidays, birthdays, and reunions, I replaced all Dixie plates, lunch and dinner sizes, formal paper napkins, cups, etc. last week at Sams Club.  Joe heard a "rushing" sound and figured a teen was in the shower, Rebekah heard water and figured I was running a bath for sick Susie, Nope!  Jonathan came runnig up to our room yelling, "Mom, Dad, we've got a leak!  It's raining down stairs!"

Major leak in the upstairs new girls bathroom--flood, moved everything salvageable to the garage tonight...First night in ages ALL children were in bed by 9--got them all up (but whiny, sick Susie) to help carry stuff off Food Storage shelves to garage.  New carpet and pad all sopping, etc.

A bit overwhelmed!

The Master Gardner of My Soul  (rough draft)

Gardening in the sunshine this morning--
The birds sing, the sun shines down through dappled shade,
the hose lays at my feet--water gurgling musically over the patchy lawn.

Distracted.  I glance up at the roses which have run wild.
With clippers in hand, I cut off the limbs at random that reach towards heaven, spindly.
I trim them down so that the blooms may grow
ever bigger to fragrance the warm afternoon wind.

I place more pots of greenhouse flowers
yet to be planted around--in the garden, by the flower gardens.

What does my husband think--of all these pots of vegetables, flowers, and fruit?
Maybe his wife his gone mad?
It is a beautiful madness, still.
Our garden, front yard, and back yard are shaping up.
Finally, tended and forced from their wild states to ones of more structure and rigid routine.

Raking, hoeing, hacking out the weeds and volunteer brambles, things less desirable in our garden.

I reach over and pull an errant weed from the dry caked soil, looking at the once living, green thing before throwing it to the ground and grabbing more weeds.

Reaching, grabbing, grasping weeds and ripping them loose...Ahh.
Bending, sweating, exhausted--
A ray of light pierces my cloudy thoughts and I begin to cry,
as a drop of rain begins to fall watering my dark, dry, dormant thoughts.
Why all the gardening and the tending, the planting and mending?

Why?  Why the fixation with taming, trimming, tending, watering--
even after sunset and into the darkness.
Why the need, the urgency to prepare, to plant, to beautify?

The answers come like sprinkler water to dry soil,
To hide the dirt, 
the darkness, 
the pain of loss.
My own loss.

The ugliness, the shock, the pain, as a tiny baby once again slips free of the fertile grasp
it once had in me and lets go
and is gone into the water and is washed away.

Sweet Baby.  Why did you have to go away?
Just in the Springtime...on Easter Sunday.

I bought herbs and lavender instead of Easter Lilies this year.
(Excited to plant something to live and grow, thrive and survive--
not like our cut Easter Lilies that bloom and fade and eventually die.)
Transplanted, the herbs made it safely to the soil.
Now, they thrive but the lavender did not.

Why do some plants and children thrive and grow--unbeknownst to themselves the wonderful,
 nurtured lives they lead?
Others, who bloom with such great promise, like the Lavender, fade away and are gone
or as the petunias, under the carefree grasp of a young toddler, are plucked up, smelled, thrown down,
forgotten, and shrivel up.

Is there one in charge of this vibrant patch of eternal ground,
this bit of earth,
this bit of clay, the living, growing human inside of me?

Who is in charge here--where souls, like plants and weeds, are saved or disregarded?  The living souls, no longer bright, the remains a brittle shell of it's once glorious being.

Who can know these things?  The Master Gardner, of course.
It is He that I seek.
He, to whom, all is known.

He clothed the lilies of the fields
in their splendid skirts of scarlet,
He feeds the birds of the sky
even noting when one sparrow falls.

Does he, like rose limbs, cut me back--errant limbs reaching for the sky but producing no blooms?
Must he, like me, rake the hard earth, hacking it up, mixing soil and clay,
Toiling to make me a more fertile place where once more a tender, small, soul may be planted?

Can He see the barren soil of bitterness left in my heart,
and doubt amidst the patches of green hope and bright flowers of faith?
Is He trimming back my thorny, limbs?
Finding the wick under the fragile, dry soil facade.

Will the pain, the stretching, the bending, the breaking, reveal a new life?
Uncover a new, undiscovered, strong soil--like rich brown earth tilled up under the cracked,
hard dirt of the painful experiences of my past?

Will He water me with water of everlasting life,
instead of my poor excuse for moisture--the salty tears I have shed?

Does he have a master plan, for me, in His eternal garden?

I know He does.

It's late at night--after one o'clock.  "What am I still doing awake?" you might ask--finishing the second machine load of laundry (the upstairs machine--Eva found me while I was doing the downstairs laundry and after I had put her in her bed...everyone else had finally fallen asleep.)  Long day...Rebekah's contact appointment, picking up my sister's children, setting up babysitters (it is so nice to have older girls!), writing out their schedule, starting lunch, write a few emails, start two loads of laundry, put two two year olds to sleep, drive back to sister to house clean before the 4th, drive home, eat dinner, drop son off at a late night, take Hannah shopping, visit the Stadium and walk there and around to familiarize Hannah with it.
Home for scriptures and prayers.
Best part of my day...when I had zoned out and Eva's sweet little voice rose up to me, still singing, "I love my Mom!"  I began to sing back to her,"I love my Eva, I love my girl, I love my Evie!"  So blessed~!