Baby Blanchette

I started feeling sick around the last week of February. I didn't even think about the possibility that I might be pregnant. I thought I had the flu. On March 1st, I was sitting on the couch with Sam feeling crazy nauseous and the thought hit me, "What if I'm pregnant?" Without telling Sam what I was doing, I went upstairs, took a pregnancy test and when it was positive I started crying. I came down the stairs and Sam asked me what was wrong. I handed him the test and he said, "Two lines is a baby?" It wasn't one of those moments like we'd had with our first pregnancy where we jumped up and down and were so super excited that we were going to have a baby. I think that what both of us were feeling was scared. We were both scared that we were going to have to say goodbye again and I think we were both afraid to feel happy. I didn't even go in for the "official" test that the hospital makes you take in order to get assigned to an OBGYN for a few weeks. When I did go in and the test came back positive, I still didn't get that feeling of joy that I had with my first pregnancy. Then I began to wonder what was wrong with me. Why wasn't I overwhelmed with joy? Why wasn't I shouting it from the rooftops.

I was afraid.

I didn't want to get attached to the little one growing inside of me and I was afraid I wouldn't get to keep it.

I began to read everything that I could find about what others who were in the same boat as I were going through. The general feeling that I got was that it was normal to be feeling this way. Especially if you were pregnant again soon after a miscarriage. You are afraid that you will have the same thing happen. You are afraid to go to the doctor because you don't know what they will tell you.

I could barely sleep the night before our first doctors visit at 12 weeks. I was extremely nauseated all day, every day, and that was the only thing that kept me from freaking out entirely. I had come to the conclusion that if I was sick, I was pregnant and as long as I stayed sick, everything was okay.

Sam and I met my midwife and had the opportunity to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was such an incredible moment. Then we got to see our little baby for the first time. I don't know what I expected to see, but I remember being afraid that there would be nothing there, just like when we were in the hospital. Instead, there was a baby. A baby. Not a blob, but a baby. It was moving and wiggling. Both Sam and I started to cry. It was one of the most incredible feelings that I've ever had. I was going to be a mother. That was the moment when it all became real to me.