My Little Lion Baby {Forever}

*Warning: For those deep in the trenches of the infertility battle, this post may be hard to read as it references pregnancy success. Please feel free to come back when your heart is ready. I understand. I truly do.*

I’ve needed to write this post for over a week now. But, I didn’t have words.

I didn’t have the courage in the face of my history and a friend’s current loss.

How do you type out the meaning of treasure and miracle and surreal truth?

But now, I sit down with Irish breakfast tea in hand to make the attempt. To describe the miracle contained in the three tiny words:

I. Am. Pregnant.

Very pregnant. 

My first HCG level at 13 dp transfer came in yesterday at over 1800. The nurse almost laughed on the phone. Now, we are waiting for hormone levels today and an ultrasound next week. Then, I’m sure there will be many, many more blood tests ahead, as my doctor slowly weans my body off of the hormone support provided by my intramuscular PIO injection and six vaginal suppository pills. I will be considered five weeks pregnant this Saturday, so I probably have about five more weeks of the medications before the baby’s placenta is fully formed and producing the hormones needed to sustain pregnancy.

This has been a crazy journey.

But, I don’t think the “joy” part of this announcement has sunk into my heart. I’m in shock. Good shock, but shock nonetheless.

For those of you who know my story, it took 3.5 years and several rounds of IVF to conceive Abby. But, this time my Little Lion Baby implanted deep on the very first round. I’ve been on drugs since December/January and on injectables only since February.

And, I. Am. Pregnant.

Since embryo transfer, I’ve been anything but a model patient. Abby became very, very ill with a high fever three days after transfer, and since then, I’ve been carrying her, holding her through the night, sleeping very little myself, ignoring my own needs much of the time, and way more “mommy-routine active” than I had planned. I feared that I would ruin my chances of successful embryo implantation, but I also felt that I had no other option. Abby needed me and refused all other care but mine. 

In my fear in the middle of the night as Abby’s fever was hovering between 102 and 103, I felt God whisper. That He was big enough to take care of both of my children. That for the rest of my mothering journey there would always be a tug-a-war between who needed me most. And there would never be enough of me. And I would always have to choose who needed me the most in that moment. And He would never leave me nor my babies through any of it.

I choose to find peace in that assurance. That middle-of-the-night truth.

And I dreamed in my semi-awake state that I felt my Lion Baby’s heart beating. Low and deep in my body. While I dared not trust that, I was comforted.

Then the positive pregnancy tests started barely visible at 5 days past transfer (10 days past ovulation). And, I’ve been holding carefully this truth sequestered in my heart.

Somehow, in the midst of this crazy, I have a brave little one growing and growing.

This is a miracle that I am unworthy of, but will be the carrier of. This tiny little one. This life.