the acorn

I’m sitting in the space between knowing and not knowing. I don’t know what else to do besides pray and wait and write it out. I don’t know why I generally feel the need to write it all out publicly. I really don’t. I’ve given up being all that concerned about why I do because when I check myself, I don’t feel needy or dramatic or any of the other forms of the self-seeking I’m fighting.

When something is going on in my head and heart, I have a terribly hard time not talking about it. I don’t have that ability to hold back and hold close like many people do. I can’t see through my thoughts and feelings to small talk or fodder. I just can’t.

Maybe I trust too easily or fear too little or maybe I fear too much so I just want to let the words out in a place where they can be heard and digested, to fall on ears and eyes and souls to be shared. Maybe it’s just my way, to tell. To put the words out there while I hope that speaking them will take the power from the fear that climbs up and out and hopefully away with them.

~~~~~

When I was at the Creative Alliance event last weekend, Ellie was nice enough to take me into town because I just had to have a pregnancy test. I was feeling pregnant and had taken a test and gotten a very very faint line. I wanted a test for the next morning, so I could see if the line would decide to intensify a bit. I really really prefer confirmation over a maybe-I’m-making-up-the-second-line-because-I’ve-been-staring-at-this-thing-for-so-long kind of thing.

I found out that I’m pregnant. There they were, two distinct pink lines, side by side like a happy dance duo. Not actually happy dancing, of course…I didn’t stare at it that long, but happy nonetheless.

I took the picture below at the creek in Ojai for my Ryan, the morning I took that test. When I got home that night, I challenged him to see the symbolism…

He got it right away. He said, There we are and there’s Miles and Asher below us and there’s another little guy on the leaf. You’re having a baby! *sweetie oh sweetie hug hug*

(I expected him to NOT get my incredibly brilliant symbolic piece of art.)

(I underestimated him.)

(Or maybe he saw this picture on my camera first and was somehow clued in.)…

I am 3-ish weeks pregnant in this photo. But my body thinks I’m 4 months pregnant. I’m pretty sure I heard a sound when my uterus decided to get back to its old tricks by magically expanding in the blink of an eye.

Anyway. Because my belly popped out the way it did in a span of two days and because my heart-gut was talking to me, I had that knowing before the test, but I still so badly wanted the confirmation and I was just so grateful for it and for this teeny tiny little Acorn guy or girl just beginning to form. So I sat there that morning at the creek and I cried and I laughed and I stared up the side of the canyon wall and said thank you repeatedly.

It was a really good day and so many many things had confirmed that I should feel peace. Like realizing that the robin’s nest necklace Ellie gave me has three little eggs in it. And hearing Lee read this post during the Listen To Your Mother Salon. And then there were those acorns surrounding my feet while I listened to the creek, how they were the only ones close to me and they were all these different sizes and shapes and colors and just the right number. The teeny one…it was just so teeny. It made me cry harder. (Just so you know, crying over a teeny acorn is a really really good cry.)

My new pregnancy continued to announce itself more and more this past week, impossible to hide. So I was telling everyone, calling my sister, my Grandma and many of my closest friends, and showing my parents the acorn photo. (No. They didn’t get it right away.) (But they didn’t cheat with the shadow picture either.) We talked to the boys about it this early because they’re 3 and 5 and think my tummy is completely hilarious. They have been over the moon excited and completely convinced this is a girl. Miles has reminded me that I have a baby in my belly so I need to eat a lot of protein. I have no idea how he knew this. And Asher has asked what size the baby is every five minutes or so. Teeny tiny I say, and he giggles and asks when it will come out.

Yes, it’s been a good week.

Then yesterday and last night I knew something was different. My body and mind and heart were telling me something and I was fighting it with denial like a champ. Until around 9pm when I was suddenly sobbing and telling Ryan I didn’t think I was pregnant anymore. Emotions are sneaky. Sometimes they come while the credits of a movie roll in the dark and silence and then they just won’t stop because if feels like the truth is coming out or maybe it’s just fear. It’s so hard to know which one.

Things were happening that seemed abnormal to me, I’ll spare you the details. And then when I woke up this morning my stomach was about half the size as it has been, and it was soft and it felt like a fading away.

So Ryan and I went to the ER because I insisted on it even though it’s hard to get answers so early. I’m pretty sure the ER Doc thought we were nuts, but I just so badly wanted to know something. As it turns out, we can’t. We can’t really know something. The only thing he could tell me about my current symptoms is that they’re weird. Yeah…So. I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow for an ultrasound and another hCG check (to compare it to today’s hCG check–it should be doubled by tomorrow if everything is fine) but even then, we may not know anything until more time goes by.

If this is simply fear that has convinced me of this loss and it’s really not true, if everything is just fine, I’m going to be really mad at fear. It’s power has tripped up my ability to follow my heart-gut, to believe one way or the other, to trust my knowing.

So I’m working on peace in this moment while I sit here and type this and wonder, trying to strangle worry by words, trying to steal the power from the fear. I didn’t know what else to do while I wait to feel either really happy or really sad…one or the other.

~~~~~

You know what? This is still a happy story. I’d like to believe that it’s going to be alright. I’d like to leave my mind out of it, for now. This, my friends, is a really long one day at a time, and I’m so grateful I have a place to write it out.

Until tomorrow…

thank you.