It has been a very long time since I published the last post.  It has not been for a lack of writing or emotions; let me explain.

This time last year we had been through our final miscarriage which was number 6.  We were emotionally drained but still longed for another child.  We had been through multiple rounds of IUI and IVF.  We had “cleaned up” our eating and environment.  I had done countless sessions of acupuncture, massage and yoga.  We had taken time off from any form of treatment and given ourselves time to heal.

The time off led us to our next journey; to adopt.  We spent a lot of time researching agencies and talking to friends that had been on this path.  We took education classes on adoption and spent hours with an amazing social worker that helped us take the next step.  We signed with an agency out of Minnesota that would help us bring a child home from India.  With Ketan’s cultural background, India made sense for our family.  Emotionally I was already connected to a child that we had never met.  And let me be clear — we had not matched with a child yet, but my heart was already in India.

The paperwork was intense.  The home study was a process.  The psychological assessment was intimidating.  The emotions were all over the place.  Had I grieved the babies I had lost?  Had I grieved what would never be again?  I am not sure that I could answer these questions.  What I could answer was that I was healing by moving on.

It was now the beginning of February 2018 and my “cycle day one” never came.  I knew.  When you have been through this as many times as I have; you just know.  At first I chose to not tell Ketan.  He was preparing and packing for a trip of a lifetime with his dad and sister to Antarctica.  He would be gone for two weeks.  But I quickly realized that I could not, not tell him.  This man has been my rock.  I understand how marriages fall apart through this journey and I am thankful to say we have only gotten stronger.

I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive.  I hate to admit that I was not excited. Ketan had the same emotions; how could we get excited?  My heart could not go through this again.  The roller coaster of emotions was too much.  I prepared my head and my heart for what would happen next.

Ketan and I agreed that we had to tell my parents the news since he would be out of the country for 2 weeks.  My parents reaction was what we expected and the same as ours.  The look of concern and fear was written all over their faces.  How could we blame them; we felt the same way.  It wasn’t just our hearts that were bruised and broken, our family was on this journey too.

Raina and I took Ketan and his dad to the airport and said goodbye for 2 weeks.  I struggled to hold it together in the airport.  Here I was pregnant, again and I could only talk to him briefly each day because Wifi in Antarctica is hard to come by!

The two weeks that passed were long and emotional.  I would talk to my belly and pray, then I would think about the child in India.  I was so confused and emotionally exhausted.

The day I picked up Ketan from the airport was the day we had our first ultrasound.  We sat in the waiting room of the doctors office in silence.  My stomach ached and so did my heart.  We walked into the ultrasound room, it was dark and small.  I did not even wait for the instructions from the tech; I had been here a million times.  I looked at her and said, “not sure if you have looked at our history, but we have been here many times before.  So if you can just shoot straight with us that would be great.”  The tears in my eyes welled up and filled my eyes.  I gripped the sheet over my lap with one hand and squeezed Ketan’s hand with the other.  An internal ultrasound is never comfortable, but my tension made it a bit worse.

I will never forget her words…”we have a heartbeat.”

Note:  Above picture is the heartbeat turned into artwork for the nursery