LJ Idol Three Strikes: Prompt 1 - "Black Rainbow"
"A rainbow seen at night can be referred to as a black rainbow; difficult to see, the colors are often hidden; a metaphor for something sought after but impossible to attain, an alluring ongoing search."
Note: I don't normally like to put spoilers for what you're about to read, but this does deal with infertility and a miscarriage, so please don't read if that's a trigger for you <333
We started trying a week after the wedding. The clock was ticking, so to speak, and there was no time to lose. After all, we were already older than most first-time parents.
David thought it would be easy, the way it always seems to be on TV and in the movies. Have a lot of sex and, boom, here comes baby.
I was never that sure. Being a mom was something I had wanted for so long, but felt so far away - like trying to find a rainbow in the dark of night.
We tried, though, and nothing about it was easy. There were ovulation kits and pregnancy tests and trying every piece of advice, helpful or not, that we got from well-meaning family and friends or YouTube videos that David was sure held the key to our success.
But every month, hope died a little bit more when once again only one line showed up on the pregnancy test. It might as well have uttered an evil laugh as it screamed, “Not pregnant!”
And every time, I would stare at that little line, searching in vain for a second one, hoping maybe my vision was going, while tears filled my eyes and the dream of what could have been faded away once more.
--
The day I found out I was pregnant was one of the happiest moments of my life. Standing in the bathroom on Christmas Eve morning, staring at the little test with the two little lines. Holding it up close to make sure it was real, to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Tearing down the stairs, rushing into the office where David was playing on his computer, shoving the pregnancy test under his nose.
“I’m pregnant!”
For five amazing weeks, everything was great - the sky was bluer, the grass greener. We began talking about names. I thought about how I would tell my parents. I planned out our Facebook announcement. I imagined this perfect little girl. (I was sure it was a girl.)
It was everything I ever wanted.
Until it was gone. And I realized the rainbow that had lit up my world for a few short weeks was blacker than it had ever been.
--
“Have you heard of a rainbow baby?” my friend Sierra asked me a couple months later.
“No,” I said.
“It’s a baby born after the loss of another one,” she said. “It’s like a rainbow after a storm.” She paused then, before saying, “I hope you get that one day.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like I believed it. “Me too.”
But I didn’t believe. Not really. Not then. Not when pregnancy test after pregnancy test was negative. Not when it seemed like there was no hope at all.
We kept trying, though, every month. Tracking ovulation. Stockpiling pregnancy tests that always came back negative.
My friends got pregnant, and I bought baby presents and went to baby showers and smiled and laughed and hugged them and told them congratulations. Then I got in the car and cried all the way home.
I held their babies when they were born and wished more than anything that one day I would hold my own.
--
The first IVF attempt failed. Day after day after day of shots. Bruises all over my stomach. Thousands of dollars spent. All for nothing.
“I’m sorry,” the lab technician said when she called to tell me the news.
“It’s okay,” I lied, before calling my husband to tell him.
I waited until that night to really cry, to mourn once again for something that seemed so unattainable.
--
We tried IVF a second time. We took out a loan so we could afford it. We knew it was our last chance. Now or never, as they say.
Our doctor thought there was a really good chance, just based on odds alone. I didn’t want to believe that so I prepared myself for disappointment. I wasn’t sure I could take the heartbreak.
But I also wanted to do everything I could, so I ate all the right things, gave up chocolate and coffee and artificial sweeteners and anything else that could be considered unhealthy. I had more shots, more bruises, more appointments.
The two weeks we had to wait for the results of the genetic testing to come back were the longest of my life. I prepared myself for the call, for the lab technician to tell us once again that none of the embryos were viable.
The phone rang on a Monday afternoon. I barely breathed as the lab technician went over the process up until then - ten eggs fertilized, four made it to blastocyst and thus to the testing stage by day five, two more made it there by day six.
“Two embryos are viable,” the lab technician finally said, and a spark of something I thought was long dead bloomed inside me.
Hope.
A male and a female, she said when I asked. I hung up and told David. We now had two chances.
--
We did the embryo transfer on March 4, 2018. We watched on the projector screen as an embryologist placed our little potential baby in a tube and brought it to our doctor who placed it in my uterus.
Before we left for home, the embryologist popped by the room we were in.
“Do you still want to know the sex?” he asked, and we said yes.
“It’s a girl!”
I patted my belly, where a speck of life was now inside.
“Hi Ellie,” I whispered. “You get settled in there, okay? And in nine months, we want to meet you.”
--
It was a terrifying nine months, so full of hope but so scary after so much disappointment. So worried that something would go wrong and our rainbow would fade back into the dark.
But every day, our rainbow got a little bit brighter. The pregnancy test I took at home because I couldn’t wait for the doctor-ordered blood test had two lines. The blood tests came back with good numbers. The ultrasound at seven weeks showed a little speck with a very strong heartbeat.
The baby kept growing inside me. We passed the mark where the first baby had died. We passed the first trimester and posted a Facebook announcement. We passed the threshold of viability, where our little girl had a good chance of surviving even if she came right then. We set up her furniture and painted her walls and folded all her tiny clothes. We passed the second trimester and had a baby shower and folded more tiny clothes and bought box after box of diapers.
And then finally we went to the hospital on a Monday night to be induced. Sixteen hours and an emergency c-section later, the nurse came over while they were still stitching me up and asked, “Do you want to meet Ellie?”
And then there she was, right in front of me, this little girl who I had been waiting for years for, before I even knew there was a chance she would exist, and I touched her face and smiled through tears.
My little rainbow baby.
Full of color and life and no longer in the dark.
Ellie the day of our embryo transfer
Ellie last month, with her baby brother (the other viable embryo)
This was written for therealljidol Three Strikes Mini Season. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read all the other amazing entries. You can find them all here. Voting should be up Tuesday night!
Note: I don't normally like to put spoilers for what you're about to read, but this does deal with infertility and a miscarriage, so please don't read if that's a trigger for you <333
We started trying a week after the wedding. The clock was ticking, so to speak, and there was no time to lose. After all, we were already older than most first-time parents.
David thought it would be easy, the way it always seems to be on TV and in the movies. Have a lot of sex and, boom, here comes baby.
I was never that sure. Being a mom was something I had wanted for so long, but felt so far away - like trying to find a rainbow in the dark of night.
We tried, though, and nothing about it was easy. There were ovulation kits and pregnancy tests and trying every piece of advice, helpful or not, that we got from well-meaning family and friends or YouTube videos that David was sure held the key to our success.
But every month, hope died a little bit more when once again only one line showed up on the pregnancy test. It might as well have uttered an evil laugh as it screamed, “Not pregnant!”
And every time, I would stare at that little line, searching in vain for a second one, hoping maybe my vision was going, while tears filled my eyes and the dream of what could have been faded away once more.
--
The day I found out I was pregnant was one of the happiest moments of my life. Standing in the bathroom on Christmas Eve morning, staring at the little test with the two little lines. Holding it up close to make sure it was real, to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Tearing down the stairs, rushing into the office where David was playing on his computer, shoving the pregnancy test under his nose.
“I’m pregnant!”
For five amazing weeks, everything was great - the sky was bluer, the grass greener. We began talking about names. I thought about how I would tell my parents. I planned out our Facebook announcement. I imagined this perfect little girl. (I was sure it was a girl.)
It was everything I ever wanted.
Until it was gone. And I realized the rainbow that had lit up my world for a few short weeks was blacker than it had ever been.
--
“Have you heard of a rainbow baby?” my friend Sierra asked me a couple months later.
“No,” I said.
“It’s a baby born after the loss of another one,” she said. “It’s like a rainbow after a storm.” She paused then, before saying, “I hope you get that one day.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like I believed it. “Me too.”
But I didn’t believe. Not really. Not then. Not when pregnancy test after pregnancy test was negative. Not when it seemed like there was no hope at all.
We kept trying, though, every month. Tracking ovulation. Stockpiling pregnancy tests that always came back negative.
My friends got pregnant, and I bought baby presents and went to baby showers and smiled and laughed and hugged them and told them congratulations. Then I got in the car and cried all the way home.
I held their babies when they were born and wished more than anything that one day I would hold my own.
--
The first IVF attempt failed. Day after day after day of shots. Bruises all over my stomach. Thousands of dollars spent. All for nothing.
“I’m sorry,” the lab technician said when she called to tell me the news.
“It’s okay,” I lied, before calling my husband to tell him.
I waited until that night to really cry, to mourn once again for something that seemed so unattainable.
--
We tried IVF a second time. We took out a loan so we could afford it. We knew it was our last chance. Now or never, as they say.
Our doctor thought there was a really good chance, just based on odds alone. I didn’t want to believe that so I prepared myself for disappointment. I wasn’t sure I could take the heartbreak.
But I also wanted to do everything I could, so I ate all the right things, gave up chocolate and coffee and artificial sweeteners and anything else that could be considered unhealthy. I had more shots, more bruises, more appointments.
The two weeks we had to wait for the results of the genetic testing to come back were the longest of my life. I prepared myself for the call, for the lab technician to tell us once again that none of the embryos were viable.
The phone rang on a Monday afternoon. I barely breathed as the lab technician went over the process up until then - ten eggs fertilized, four made it to blastocyst and thus to the testing stage by day five, two more made it there by day six.
“Two embryos are viable,” the lab technician finally said, and a spark of something I thought was long dead bloomed inside me.
Hope.
A male and a female, she said when I asked. I hung up and told David. We now had two chances.
--
We did the embryo transfer on March 4, 2018. We watched on the projector screen as an embryologist placed our little potential baby in a tube and brought it to our doctor who placed it in my uterus.
Before we left for home, the embryologist popped by the room we were in.
“Do you still want to know the sex?” he asked, and we said yes.
“It’s a girl!”
I patted my belly, where a speck of life was now inside.
“Hi Ellie,” I whispered. “You get settled in there, okay? And in nine months, we want to meet you.”
--
It was a terrifying nine months, so full of hope but so scary after so much disappointment. So worried that something would go wrong and our rainbow would fade back into the dark.
But every day, our rainbow got a little bit brighter. The pregnancy test I took at home because I couldn’t wait for the doctor-ordered blood test had two lines. The blood tests came back with good numbers. The ultrasound at seven weeks showed a little speck with a very strong heartbeat.
The baby kept growing inside me. We passed the mark where the first baby had died. We passed the first trimester and posted a Facebook announcement. We passed the threshold of viability, where our little girl had a good chance of surviving even if she came right then. We set up her furniture and painted her walls and folded all her tiny clothes. We passed the second trimester and had a baby shower and folded more tiny clothes and bought box after box of diapers.
And then finally we went to the hospital on a Monday night to be induced. Sixteen hours and an emergency c-section later, the nurse came over while they were still stitching me up and asked, “Do you want to meet Ellie?”
And then there she was, right in front of me, this little girl who I had been waiting for years for, before I even knew there was a chance she would exist, and I touched her face and smiled through tears.
My little rainbow baby.
Full of color and life and no longer in the dark.
Ellie the day of our embryo transfer
Ellie last month, with her baby brother (the other viable embryo)
This was written for therealljidol Three Strikes Mini Season. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read all the other amazing entries. You can find them all here. Voting should be up Tuesday night!