Hope Or Die

I'm going to take you back a little farther today. A few days before that special storm that God sent. I was exactly 20 weeks pregnant, and having a "just for fun" 3D ultrasound. I get them every 2 weeks or so, just to get pictures and videos of Augustus.

This was a hard ultrasound for me. It was the second one we had since the diagnosis and I was very emotional about seeing him. The tech did not do all the things she did with him the first time we went to visit. I noticed she did not measure him like she did before, or mention ANYTHING about his size etc. At the end, she asked me if there was anything else she could do for me or any questions I had. I didn't want to ask, but I could not help myself. I said, well can you see anything wrong with him? Silence. Painful silence and a strange look on her face. It was like there was a giant elephant in the room but nobody wanted to acknowledge it. She asked me, "Well how much do you want to know?" And apparently I blacked out, because my family says I didn't say anything. They didn't say anything either, and we went home.

The car ride home was plagued with deafening silence. Nobody said much. Finally, I got home and my mom asked if I wanted her to stay with me. I said no. I knew the fall out was coming. I crawled into bed, and I cried. I cried so hard and wondered how I could ever stop crying. I remember telling Gus that it was ok, he could go when he was ready. I texted my few friends at work and told them I wasn't coming in the next day and could somebody cover my shift. I told friends and family I was going to bed, and I wasn't going to get back up. I wasn't going to keep going. I was giving up. I lost hope.

I eventually wore myself out and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, it was nearly dusk. As I laid in a very dimly lit room, I felt the darkness and the loneliness crushing me. I thought about Gus and how this wasn't what I wanted him to feel. I knew I had to at least get out of the bed. So I threw on a pair of old shorts and a t-shirt, and grabbed my giant bag of trash out of the kitchen and began walking it half a mile to the end of our road. I wasn't happy, I was still devastated, but I was up and I was out of the bed and out of the dark. The sun was beginning to set, and I looked around at nature and tried to see anything beautiful. I mumbled at God, and I kept walking in the last hours of that hot summer day.

The next day, I got up and got down to the barn to lift weights. Still not at peace, but understanding a valuable lesson. The lesson for me was... laying down and giving up isn't an option. Even if Gus dies.... I have to get up and live for him, because that's what he would want. Not to say I won't or do not have some very hard moments, hours or days. To give up completely is a death sentence. My hope has to be in that no matter what occurs, God will provide me with the ability to handle it, and to have some peace.Will I ever be the same? No, I know I am forever changed. But my hope is also that I am forever a better woman, Christian, wife, sister, daughter and friend because of my trial. I hope I will always shine for my Augustus.

The next day, my sister called the tech and asked her what she had seen. She said nothing except he was measuring a week behind. She said he had all 4 chambers of his heart and that she didn't check anything else because it wasn't a diagnostic ultrasound. I did not know at the time my family had requested that she not do any diagnostics, as they wanted me to just be happy and enjoy seeing Gus. At my anatomy scan a week later, Gus measured in range, though he was still a week behind, and showed no abnormalities. Tomorrow is our next anatomy scan and I am 27 weeks. I am terrified, and feel like I will fall apart if they see anything wrong. So hopefully, I remember all of this tomorrow.