I've been thinking a whole lot lately about marriage and loss. About not taking our partners for granted. About showing up every single day to be present in our relationships. And I've been thinking about the power of this institution, this changing, bending, evolving institution, and the way it's able to support us. The way this covenant is there for us when times get so hard we can hardly see our way out. All of this is my way of introducing Shana Rae, who's story is about birth and death and weddings and marriage and family. And as I say now and then, this is NSFW, in a sobbing kind of way. I lost it reading this post in a way I almost never do. Started sobbing, but at the end, felt like I'd learned and grown, felt like I carried something of Shana Rae in me. Which is why we tell our stories, I think. Or as Shana Rae so beautifully said to me, "So many times I'm convinced the world is a cipher, an endless vacuum set to suck, and then something happens and the interconnectedness of it all kisses my face." And with that, the woman herself:

I'd been married before. I’d had the $2000 dress and the Louboutin heels and an amazing ring with the wedding overlooking the fireworks that went off at midnight. I’d believed that a perfect wedding begot a perfect marriage. I'd deluded myself into thinking that the problems a couple has before marriage go away after the wedding. I left a really stellar man who didn't cheat, who didn’t spend the money or drink too much, in hopes that I could find someone who wanted to be actively engaged in building a powerfully deep relationship with me. I was plagued for years with the will-I-ever-be-satisfied? / what-is-wrong-with-me? panic as I went on dates with men who were not my partner.

I met Jared in a bar that reeked of 1974 with the smell of fried spam soaked into the shag carpeting. I'm not attracted to blonds as a general rule and let him know that right off the bat. I grinned that he was the exception. He replied in kind that he was not attracted to blond women, but that I wasn't so bad looking myself. Later, he made a joke that I had an Electra complex and it was over... I was in deep smit. He had timing, wit, an amazing smile AND he knew what the opposite of an Oedipus complex was. Random emails turned into texts, texts into lunches and when he moved to my city, I asked him out immediately.

We moved in together in the summer of 2010 and began making future plans. Jared wanted to go to law school and welcomed my input into the process. We'd be moving to the East or West Coast, it would happen late Summer 2011, we would get married before we moved. We had a plan.

Then, we found out we were pregnant.

I'd gone to the doctor for two issues. I'd had a stomach thing for weeks and it was crampy and tender to the touch. I'd also been playing roller derby and my neck was out of whack. I'd asked for an x-ray. They had me pee in a cup, and then draped me in a hospital gown while I waited in a freezing cold room, asking questions to keep my bearings. The x-ray tech told me I'd had a pregnancy test done as she was about to x-ray me. I asked, “Shouldn't we wait for the results before the x-ray?” She sighed, went to the telephone murmured a few uh-huhs, and annoyed, she stated, "I can't x-ray you. You're pregnant." I fell over. Excited. Terrified. Excited. Panicked. I revisited the doctor and she told me that I needed an ultrasound. Of course, I would. I know one gets ultrasound when pregnant. “When do I need to do that by?”

"Now," she replied. "You're going to the hospital now. We're concerned you have an ectopic pregnancy."

Atticus had our attention right from the beginning. From the moment we found out about him.

He wasn't ectopic. He was 7 weeks in the making. I'd gone to a roller derby boot camp and came in first place in a city-wide scavenger hunt and Been Pregnant The Whole Time. I couldn't believe my good fortune and the worry of becoming a mother consumed me immediately. Our plans shifted slightly. Getting married became a bigger priority. We would still move for law school. Baby was due in May of 2011. Wedding would be July 2011. The big move would be August of 2011. We would introduce everyone to him at the wedding just when babies start to look less like red faced drooling wrinkle machines and more like pink, plump perfect offspring. Recalibration of plan = DONE and DOABLE.

I drank water, did prenatal yoga, loved my expanding body. Jared and I put down payments on our venue, cupcakes, and oh yea, he officially asked me to marry him in November.  I came home after class one night and he had made me a 3 layer Red Velvet cake from scratch and then got on one knee.  We bought clothes as I grew out of them. We signed up for classes and settled into the idea that we really were about to become a family and we were happy, not just terrified. We were gonna rule this!

On January 11, 2011, I had my 6 month appointment with my Midwife. She cleared me as good to go and sent us on our way. The next day, I went into preterm labor.  At 7pm, the staff was going to give me some fluids and send me home thinking my contractions were caused by dehydration. By 8pm, they had realized I was dilated between 3-4 centimeters and fully effaced. They hooked me up to a Magnesium Sulfate I.V. and injected me with the first of two steroid shots that would help speed up Atticus' lung development and give him a better chance if he delivered. They prayed he would sit tight for at least 48 hours, but first, we needed to make it through the first 24 hours.

I was terrified for his life, for my life. Continue reading Losing A Baby & Forming A Family