The Circle of Life: Greetings & Goodbyes, & Our Greatest Adventure Yet
A Hello
Gadget & I decided earlier this year that our roots had peacefully settled in our careers, our home, and our marriage, and it was time to build our relationship in a new way: we wanted a child. After a few months, I became prematurely impatient with the process, and doubted that we would ever succeed at growing our family. Our dog Lily was incredibly ill, healing from a splenectomy after we found she had a softball sized tumor growing in her spleen & quickly declining with the loss of function in her back legs, which her vet did not expect her to ever recover from. I cried at the vet when I was shown the ultrasound that gave the grim news of her cancer. "She's our only baby... she means to so much to us", I spoke through heavy tears to the vet, as she laid out our options of surgery, waiting for nature to take its course, or euthanasia that day. It was a dark time for our little family, as the discussion of saying goodbye to Lily came up every single day. We knew her precious 13 year old life would soon come to an end, as the vets gave her a grim prognosis of 8 months to live after her spleen was removed.
On the morning of Thursday, May 17th, three days before our first wedding anniversary, I looked at Lily lying pitifully on the bathroom floor, which was her new place to rest while she recovered from surgery, as I practiced my new ritual of taking a pregnancy test the day before my cycle was due - my reasoning being I'd rather get my disappointment out of the way a day early rather than waiting for the sadness to come the next day. "Another one-liner", I thought to myself pessimistically, as I laid the test on the counter & watched it develop... not only one pink line, but within seconds, to my surprise, another pink line! With our beloved friend Lily slowly dying on the bathroom floor, the harsh reality hit me -- this was the always fluid, constantly in motion, circle of life. "Lily, we're having a baby!", I exclaimed through tears, knowing that she might not make it to see the birth of our child. Gadget had already left for work, so Lily was the keeper of my secret until he got home that afternoon. Lily, in her infinite wisdom, probably already knew my golden little secret before I did -- she had been dragging her helpless little body around for about a week, trying to follow me wherever I went & sitting at my feet. I grabbed another test to take at work later that day (just to be sure), before I headed out the door, grinning from ear to ear, planning out how I would break the big news to Papa Bear.
With our first wedding anniversary coming up on Sunday the 20th, we had each taken the next day off work to be home with each other. We planned to return to the place we said "I Do", Vogel State Park, for the first time since our wedding on Sunday, and agreed no gifts this year (we were still recovering financially from Lily's costly surgery). However, I quickly remembered months ago, at the start of our baby making adventure, I had purchased two matching t-shirts with bears on them - one that said "Mama Bear" & one that said "Papa Bear". Gadget was unaware of this impulse buy, and the shirts stayed hidden in our closet when things didn't happen as fast as I naively expected them to. I knew there would eventually come a time for me to reveal them & the time was now. Before he got home from work, I found an old gift bag & put the pregnancy test in an envelope at the bottom, with the Papa Bear shirt on top. I wore my Mama Bear shirt underneath a bigger t-shirt & anxiously awaited for him to get home.
"I know we decided not to get each other gifts this year, but I changed my mind and got you something small", I told him when he got home.
His eyes showed disappointment as he glanced at the gift bag waiting for him on the couch.
"Goose....but I didn't get you anything", he bleakly responded.
I assured him it was okay & to just open the gift. It didn't quite register with him when he saw his shirt... he definitely looked confused & underwhelmed. I instructed him that there was something else in the bottom of the bag. He fished out the envelope that held the test.
"You're pregnant?!" he exclaimed with big eyes. I proudly took off my big t-shirt to show him my matching shirt. It was a happy moment, and our sweet Lily was the first to know -- we look back now & hold this memory tightly in our hearts.
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| My first "baby bump" picture at 5 weeks when baby was the size of a peppercorn - there is no bump to be seen here. |
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| More recent bump picture taken at 15 weeks when baby was the size of a beet. |
A Goodbye
For a few weeks, Gadget, Lily & I basked in the glory of our tiny little growing secret. While it was a happy time, it was also an insufferably depressing time. Lily's health was steadily going downhill, with new symptoms daily. Despite our best efforts to try new medications & remedies, it was becoming evident that her situation could not be fixed by neither us nor the vet. She wasn't walking, eating, or drinking, and she eventually became incontinent. It was obvious she was suffering, and each day on the way home from work, I wondered if today would be the day that I would find her lifeless. We agreed to one more week of Prednisone, which would help her to walk slightly more on her front legs, but the Prednisone could not be administered on a long-term basis. We decided to spoil her & give her all of our love for one last week, before saying goodbye. That fateful Friday came -- there are no words to describe the awfulness. She is gone now & missed deeply, more than I can ever describe, but we still stand firm in the kind, humane decision we made to end her suffering on that sad Friday afternoon, as we held her until her last breath.
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| Forever in our hearts... Lily, a damn good dog. |
Time to Spill the Beans
A week after Lily's death, we had our first ultrasound at the midwifery office where I used to work & saw a lively little gummy bear growing inside of me, and heard its strong heartbeat. Father's Day was in a few days, and our dads were very unsuspecting of the gifts that were waiting on them -- coffee mugs that said "Best Papa Ever" for Gadget's dad & "Only the Best Dads Get Promoted to Grandpa" for mine, and onesies that said "Papa's Little Helper" for Gadget's dad and "Grandpa's Little Fishing Buddy" for mine. Each of our families were extremely excited at the news, and we felt deeply moved by life's neverending movements.... a few days ago we couldn't stop crying in our grief from losing Lily, and now the wave of pride we were riding after breaking the news to our family of our new addition. Life is a beautifully painful cycle of give and take.
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| Our little gummy bear at 12 weeks |
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| Our New Hiking Buddy ETA 1-25-19 |
A New Hello
After Lily's loss, our hearts quickly began to crave the sounds of doggie pitter-patter in our house again. It was shocking to want another dog so soon, but we felt that it would be a therapeutic way to continue grieving (which, as we've learned, the mourning never truly ends - it simply progresses & regresses as the days pass). On July 4th, we met our new match.... a spunky two-year old Irish Troodle named Shaggy Maggie. In just over a month's time, Maggie has wrapped us around her big, clumsy paws. In ways, Maggie reminds us of Lily with her deep affection for us, but for the most part, she has an entirely different personality than Lily. Maggie loves to play & has so much energy, though she will sit still momentarily for some pets & belly rubs. We took her for her first hike a few weeks ago on Wagon Train Trail at Brasstown Bald, and she enjoyed picking up sticks, chasing after birds, and splashing in the mud puddles. Maggie also swam in the river for the first time a few weekends ago, which she thoroughly enjoyed, after she got the hang of swimming & no longer feared for her life. Maggie is a great companion & we look forward to many years ahead with her as our new family dog. After Lily's death, we learned just how quickly the life of a pet can pass right before our eyes, so now it is exceedingly important to appreciate every single day & every single moment with our Maggie May.
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| Snuggles on the floor with Papa Bear |
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| Wagon Train Trail on a cool & rainy July morning. While Lily was a Mama's Girl. Maggie is definitely a Daddy's Girl. |
My Biggest Adventure Yet - Growing a Human
As of today, our baby is almost 18 weeks and is the size of a pomegranate. My journey so far as a first time mom has been what one might expect. First there came the weeks of soreness, then weeks of morning sickness (AKA anytime, anywhere sickness) & decreased appetite, then weeks of unending hunger & heartburn, weight gain, and now weeks of new migraines, fatigue & vivid dreams so wild and crazy that even I don't understand. However, despite the physical ailments that are part of the price women pay of growing a child, this has been an incredibly rewarding experience, as Gadget & I develop this new meaning of life. We have been blessed with a healthy, uneventful pregnancy so far, and we are now almost halfway through this wonderful experience. We recently had our second ultrasound to determine the gender of our baby, which we did not know until we hosted our gender reveal party with all of our family two weeks ago.
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| A few minutes before our big confetti reveal, both of the blue balloons that were tied to our pallet sign mysteriously floated off into the air, leaving one single pink balloon.... coincidence or omen? |
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| 16 weeks - What will baby be? |
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| Daddy was right & Mama (along with most of our family) was wrong.... IT'S A GIRL! We are so excited to welcome our daughter Tallulah Blair into the world next January. Thank you all for joining us on this crazy rollercoaster we call life, with all of the unexpected deep "downs" & the soaring "ups". Going forward, this blog will be the place where we continue to document our hikes & camping trips, as well as our biggest adventure yet -- this new path called parenthood. <3, Goose |
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