Four months ago (with pictures)

Four months ago we met our son.  I cannot believe how fast time has passed and how different this December is from last one. 

A son that we had longed for  over 4 and a half years of marriage and in my case for the many years I was single.  The biggest pain of being single so long was knowing I could not be a  mother.  At least 10 years I longed to be a mother, yet I could not because I had not met the man I would marry

A year ago exactly  I was living my dark night of the soul.  Pain I thought would never end. 

Such a stark contrast between this December and last.

Last year in August we  had become pregnant after years of treatment and just 4 months after my operation with Dr.  H.  an operation that people told us we were crazy to do without insurance in a foreign country.  

 We were ecstatic, yet a few weeks later  and just one day after telling our whole families  during a routine U/S we found out there was no heartbeat at 9 weeks. 

 I have never ever experienced pain as that one.  I still cry from thinking about it right now.

This was our first son.  Miguel after the archangel. 

The next day I had to have a D&C and 4 days later began to have the worst pains of my life,  I actually had contractions like giving birth.  I had a horrible complication from the loss,  "corionic" roots which the placenta attaches itself to the uterus. 

 I spent 4 days in the hospital with only some pain medicine waiting for my body to get rid of the roots , in the maternity ward hearing babies cry.  I do not know which pain was worse, the physical or the spiritual one. 

Why did I have to lose my baby after such a long and difficult fight? We  had done so much.    I actually did all my Napro testing on my own with the help of the Catholic IF Ya.hoo group and sent it to Dr. H pleading for help.  Nobody near me  had ever done it nor knew about Napro.

And then... God had not only  asked me for my baby, but asked me to spend 4 days from hell in the hospital with birth pains hearing babies cry.   I was so mad at Him.

But it did not end there.

Three months later in December  I began to experience bleeding like no other,  it started one afternoon and I thought it was my period, but no. 

Blood was flooding out of me, so bad that I even soaked a chair in a restaurant.  We began to panic and called the doctor again.  I was sent to an U/S and the doctor there determined it to be another miscarriage.

Another D&C...

I learned weeks later that it had not been a miscarriage, but actually a polyp.

Yet I spent all  December thinking I had lost 2 babies in a row. It was my personal Hell.

Such an unbearable sadness, grief, anger.   I could barely move from all of it.     

This December we have Josemaría and just his presence  is the light of our lives.   The pain of IF is still there,  but it has been transformed into something else. 

More compassion, more understanding when people are mad at God, the deep understanding about the value of life in all its stages, the  strenght to defend it.   I do not wish it on anybody, yet I recognize it did make me a better person.

We met Josemaria just 4 months ago and I cannot imagine my life without him. 

how can you love somebody you just met not born from your body so much? I now understand the meaning born from the heart.  I can attest to that.

After a call at 9 p.m at night on the day of the Assumption we met our son 11 hours lateron August 16th..

Four months in which he has transformed us completely.

My DH has a fire I never thought I would see in him. 

  Here are some pictures from his baptism. In the one below he is wearing the baptismal gown worn by all members of my moms family for the last 140 years.

Just seeing him smile and his amazing brown eyes each morning make my heart soar.

Yet I have no forgotten my IF journey and that many are still waiting.  I still cry from reading in the blogs about miscarriages or unsuccesful cycles or treatments. I think I will never forget and I think I never should.

I  keep praying for all of those waiting and those grieving. Praying your Josemaria comes very soon.