September Baby!

That's right!  We're having a baby in September, but not in my household.  My sister told me yesterday that she is pregnant.  Sigh.  Oh the unfairness of it all!  What I find difficult to comprehend is the fact that she donated her eggs to me one month, and the very next month she gets pregnant! How does that even happen?!?!!  Okay, I know how it happens.  I just don't happen to think it's very fair that it can be that easy for her.

Sis took a positive HPT the day after I had my 3rd ultrasound, which was the ultrasound with good news!  That was when we had seen the consistent growth for 2 weeks in a row and we finally had a nice strong heartbeat.  I'm not sure I fully understand why, but she was waiting to tell me because she didn't want to rain on my parade.  She wanted to allow me time to enjoy my own pregnancy and share my news with our family first.  She also wanted to tell me in person.

And then BAM!  A week and a half later, I had another ultrasound and I learned my baby was dead.  Well, of course she couldn't tell me then!

The evening of that last ultrasound, I sent Sis a text letting her know that Bob was dead, but I didn't want to talk about it.  I know that was probably really unfair, as I know she was upset for me too.  There were two people that I just really couldn't talk to though: my sister and my mother-n-law.  I knew that their grief was going to be almost as much as ours and I just couldn't deal with their grief in addition to my own.

I did call Sis the next night.  I knew I needed to.  I was right.  She was hurting too.  I knew she would be.  What I didn't know was that she would be hurting so bad that she had to leave work early and that she had spent a lot of the day crying herself.  makes me cry right now thinking about it.  I was glad that I called her.  I knew she wasn't going to call me, especially after I had told her I didn't want to talk about it.

Now I know and understand why she was that upset.  I knew she would be upset on our behalf anyway.  She WAS pretty invested in our success after all, since she had put herself through the injections and egg retrieval for us.  What I DIDN'T know was that she felt so awful because she was newly pregnant while we had just lost ours.

I'm not shocked that she is pregnant.  I mean, that WAS the plan.  They were planning on having one more, and they were planning it around us.  She had been prepared to possibly be a surrogate, but then we asked for her eggs instead.  Going through the process, we had even talked about how much fun it would be to have our babies be so close in age.  I knew they would be trying and I knew it would be soon.

The absolute worst part about this is that some of her joy in being pregnant is stolen from her.  While I feel sorry for myself, I also feel terrible that some of her happiness has been lost.  I am happy for her, but at the same time I am devastated.

It's really just not fair.  She has 3 kids already.  She gave me her eggs.  She is pregnant with her 4th.  Why?  Why is it that out of all her eggs, we got the one with the abnormal chromosome?  Why is it that Hubby and I are in the "no greater than a 1% chance" category?  Why did we have to be the statistic?

I have no doubt that her baby will be healthy.  I have no doubt that she will have a healthy pregnancy, despite having morning sickness, which she already has.  (I told her today that I don't feel sorry for her!  haha!)  I want nothing less than to have a new healthy baby niece or nephew.  I LOVE my nieces and nephews.  I can't wait to hold and cuddle a new baby.  I truly can't. I just wish it were gonna be mine.

However, this time is going to come with a little more heartache than the others.  This time, I will know that when this baby is born, I should have a one month old myself.  This time will hurt just a little bit more than the others.

I have been so lucky that my sister and her husband have allowed me to be there for the births of my two nephews.  There is the matter of me being her sister, but more than that, they have known that I may never experience having a baby myself.  They have invited me to their ultrasound appointments and to be there for the births so that I would be able to experience the miracle that it truly is when a baby is born.  I wouldn't trade that experience for the world.

I plan to be there when this baby is born as well.  Besides, they need me.  Who else would be the photographer?  I wouldn't want it any other way.  I want to be there.  It just also makes me hurt.

She has her first OB appointment on the 15th.  I need to figure out if I want to go to that one or not.  I'm not sure I could handle it if something was wrong and there is no heartbeat.  I'm also not sure how I will handle it if there is?  I WANT to be there.  I just don't know how my emotional state will be.  I WANT to share that moment with my sister, but I also don't want to take away from her moment.  She deserves to be happy about this pregnancy.  I deserve to be happy for her.  I just have to find a way to do that.