Mrs. Gray: PDP

We’ve all heard PPE and PPP a lot lately during this pandemic, but I’m coining a new term called PDP which stands for “Pregnant During Pandemic.” I assume by now you’ve connected the dots and know that I am currently PDP and while I’ve kept it a secret from most, I thought a good way to spread the news would be by chronicling just what it has been like to be PDP.

Let’s back up to the beginning of this year: Lillie was thriving, about to turn four, pees on her own, sometimes wipes her own butt, can get herself a glass of water, lets the dog out to pee, gets food and water for the dog, can somewhat buckle herself in the car seat, sleeps through the night, enjoys helping me with chores, and is in general pretty self-sufficient. It makes perfect sense that Kyle and I would decide this is a great time to go all the way back to the starting line, not sleep EVER, wipe a butt multiple times daily, feed something on and off all day, purchase another crib, potentially purchase all new clothes, and add a human to the world that is entirely dependent on us. Because, why not?

So, because a miscarriage can really mess with your mind, I was against trying to conceive a child in January because the last life we conceived in that month ended in a miscarriage at around 13 weeks. Kyle was “not getting any younger” so February it was. I really wanted a November baby so I did the whole ovulation tests and stress thing and shocker, it didn’t take. February came and went and no pregnancy. So, in March I decided to “be cool” (something that does not come natural to me and just let whatever should happen, happen). I was so “cool” that when I was supposed to start my period and hadn’t, I chalked it up to the inconsistency of my cycle since Lillie was born.

Kyle was making himself a Bahama Mama and asked if I wanted one. I drink maybe twice a year, it was my birthday weekend, the world was falling to pieces, so I thought, “why not?” But, in order to be perfectly sure, I insisted I go get a pregnancy test first. I picked one up, took the test, and was just chomping at the bit waiting to see the “Not Pregnant” appear so I could yell at Kyle, “Yes, make me a Bahama Mama!” The three minutes passed and there it was, “Pregnant.” I was so shocked. And in a strange way, terrified.

Let’s get a feel for what the world looked like at this point. It was March 29^th, school had been shut down for the rest of the year, restaurants had closed, Kyle’s business had to shut down because in order to follow the public health order of how many people could be in the office at once it was costing more money to stay open than to close, people were asked to stay home and only go to the grocery store or medical appointments, and people were losing their minds on the internet. Did I really want to bring a baby into all of this?

I was a mess. My mental state was all over the place. Before finding out we were pregnant I had already thought, “maybe this is not the time and maybe our family is supposed to be three forever.” I was ready to call it quits with the state of the world. I was feeling all kinds of emotions about everything being shut down and how this virus was robbing me of special moments with Lillie: Celebrating her first last day of school, her first birthday party with friends she had made in Rio Rancho, her first recital performance that I had been looking forward to so much, zoo trips just the three of us, and vacations just the three of us. I immediately resented this pregnancy because soon I would have a little baby that would take much of my attention away from Lillie, which lead to feelings of guilt.

Having had a miscarriage before, I really thought that any time I got pregnant after I would have feelings of fear about a consecutive miscarriage but I was so surprised to feel something completely opposite. I was having thoughts of, “I wish this pregnancy would fail,” which turned into thoughts of how terrible of a human being I must be to wish something like that when there are women out there that would kill to be in my position. There are women out there who spend a fortune, inject themselves with hormones, get pricked and prodded, just to find out that they will never carry a child. How could I be a Christian and hope for such a thing?

I didn’t really want to talk about being pregnant with anyone. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I only told my parents to get them up to speed because they had plans to move to Rio Rancho and I knew if they knew I was pregnant that would probably make a difference as far as their planning went. I broke down in tears one night as I finally let Kyle in on all the terrible thoughts I was having and what a terrible person that must make me. He let me in about thoughts he had been having and reassured me that my thoughts didn’t make me a terrible human, they just made me human. He reminded me that I need to just feel what I feel in the moment and quit being so concerned about how what I am feeling is not “the right thing for the moment.”

That resounded with me so much because he was right. I felt like I should be feeling excited, I should be feeling like talking about it with everyone, I should be wanting to plan what the nursery will be like. But the truth was, I felt so out of control in a world were my “normal” had been ripped out from under me, “experts” were coming from every which way to weigh in on this pandemic, and there was no end in sight. How could this be happening? I had not planned for this and if you know anything about me, it’s that I like to plan. I joke that the saddest part of this shut down is that I have not been able to use my planner.

I confided in a friend who has had an almost scary similar journey as me: Miscarriage with first, successful second pregnancy, reluctancy for a second child, pregnant with second child and wondering why in the world they made that decision. She assured me that these feelings were perfectly okay and that she too struggled during her pregnancy and that I was not a terrible human being. So, between Kyle and this friend, I was at least convinced I was not a terrible human being, but was also not convinced that I wanted this.

To add to matters, being PDP meant standard prenatal care would be different. My first visit was scheduled for the end of April and I received a call in early April asking if I would be okay with a phone visit. At this point, remember, everything felt SUPER out of my control so when I was asked this I wanted to throw my phone across the kitchen. I asked the receptionist, “What is she going to do over the phone?!” She timidly replied, “Well, she would ask you how your pregnancy is going and just check-in with you.” I then replied with, “I could also call and ask a local grocer how my pregnancy is going and without any bloodwork, urine samples, or fetal heartrate doppler they would know about as much as I do.”

I was so mad that this virus was now changing the way people were doing things and that I would likely have to pay for a phone call where a doctor would ask me how I was feeling, tell me what not to eat, drink, and what medicines not to take; things I knew or could look up in my app. And, I would get no more reassurance than a pregnancy test on if I was pregnant or not. I calmed down after she said, “Well, we would still send you to do bloodwork, a urine test, and eventually refer you out for an ultrasound later.”

Cut to my first “visit” with the doctor. She did everything I thought and it was about a 4 minute phone call. She told me to schedule an ultrasound at Pinon Perinatal and then my next prenatal visit would be in the office in about four weeks. I called Pinon and got my appointment scheduled and at the end of the phone call the receptionist said, “Oh, and just so you know, you will need to wear a mask and you are not allowed to have a guest with you.” Cue the tears.

If you remember my first pregnancy, Kyle and I showed up to my second prenatal visit around 13 weeks and they couldn’t find the heartbeat with the doppler ultrasound so they had me go into the room where they keep their heavy duty ultrasound machine and we watched a screen where we saw the baby but the heartbeat was no longer there. So to tell me now, in the midst of the world being turned upside down, that I would not be able to have Kyle with me was enough to send me into full on rage. Because, you see, something I have learned about myself is that when I am stressed or feel out of control, my reaction is anger.

But, after texting someone well-versed in the law and realizing that this was not a fight I would win nor was it one I wanted to take on at the moment, I resigned to the fact that I would have to go alone and if something was wrong on the ultrasound, I could handle it because, well, I had no other choice. My appointment was May 21^st so I had about a month to wait for that and a month to stew about not being able to have Kyle with me. I went into the appointment, chip on my shoulder, determined to be in and out of there quickly.

Well, I knew something was off when the technician spent extra time looking at the back of the neck and then said, “The doctor will be in shortly to talk to you and then we will get you in with the genetic counselor.” I said, “Excuse me?” It’s super hard to hear people with their masks on but I was pretty sure I had heard her correctly and I had no idea why I needed to talk to a genetic counselor. She hesitated and then said, “Uh, oh, they have you scheduled to talk to the genetic counselor today.” I replied, still with the chip on my shoulder, “This is the first I’m hearing of it.” She got the doctor in right away.

He began to explain to me that the nuchal translucency measurement was on the high-end, still normal, but in the 99^th percentile so he recommends talking with the genetic counselor about further testing we can do because the measurement could indicate a chromosomal abnormality. At this point, I’m freaking out and wanted to yell at them, “THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO HAVE YOUR PARTNER HERE” because after that point, I pretty much stopped listening to anything they were saying including anything the genetic counselor (via a zoom call) said.

I mostly remember the genetic counselor making me feel like I needed to make a decision that day on if I wanted to do any non-invasive or invasive testing and I replied through tears with, “I’m not going to make any decisions until I talk to my husband since you guys would not allow him to be with me.” She then replied, “Ya, I know, it’s really tough” and I responded, “I mean it feels like a violation of my human rights and also, this is his baby too.” She realized I didn’t need the sympathy and I wanted out of there so she called the doctor on site, relayed my frustrations, and told him he could go back in.

He comes in, summarizes what she had said. He asked me if my husband had come with me and if he was out in the car waiting and I said, “No, he’s actually about to go in a meeting and all I want to do is leave this office and call him because I’m a little overwhelmed. So, I just want to get out of here.” He was very sweet and recognized that I was over it and said, “Certainly and have him call me if he has any questions.”

I left, called Kyle, sobbed, he felt terrible that he couldn’t be there to have helped me through it, and we made a plan for how we would handle the next ultrasound that they wanted me to do in about 5 weeks. We talked over our options on testing, he left it up to me, and I decided on doing a cell-free dna test that would tell me the likelihood of any chromosomal abnormalities because I felt like I would rest a little easier knowing something one way or the other. I had the bloodwork done and a week later got the call that everything had come back fine and the chances of any chromosomal abnormalities was very low risk.

At this point, things were kind of starting to open up a little more in town, I had a feeling like some normalcy would be resuming to our lives, and something started to shift in how I felt about being pregnant. I was starting to be a little more excited about it. I was feeling like maybe it would be safe to tell Lillie at this point and I was excited to see her reaction. I was thinking maybe everything would be okay and it hit me: I had been protecting myself. My initial reaction to the pregnancy and feeling like I would not care if I miscarried was actually just me preparing myself for the worst and not setting my expectations to high. Because, fun fact, another thing about me is when I have an expectation for how something again should go and it does not go that way, I have a hard time swallowing it.

Because we did the cell free DNA test, we were able to know the gender sooner than you normally would and I was ready to embrace this party, invite over family, and find out all together. We decided to still wait a little bit before telling Lillie but thought we should give her a couple days heads up before her finding out with all her family around. We told her on the Wednesday before the scheduled Saturday reveal and her reaction could not have been any cuter. She was so excited and then later told Kyle, “Daddy, you’re the best daddy because you gave me a brother or a sister.” She was pumped for the baby and “the celebration” on Saturday.

Family came into town and Kyle had decided it would be fun to find out by playing cornhole. Long story short, I knew ahead of the party what we were having because of something the genetic counselor said when she called with the results and then poor labeling on the powder ordered from Amazon confirmed it. But, I played it cool and acted like I was none the wiser. I filled up a balloon with the appropriate color, blew up some decoys with no powder, and had an intricate way of having Kyle think I didn’t know why balloon to use, get the right balloon, and set up the cornhole.

We are normally really great at cornhole, in fact, during cornhole the rest of the day I was undefeated; but, even with Kyle hitting it once, we could not get the balloon to pop and our agreement was each of us would get four tries and then we would let Lillie do it. She was gunning for a sister (she prayed for one months ago) and Kyle was gunning for a boy (he prayed for a boy the same day). She threw the bean bag, popped the balloon, and a cloud of blue appeared. Kyle was pumped, I was still pretending to be somewhat surprised, and Lillie was sobbing. You could not have scripted it better and her little face was so sad but we assured her that brothers are cool and that Kyle and I have brothers too that she thinks the world of.

So, here we are now, about 6 days fresh off of the 18 week anatomy ultrasound (Kyle was allowed in this time). And the ultrasound did indeed confirm that we are having a boy. I have a lovely 3D picture of his penis because why wouldn’t I want that? Everything looked fine as far as we can tell and we have another one scheduled in 7 weeks just to follow up.

Lillie is coming to terms with the fact that it’s a boy. She cried again about a week after the reveal because she was saying that her new baby brother could use her old baby Winnie the Pooh towel and her sister could use the pink baby towel. I asked, “What do you mean sister?” and she said, “Well, after I have a baby brother, I can have a baby sister.” We had a talk about how she’s lucky she’s getting a sibling at all (haha) and even if mommy and daddy had another baby, we don’t get to chose because God gives us what he thinks we need. But, we haven’t had any tears since and she and I are coming around to the idea of having a boy around.

It’s been a whirlwind and a very weird time to be pregnant but I refocused my mindset to remembering that God has taken care of us up until now and He won’t stop taking care of us in the midst of all this change. I am trusting in His plan, timing, and sovereignty. Whatever will be will be.

Nicole