In late October 2009, my husband, Will, and I were told that Clare, our 5 year old required open-heart surgery to correct a congenital heart defect.  We found this out two days after I found out I was pregnant.  I was very afraid this was some cosmic message.  Frankly, was this new baby replacing Clare?  It was difficult to steer away from that thinking, though as a dear friend told me, “It doesn’t work that way.”

In the beginning, I was very excited and began to grow rather quickly, making it difficult to hide this new fact.  I was happily self-conscious.  Clare’s surgery was scheduled for some four months away, which, at the time, seemed an eternity.  I would be nearly six months pregnant at the time.  I had a lot of stress come my way after finding out about my pregnancy, and Clare. A lot of it was financial and Will and I decided I needed to move out of my downtown office and run my business from home, a criminal defense law firm.  The planning of the move was enough stress in itself, but I had an unreasonable tenant making demands on me.  Tried as I could to remain calm and centered, for myself and my family, it wasn’t easy.  Around Thanksgiving time, I fell ill.  I was pretty sure I had swine flu.  My entire body ached and I was so tired I couldn’t stand. About a week later, I spoke with my mid-wife who helped deliver Clare.  I was trying to arrange for my insurance coverage for level two screening in pregnancy, basically genetic tests run on women of advanced maternal age.  It was such a chore to speak with the providers, then the insurance then other doctors, I was beginning to feel hopeless.  Honestly, I felt depressed.  Then I felt guilty.  I should have been feeling happy.  My  mid-wife talked to me about genetic tests and what we would do if the tests showed some abnormality.  No one had asked me this, no one had asked.

When I spoke to my doctor in mid-December, I had had very light spotting, almost not worth mentioning, since Thanksgiving time.  Since I was 10 1/2 weeks pregnant at the time, she thought I should come in to see if we could hear the heartbeat on doppler.  When I went in and she did not hear the heartbeat, it did not cause me alarm.  I had spotted in previous successful pregnancies.  In fact, I had been told before that I was miscarrying, after profusely bleeding and it ended in a perfectly normal pregnancy and healthy baby.  I went to have an ultrasound, that Friday night, and after an hour of silent examination, I was told there was no longer a heartbeat.  I was miscarrying.  The weeks that followed, I was a terrible mess.  My body endured more than I expected.  I couldn’t control my sad emotions and I was quite depressed.

Then, one day, maybe it was the actual sun, but things seemed not so bad.  It was that day, I began to think about our dear Clare and what we had to do to prepare for this terrifying event in her life: open-heart surgery.  I wasn’t all smiles, but I was focused.  I spent a lot of time thinking about my children, especially Clare and what they were like as babies.  I focused most of my energy on being there, really being present for my children.  Child rearing is damn hard.  Things in our personal lives, complications, can make it even more so.

I spent two productive months arranging my business affairs, planning for a leave to be with Clare, putting the house in order, spending time just being with the kids.  Clare and I spent a lot of time together.  She was out of school in preparation for her surgery.  When I put her to bed at night and all day long, those were precious times.  So, while I was devastated by my miscarriage, maybe it was some kind of cosmic message.