Studious

By: Meghan Freebeck

Friends have referred to me as “Type-A+”, I know in jest, but at the crux of this is some genuine annoyance at my inability to do anything casually. For that reason, it is also hurtful. 

When my husband and I were buying our home, I created a binder to keep track of documents, wish-lists, homes we loved and those we didn’t, instructions on how to buy a home, and so forth. The binder was labeled and color coded. It was beautiful. It now sits in a closet, unappreciated and unnecessary.

So it was no surprise to anyone that when I found out I was finally pregnant, I made a baby binder of what to avoid, lifestyle changes, and research on getting the best care. I am, after all, a very good student. 

My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for about six months by this time. I mean really trying. For most couples, there is a period of time where it is too scary to think about actually being pregnant so you claim that you are no longer trying “to avoid pregnancy”. But allow me to let you in on a little secret… once you are no longer trying to avoid pregnancy… as long as you are having sex, you are officially trying to get pregnant. Congrats!

After months of “not avoiding pregnancy” hadn’t worked, we entered the much scarier, much more honest phase of “we are actively trying to get pregnant”. Once again, my good-student nature came in handy. I recorded my temperature every day, tracked my menstrual cycle, even made notes of my mucus level. You know when sex stops being sexy? When you are sharing with your husband that today feels “extra mucus-y”. But it didn’t matter, I was going to be a very good student 

Every month, I had the home pregnancy tests ready to go, but prompt as always 28 days later, my blood pooling in the toilet meant the tests would remain unburdened by my urine. A few drops of red is all it took to let me know that once again, no test would be necessary. How frustrating, especially as a person that usually tests very well. I emerged once again from the bathroom and shook my head side to side. My defeated bathroom dance. 

Maybe it was the lightness of the blood, or maybe instinct, but I decided the next day when the spotting didn’t turn to full blown period blood as it normally would, that I would take a pregnancy test just to be safe (at least before finishing off another bottle of wine). And there it was - “Pregnant” revealed on the beautiful little window of a plastic stick still wet from my urine. 

When I emerged from the bathroom, he asked “do you want to go for a walk?”. We went down by the water in our family friendly town, which we moved to specifically for this moment. It was a chilly day and we were the only ones there. I told him to hold our dog so I could take their photo, but put the camera on video instead. As I videotaped, I said nonchalantly, “here hold this” and passed him the positive pregnancy test. 

“Wha… what is this?” he said, looking at the test, then back at me, and then back to the test to confirm. “But I thought? It worked?” I gave him a second test as proof and then the camera turned to the sand as we hugged and stood in shock in each other’s arms. It finally happened, we were going to be parents! Over the course of the next few weeks, I would watch this home video on repeat. Most of it only captured the sand and our voices, but I fell in love with hearing us in the background.

Now, being the good student that I am, the first thing I did when we got back from the beach was to get online and order every single pregnancy book I could find. Ships in two days? Not soon enough! I was at the bookstore that evening with highlighters at the ready. We would take photos of my stomach, still too flat to notice any changes but excited for the progress.

At first, we agreed to follow the advice of “don’t tell for 12 weeks”, but that didn’t stop me from joining the town’s Mom’s Group on Facebook so I could find other moms in my area. This exclusive group will only except you once you are expecting. 

Keeping it from family and friends did not last very long either. We had planned a wine tasting with friends weeks prior, and not one to typically turn down wine, the news was easily known! It wasn’t long before we decided to share with family and friends, it was the biggest thing happening in our life after all and we wanted them to join us.

It didn’t surprise me how much I loved learning about pregnancy and about what was happening in my belly every day, I did love to learn, after all. Sitting with my husband and supping on a glass of non-alcoholic wine, we spent hours talking about names, the type of parents we hoped to be, and who we thought the baby would look more like. I have never felt so content. 

Since this time, I have been removed from the town’s Mom’s Group on Facebook. “No longer eligible”, they said. 

I still have the video from the beach. Deleting it feels like deleting the memory of who that baby could have been. I couldn’t do that to us - to the family we almost had. But I don’t watch it anymore.

A year and three pregnancies later, a new binder labeled “Recurrent Miscarriages” fills my shelf. I am still a very good student.

About the Author:

Meghan lives in San Francisco, CA with her husband and dog (Tonks). Meghan has had 3 miscarriages and is in her first round of IVF treatment. Meghan suffers from infertility, recurrent miscarriages, endometriosis, Müllerian abnormality, and borderline egg quality.