[Author’s Note #1: This story heavily alludes to Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For and The Death of Occidentalis, but doesn’t necessarily require the reading of either. Those stories provide this background info: 1) we’re confident that God called us to have four kids; 2) I miscarried our third child (Occidentalis); and 3) I’ve never known anything about our fourth child (Orientalis).]
[Author’s Note #2: Wait — that last bit is not quite accurate. I do know one thing: if any of our children were to have a severe disability, it would be the final one. Not that our fourth child will have a disability — just that he or she might.]
[Author’s Note #3: Yes, obviously this post is pretty last-minute. I don’t really have good reasons — just good excuses. The most succinct explanation is this: I couldn’t write this piece until I completed its two immediate predecessors, and that feat turned out to be exceptionally challenging. I apologize, but I really am trying my breast. Er, my best.]
I’ve read plenty of accounts in which women conceive again immediately after a miscarriage. There’s something very beautiful about the prospect: children from consecutive eggs. One perished, but the next flourished.
So, after miscarrying in early February, this was the eventuality for which I hoped: for Occidentalis’s younger sibling to be conceived on the heels of his departure.
I knew that I wouldn’t ovulate less than two weeks after miscarrying — and, even then, I really couldn’t guess how long my body would take to reequilibrate. Thus, I was elated when my LH test strips suggested a surge at the end of February. We made every effort to catch that egg (ahem), then settled in for an unbearably long wait.
Indeed, some things are worth the wait — but my period in mid-March was not one of them. Neither was my period in April — nor were the ones in May, June, or July.
Alas — it seemed that, once again, my cycle had gone anovulatory. If anything, this made Occi’s conception even more bittersweet. In retrospect, it seems like he must have been the only viable egg in more than a dozen “ovulations”.
The weird part was, everything seemed to be alright. For the first time in my life, I tuned into my body’s cues enough to know when I was about to ovulate. Or, at least, when the LH test strips said that I was about to ovulate. In truth, I had no idea what was *actually* going on in my body — just that, whatever it was, it wasn’t working.
Unfortunately, it can be challenging to root out issues with female fertility. We ladies have pretty complex systems — which directly translates into “expensive to investigate”. Plus, I was reluctant to seek medical attention for a “problem” that might just resolve itself — and, in most cases, does just resolve itself.
That same reluctance didn’t extend to Taylor, who sprang for a semen analysis in early summer. He was elated when all of the metrics came back within a normal range — except for sperm count, which came back *above* the normal range.
He printed out five copies of the report and hid them for me in various places around the house — which felt a bit heavy-handed, considering the report shifted the infertility blame solidly onto my shoulders. (Or, in this case, onto my ovaries.)
And so, I was incredibly frustrated. (Not about the semen analysis — although that was a little frustrating, too. Taylor, of course, didn’t see it that way.)
Rather, I was frustrated with God. I felt like *I* was putting in the work of obedience, so why wasn’t *He* showing up?
A bit of background might offer some clarity here. In Faith is the Substance, I detail the process by which Taylor and I discerned that we would be given four kids. A major aspect of that process was the revelation that Orientalis would be a total wildcard — and that, if any of our children were to have a severe disability, it would be this final one. Since autism is a female-linked genetic disorder in my family, I had long hoped that my fourth child would be a boy — although, I was extremely sure that we weren’t supposed to find out this baby’s gender in utero. This would, instead, be an exercise in trusting God.
Time had mellowed — but not eliminated — my fears about Orientalis. What would be the end of this mystery? Would I be a good special-needs mom, if necessary? Could I love this child as he or she required?
In short: I still didn’t *feel* ready for this trial. However, I decided to *be* ready, regardless of my feelings. I chose to have faith in God’s plan, even if it we couldn’t see where it was going.
And that’s why I was annoyed. If we were faithfully walking in obedience, why weren’t we seeing the fruit of that labor?
The interminable waiting wore on Taylor, too. At one point, he summed it up like this: “I just want it to be the next thing already. Like, even if the next thing is worse, at least it’d be different.”
For once, I totally agreed with my husband.
And so, throughout the summer, I peppered God with contentious questions. When is this going to be over? Where is this baby? Why are You doing this to me?
Alas — no answer, although God was almost palpably present throughout our waiting.
He was there through my various trials: when the littlest things reminded me of my lost Occidentalis; when I perceived that at least one of my Life Group companions would conceive before me; when I rigidly averted my eyes from every pregnant lady at my church. Through all of them, He was there.
And, He was there when I lay awake in the dark of a mid-July night, crying because I knew that my period would arrive the next day. That time was different, though, because it was accompanied by Promises — playing in my head so loudly that I wondered how it didn’t wake up Taylor, too.
Great is Your faithfulness to me, the lyrics proclaimed. Great is Your faithfulness to me.
And then, finally, I heard from God.
Great is My faithfulness to you.
Unfortunately, that promise only increased the rate of my tears — because it came along with a confidence that my period would indeed arrive the following day. Even so, there were now tears of relief, mixed in with the sorrow.
God hadn’t forgotten us; instead, for whatever reason, this was part of our journey. For now, walking in obedience meant walking through months of disappointment — and, as far as I knew, those months might very well stretch into years. I wouldn’t be the first woman who struggled to conceive after bearing several healthy babies. (The biblical figure Leah comes to mind.)
Even so, God was calling us to continue walking by faith: to trust Him and trust that, in time, He would give us our final baby.
This realization also clarified another point of frustration — that, despite the dozens of expecting mothers around me, I was not to compare myself to anyone else. It didn’t matter if the whole world got pregnant first: God was executing His plan for us, and it would unfold as He desired.
Alright, LORD, I silently relented. You are God, and we are not.
So, the next day, I was unsurprised when my period arrived — although, I was still bummed. (I mean, even if you know something sad is coming, it’s still hard to be, like, *happy* about it.) We recalibrated our intimacy calendar to this latest data point, and life continued on as normal — that is, until the second Tuesday in August.
That morning, an eerily familiar sensation stabbed through one side of my lower abdomen. Try as I might, I could describe the sensation only as “round ligament pain” — which, according to plenty of sources, doesn’t occur until at least the second trimester.
By this point, though, I knew that I did get round ligament pain during my first trimester. It had been my earliest pregnancy symptom with both Aza and Occi.
[Note: All those websites that swore up and down that “round ligament pain never happens until the second trimester” served only to convince me that Australis was an ectopic pregnancy. So, that will show me to google my symptoms.]
I’ll readily admit that this probably wasn’t medically diagnosable as round ligament pain — but regardless, it registered as “round ligament pain”, to me.
I immediately tried to squelch my fledgeling hope. It’s probably just gas. Or maybe appendicitis. Wait, the appendix is on the other side — so not that. Hmm… just gas, then.
But the sensation returned Wednesday and Thursday mornings, and each day, my hope grew despite desperate attempts at expectation management.
Finally, on Thursday night, I no longer could keep my secret from Taylor. As we lay in bed, I whispered, “I think I’m pregnant.”
He noisily rolled over to face me. “Really!? How do you know?”
“I’ve had round ligament pain the past few days.”
Taylor: <grunts in excited surprise> (He, too, knew the significance of this particular symptom.) “But you haven’t taken a test yet?” he confirmed.
I sighed. “No. I’m due for my period on Saturday, so I was thinking I’d do it tomorrow morning.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take one, like, right now?”
My husband’s eagerness drew a laugh out of me — a short one that faded into a soft moan. I buried my face in my pillow and reminded us both, “I’m probably not pregnant.”
Taylor: <grunts in mild amusement> “Don’t be so mopey, Wifey. It’s going to happen one of these months. Why not this month?”
“Because everything sucks,” I mumbled back.
Taylor pulled me in for a cuddle and promised, “But this might not.”
And so, first thing Friday morning, I took a pregnancy test.
The kids were watching Little Baby Bum, and Taylor was in the shower — so I left the test upside down by the sink. I didn’t know what to expect. It felt like, somehow, I was both 100% sure that we weren’t pregnant and 100% sure that we were.
Taylor spotted the strip as soon as he stepped from the shower — and then, for the fourth time, we got chemical confirmation that a new life was growing within me.
Taylor, needless to say, was ecstatic.
And I was happy, too — of course I was happy. Orientalis was on his or her way! My last baby — less than a year away.
But, I was also… so, *so* scared. There is no fear like the fear of the unknown.
Even the darkness of the positive line became immediate cause for alarmed speculation. With each of my other three pregnancies, the first test had produced a line so faint that I barely believed the result. This one, however, seemed ostentatious by comparison. It required only the most cursory examination.
I promptly discounted the most obvious explanation: that this test was merely more sensitive than others I had used, or that the dye was more concentrated, or that something else about the strip was simply different. Instead, I saw the florid line and thought, High hCG!? Oh my goodness, this might *actually* be twins.
I immediately brought up the idea with Taylor. “Do you think Orientalis is actually twins?”
He squinted in apparent imagination, then confidently answered, “No.”
“Having identical twins isn’t hereditary!” I reminded him.
“Well, you asked my opinion! I think Orientalis is one baby, and I’m so glad that we’ll get to meet him or her soon.”
He gave me a big squeeze, then set about shaving and left me to my moody thoughts.
This wasn’t the first time we’d discussing having multiples: we’d been fielding that question since before Bo was born. “Oh, you have a naming scheme? Well, what if your last pregnancy… is twins!?”
I had always brushed aside the query with this flippant answer: “Oh, well, then I guess we’ll have an Occidentalis… and an Accidentalis.”
This response always elicited a surprised laugh from the questioner, and it moved the conversation past our actual answer, which was… we didn’t know. We’d cross that bridge if we came to it — which, for all I knew, we might.
A few minutes later, Taylor paused his shaving and confirmed, “If we were having twins, we wouldn’t name one of them ‘Occidentalis’, would we?”
My eyes instantly filled with tears at the mention of my lost son. “No. We’d have to pick a different name. Aurora, or Centralis, or something.”
Taylor: <grunts in agreement>
I took a minute to gather my thoughts, then analogized, “It’d be like me getting remarried, if you died. It wouldn’t be wrong for me to remarry — but, it would be wrong if I were to rename my new husband ‘Taylor’ and then try to pass him off as you.”
Taylor: <grunts in mild concern>
I chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Basically — basically just that, no matter how many babies we have, none of them are going to replace the one that we lost. Like, they would all be wonderful and unique, but none of them would actually be Occidentalis. You know?”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah, I do.” <pause> “So… are you going to tell your mom?”
I thought back to the loss of Occidentalis — specifically, to how awful it had been to tell our family and friends that our joy had suddenly turned to sorrow. I wasn’t eager for a repeat of that situation.
“No,” I finally answered. “If we’re going to have bad news, we’re just going to have bad news. I don’t want to pull an emotional switcheroo again.”
“So…?”
“So what?”
“When will you tell people?”
I looked up at my husband and smiled sadly. “Do you remember how small Occi was?”
His brow instantly furrowed. “Yeah.”
“I think, if we had gotten an eight-week ultrasound, he wouldn’t have had a heartbeat. I think he was probably already dead by then.”
“So you want to wait until you see a heartbeat?”
I nodded slowly. “I think that’s justifiable. And then we’ll tell people.” <pause> “Some people, at least.”
Thus, our fourth baby was a strict secret — even, essentially, from myself. In retrospect, I think that my heart and mind simply couldn’t commit to loving another child until I had some assurance that I wouldn’t immediately lose them.
That emotional distance became even greater when, within a day of that positive pregnancy test, I was also trying to squelch my fears that this pregnancy was molar.
Why did I jump to this unlikely conclusion? Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but the short answer is this: that there was *one* exception to our pregnancy gag order.
Monet Nicole is a highly-renowned birth photographer, and I’ve admired her work for years. In fact, I even requested her pricing in expectation of Bo’s birth — but ended up foregoing photography due to a strong sense of misgiving. (In retrospect, I think I understand why I felt that way.)
Anyway, I’d been on Monet’s email list ever since, so there was one thing I knew about her business: the slots fill up, fast. I could afford to wait on telling our friends and family, but I couldn’t afford to wait on reaching out to this photographer — that is, not if I wanted her to chronicle this final birth.
So, that weekend, I sat down to fill out the pricing request and initial information form. Necessarily, my story included a discussion of Occidentalis. And, as I wrote, I was reminded of Monet’s own lost babies. Tragically, after a miscarriage, she had experienced a partial molar pregnancy, which is how I initially learned of that particular complication.
Complete and partial molar pregnancies occur when an egg somehow receives two copies of the father’s DNA — either because a sperm duplicates within the cell, or because two sperm fertilize the cell. The resulting combination (“mole”) is nonviable and is usually lost early in gestation. However, the mole can also behave like cancer — multiplying out-of-control, infecting the surrounding tissue, and necessitating draconian treatment (e.g. chemotherapy, hysterectomy).
The good thing is that molar pregnancies are pretty rare — on the order of 0.1% in the US. The bad thing is that they’re most common after miscarriages, and they’re characterized by high hCG — which might manifest as an extra-dark positive line on a pee stick.
Monet’s story had followed this pattern, and now I feared that mine would as well.
[Note: By the grace of God, Monet recovered from her partial molar pregnancy, and after two additional miscarriages, is now in the second half of a healthy pregnancy.]
Taylor, of course, tried unsuccessfully to dissuade me from such catastrophizing. “Why don’t you reach out to Tanya?” he suggested. “She’d have an idea about what your next steps should be.”
I considered contacting the midwife. The prospect was appealing — but, I was still embarrassed by how things had gone down the previous time around, during my pregnancy with Occidentalis. I had unintentionally dragged my feet on signing a contract — and then, suddenly, I was no longer in need of a midwife.
So, I answered Taylor, “No. I don’t want to flake on her again. I’ll reach out once I know if I’ll actually need a midwife.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” he asked. “You’re pregnant; hence, midwife. And you already have one that you like.”
“Ok, so first of all — I might be pregnant. I might also have a pre-cancerous mass growing in my uterus, or this might be a hysterical pregnancy. Second, even if I *am* pregnant — which I might not be! — it might be an ectopic pregnancy, or maybe twins. And, any of those things would preclude my using a midwife.”
“But you don’t want to reach out, just to touch base?”
“No. I don’t want to waste her time again.”
Taylor pulled me in for a hug. “You weren’t wasting her time. At least, not intentionally.”
“Yeah. Exactly. I’d like to be a little more circumspect this time around.”
Plus, I was pretty sure that, even without the advice of a midwife, I knew my next step: I needed to swallow my distaste and make an appointment with a regular OB/GYN clinic. I picked the closest provider, called the number, and explained my situation. Basically, “I’m paranoid that I have a molar pregnancy, but I know that they don’t show up on ultrasounds until at least eight weeks, so what are my options?”
The administrator recommended a serial hCG blood test, then a confirmatory ultrasound at eight weeks. This sounded great to me, so I agreed to each of appointments.
That is, until I realized two major problems: 1) the administrator had miscalculated my gestational timeline, and instead scheduled me for a nine-week ultrasound, and 2) [more alarmingly] she hadn’t scheduled me for a serial blood draw — she had scheduled me for a colposcopy.
Now, I’ll be honest: I didn’t immediately know what this term meant. However, I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t like anything that ends in “-scopy” — so when I found out that “colposcopy” was just a gentle term for “pap smear on steroids”, I immediately called to cancel that appointment.
The receptionist apologized profusely and offered to reschedule the blood draw. However, given those two egregious errors, I was now quite wary of this clinic’s scheduling acuity. I didn’t want to show up for a blood draw and get a surprise IUD, instead — so I politely declined the receptionist’s offer.
Even so, after confirming that my ultrasound appointment was actually for an ultrasound (and nothing else), I decided to keep that one on the schedule. I hoped that the extra week wouldn’t kill me — either metaphorically or literally.
Accordingly, for the next month, I diligently refused to acknowledge that I was pregnant. I’ll give myself props for consistency; even in my prayers, I tried to maintain a neutral stance. For example: LORD, if I am actually pregnant, I pray for the health of this baby, but most importantly, that they would grow to know and love You. Even though I’m probably not really pregnant.
There was at least one benefit to this intentional obfuscation: it was *super* easy to keep the secret. I barely had any pregnancy tells, because I barely believed I was pregnant — and I knew that I wouldn’t believe it until I saw a heartbeat.
Thus, all my focus narrowed to September 20th. Either a scheduled event fell before the “moment of truth”, or afterward — and I couldn’t visualize anything past this critically-important juncture. I felt like I was waiting to wake from a dream, but my alarm was still ages away.
Obviously, my secret was harder to conceal on certain days — and most especially on the days when the kids and I went to see my parents. I knew my mother suspected something — if only because I was even more tired than usual. Even so, I still believed that waiting for definitive proof of my supposed “pregnancy” was the best option for everyone.
September crawled by, and each day seemed longer and hazier than the last. Finally, though, it was the morning of my appointment, and I could barely think straight for anxiety. Had our kids been allowed to attend, Taylor would have driven the lot of us — but I had asked permission and been given an intransigent “no”. (This office didn’t particularly cater to stay-at-home moms.)
So instead, I drove myself to the appointment, taking the rare moment of solitude to voice the prayers I’d been holding in for weeks.
“LORD, please let this baby be healthy. I don’t want a molar pregnancy, and I don’t want another miscarriage. I want Orientalis to live, and thrive, and love, and be loved.”
Then, taking a deep breath, I managed to bring it back around to the crux of the matter. “But LORD… in all things, let Your will be done, and Your name be praised. Please preserve my witness through this, even if it’s not the news I want to hear.”
A few minutes later, I sat in a badly-decorated waiting room and attempted to work on Dr. Borealis, Class of 2043 — but, unsurprisingly, it was difficult to write under such intense anxiety. The office’s Pandora playlist didn’t help, either.
(I mean, seriously — who thinks that the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings is a good fit for an OB/GYN office? Oh, you’re nervous you might have a cancerous growth instead of a baby? I know just the thing to help you relax. It’s the song from when Haldir dies!)
One of the ultrasound techs was a no-show that day, so I waited an extra ten minutes past my appointment time before receiving a summons. The non-truant technician seemed especially harried, so I resolved to move as quickly as possible.
After I hastily peed in a cup, the tech gently introduced the nature of that day’s exam. “So, when you come back for your twelve-week appointment, the ultrasound will be external. But, today’s will be transvaginal.”
I felt my eyebrows creep upward. “Oh, uh… I guess that makes sense.”
The tech easily saw through my feigned nonchalance. Her brow furrowed sympathetically. “Yeah… it’s just too hard to get a good visual on the baby when they’re this small.”
I nodded, because that did make sense; I just hadn’t been expecting it. My earliest ultrasound had been a twelve-week dating scan with Australis, so I’d never really considered what happened *before* that point.
The tech continued, “So I’ll leave the room, and you can undress from the waist down and drape this sheet over your lap.”
I snorted. “I feel like that’s a bit unnecessary? I mean, considering what you’re about to do?”
She shot me another sympathetic look. “Well, it does offer a little bit of privacy, at least.”
So, we proceeded with that little social charade. The minutes alone gave me a chance to text Taylor, who had asked that we FaceTime during the appointment.
The sign says, ‘No phones’, I shot over. (Unfortunately, I didn’t think the high-strung tech would budge on what seemed to be a corporate policy.)
Instead, I steeled myself for the ordeal to come and whispered another quick prayer. “LORD… just, You know.”
(And hopefully He did, because clearly I didn’t.)
The technician soon returned, then briskly prepared the ultrasound wand. “Are you ready?” she checked.
I nodded — although, I was fibbing a little.
“Great,” she acknowledged, and began the scan.
I immediately saw was that this was a singleton pregnancy — just one baby. Then, as the tech focused in on that single embryo, I saw a stunningly beautiful sight: Orientalis’s heartbeat, sure and steady.
“The baby’s alive,” I breathed.
The tech flashed me a grin. “Yep! That’s a good-looking heartbeat.” After a pause, she added, “This is the best part of my job. I love when people get to see their babies for the first time.”
I swiped at the tears flowing down my cheeks. “Yeah,” I answered hoarsely. “Yeah, I can believe that.”
(I mean, it’s not like the other parts of her job posed much competition.)
Before meeting the obstetrician, I snuck a quick text to Taylor. No words; just a picture.
Finally, I felt comfortable sharing our news — very, very slowly.
First on the docket was Tanya. After chatting with the obstetrician that morning, I was more convinced than ever that I wanted another midwife-facilitated birth.
[Note: I’m not sure that I’ve ever met a more condescending doctor. After she bashed on my plan for an intentional home birth, I snapped, “Look — there are pros and cons to home births and hospital births. It’s irresponsible of you to represent that one is entirely safe, and the other is totally dangerous.”
She immediately struck a more conciliatory tone, but I nevertheless refused to return to that office either for the bloodwork she tried to push on me that day or for any subsequent ultrasounds. But, at least she charged me several hundred dollars for the privilege of being bullied for fifteen minutes.]
Anyway, I send an email over to Tanya informing her that I was pregnant again — with a confirmed heartbeat, this time — and that I was interested in reviving our business relationship. She congratulated me and expressed a reciprocal desire.
Thus, after some back-and-forth, we agreed to a schedule in which most of my appointments would be telehealth — per my request. Taylor and I immediately bought a fetal doppler, which he was unreasonably eager to use. (Sigh. Engineers and their tools.)
Next on the list were my parents. I’m actually not sure how much longer I could have kept the secret from them — confirmed heartbeat or no. Both my parents were very excited and very relieved. My mother, especially, knew how heavily the past several months had weighed on me.
Then, slowly, we told others: Taylor’s family, and most of our close friends, and our Life Group.
We refrained from informing Borealis and Australis of their new sibling until after announcing this pregnancy to our Life Group — since, you know, toddlers aren’t great at keeping secrets. Luckily, our kids had come with us that night, so we had a captive audience on the way home.
Bo, at least, had known that Orientalis would his last sibling — long-awaited, but nevertheless still anticipated. And, while Aza might not have been able to articulate the same knowledge, she would at least recognize the name. Accordingly, I didn’t lay much groundwork for our familial announcement.
“Bo and Aza — do you remember when Occi was in Mommy’s belly?”
Bo immediately countered, “But now Occi is in heaven.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Occi is in heaven. But now there is a new baby in my belly. Do you remember who this baby is?”
Bo thought for a few seconds, then guessed, “Occi?”
I blinked away tears. “No, baby. Occi is not coming back from heaven. But, you’re going to have a different sister or brother — Ori.”
“Ori!” Bo repeated in recognition. “Ori is in your belly!”
“Ori,” Aza mumbled sleepily. A glance at the backseat revealed that we’d be transferring her directly into bed.
Bo thought for a few minutes, then concluded, “Ori will fall down the balloon.”
Taylor gave me a startled look, and I burst into laughter. “My tattoo,” I explained.
[Note: As a young adult, I rather rashly got a large rendition of Banksy’s Balloon Girl on my right ribs. This tattoo shows up in one picture of Kiss Mommy’s Belly.]
I had to admit: it wasn’t a bad assumption. Where’s the baby in Mommy’s tummy? Well, the baby is that little picture of a girl. But, I stifled my giggles and amended, “No, buddy, Ori is *inside* of my belly. We can’t see Ori right now, and we won’t see Ori until April.”
I heard Bo tabulate the months until we’d meet his youngest sibling. “October, November, December, January, February, March, April… seven months?”
I cringed. “Yeah, buddy. It feels like a long time,” I admitted. “But Ori is too little to be outside of my belly right now, and so Ori has to get bigger and bigger and bigger — and then in April, Ori will be born and will be a little, little baby.” I quietly added, “Lord willing.”
Bo once again took a few moments to process our conversation. Finally, he responded, “In April, Ori will come out of your balloon.”
Taylor snorted, while I answered, “Uhhhh… not quite, but close enough.”
And so, things settled into a new normal… ish. Our pregnancy wasn’t explicitly a secret — and yet, we intentionally produced no fanfare in expectation of this final baby. The reason for this was quite simple, though its implications weren’t.
“I can’t announce Baby #4 until we announce the loss of Baby #3,” I explained to my mom one day in late autumn.
So, she immediately asked the obvious follow-up question. “Well, when do you think that will be?”
Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have an answer for her. The Death of Occidentalis weighed very heavily on me — offering a silent challenge whenever I opened my drafts folder. I had written its introduction on the day that we miscarried — and, in fact, left that section largely unchanged in the final version. However, there’s a huge difference between: 1) setting the scope for a fourteen-thousand-word piece, and 2) actually writing said fourteen-thousand-word piece.
Here’s how things went down. (It’s a bit dry and convoluted, so bear with me.)
I miscarried in February, but I felt strongly that couldn’t write The Death of Occidentalis until I first wrote The Birth of Australis — a long-delayed piece that was originally slated for publication the previous November. [Note: This was, of course, discussed in the opening author’s note of Articulate Savages and the Parents Who Raise Them.]
But, I had already been tapped to plan a wedding for May 1st (as referenced in the concluding author’s note of The Death of Occidentalis). That wedding came together beautifully, but it prevented my writing anything overly time-consuming.
[Note: That’s part of the reason why There’s No Dragon Like Snow Dragon has [literally] eight photos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then that post might actually count as a full-length story.]
And then, right after the wedding, we started potty-training Aza. (Like, literally within a week.) I realized that I didn’t want to forego recording that important milestone in favor of getting her birth story written a month earlier. Thus, A Tale of Two Poopies became my May 2021 story.
The following month, The Birth of Australis *finally* started to come together. It broke down into three parts, which was more than I had expected. (Somehow, I had anticipated tackling the piece in only one month, which is hilarious in retrospect.) Accordingly, The Death of Occidentalis was scheduled for September. I hoped to get it up on September 6th, which had been Occi’s due date.
But, my plans changed after we got that positive pregnancy test. I wanted to end our miscarriage story with something hopeful: the promise of a rainbow baby after our storm. However, I couldn’t do so before knowing that we actually *had* a rainbow baby on the way.
(Oh, and also, I coordinated a different wedding on September 4th, so that wasn’t super conducive to my writing a magnum opus. Hence, I barely eked out Dr. Borealis, Class of 2043 instead.)
However, even after the confirmatory ultrasound on September 20th, I realized that I still didn’t want to publicly announce our pregnancy until after the halfway point. I think I just… wasn’t ready yet.
It’s a tricky thing — emotionally attaching to a rainbow baby. After losing one, it’s hard to fully believe that you won’t lose the next one, too. Plus, I still had the added complexity of Orientalis-will-be-a-complete-stranger-and-also-maybe-autistic. It kinda felt like the deck was stacked against us.
However, things did slightly improve at the halfway point.
On Tanya’s recommendation, we booked our 20-week anatomy ultrasound with a semi-retired OB/GYN who has delivered more than ten thousand babies over the course of his decades-long career. Now, he only takes four clients per day, and personally conducts each of the ultrasounds — which is incredibly unusual in Western medicine. (I think that’s why so many midwives refer their clients to him.)
The hostess of our Life Group watched Bo and Aza, which allowed Taylor to attend the ultrasound appointment with me. It was a brilliantly sunny December morning, which made it seem less likely that Orientalis would have spina bifida. (I’m not always diligent about taking my prenatal vitamins.)
The OB/GYN promptly dispelled those concerns — and others, too. Even after the endorsement from Tanya, he was not quite whom I was expecting. Picture Dr. Anthony Fauci, but less condescending — and that’s basically it: a petite octogenarian with a thick New York accent. He looked as though he might have been a shoe elf in a past life. So, in short, I immediately liked him.
We explicitly asked that the doctor refrain from revealing the baby’s sex — a request which, to his credit, he diligently honored. I had secretly hoped that he wouldn’t, though, because the uncertainty was driving me crazy.
I had always known that I wouldn’t know Orientalis’s sex. (Reference, again, Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For.) Even so, it was disorienting to be so totally in the dark. I couldn’t even hazard a guess — a far cry from the 95% certainty I had had with my first three.
But, the elven man didn’t let anything slip — no matter how much I wished that he would say, “Here’s his cranium,” or, “Oh, your son will be so happy to have a brother!” Alas — nothing to suggest that Orientalis was a boy and would thus dodge my familial autism.
That wasn’t the only frustration of the morning. Ori was so active during the scan that even the doctor marveled. “Wow — they say that babies wake and sleep in twenty-minute cycles… but then there’s your baby.” The downside of all this activity was that, even by the end of our appointment, we had still never gotten a good facial profile.
I was initially disheartened at this omission. I wanted to have some way of picturing my unknown child; yet, in the images that we received, there was only one facial scan — an incomplete view through the forehead and chin.
But, as I studied the image, I realized that there was something in the photo that was so familiar.
“Ori looks like Bo,” I murmured. The profile — though incomplete — bore the same heart-shaped facial structure that I share with my oldest son. And with that realization, I finally felt the first tiny flickers of familiarity.
No, I still didn’t know this stranger — but I would, someday. This baby comes from the same stock that produced three other children whom I love. Why would Orientalis be any different?
The winter solstice passed, and the days began to grow longer. Christmas was a small affair, and though we celebrated our Savior’s birthday with joy, I also mourned anew the loss of my second son. This would have been his first Christmas.
I spent the final days of 2021 completing How Mario Boosted My Mom Game, which had originally been intended for November. [Note: It was, of course, replaced by the hastily-assembled compilation piece, To Email Anything Less Than My Best.]
And then it was 2022. Suddenly, there was a very real urgency about writing The Death of Occidentalis. I even started on it, too — but then our basement flooded, and I realized that the miscarriage piece would make the most sense if it were posted in February, as an anniversary memorial. So, instead, Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Sewer became my January piece — and when that was done, I got back to work on Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For.
Unfortunately, I knew within one day that my February 7th deadline was laughably unrealistic. Faith is the Substance was only about a week late, but I was determined to post it concurrently with The Death of Occidentalis — for reasons that, in retrospect, are hard to pin down. (After all, the first story doesn’t necessarily give anything away about the latter.) Due to that coupling, though, I posted nothing until late March.
[Author’s Note: Of course, I backdated both posts. One of the perks of being the only author on this blog.]
If you’ve read The Death of Occidentalis, then you have some idea of why I struggled to construct the piece quickly. It was gut-wrenchingly hard to write. To do my son justice, I had to fully represent the emotions and thoughts that accompanied his loss — not just the facts of the day. And, to represent those emotions and thoughts, I had to enter into my memories in a way that I hadn’t since their creation.
In short: it usually meant typing through a blur of hysterical tears. Not fun.
One of the worst elements of that ordeal was my third-trimester insomnia — which was not improved by my writing-induced depression. Once or twice a week, I would wake before the sun, then toss and turn for an hour or two before falling back asleep. (Usually.)
The worst of these incidents occurred in the early hours of February 24th — the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. I woke around 2am, and I was soon so fully awake that I decided to move to the couch. No need to bother Taylor with my sleeplessness.
My mind kept cycling back and forth between my miscarriage story (upsetting) and the invasion (even more upsetting) — that is, until I discovered something that [temporarily] registered as most upsetting.
I had discovered at our anatomy scan that, unlike in my previous full-term pregnancies, Orientalis’s placenta was posterior (i.e. behind the baby, where I couldn’t feel it). This positioning isn’t especially unusual, but it did allow me an unusual amount of “visibility” into my uterus. I had taken to palpating my belly to check in on Ori — and while I’d suspected something for the past several days, I was suddenly certain.
Orientalis was breech.
I could no longer convince myself that the ball-shaped appendage was a butt — not when I could identify both knees at the bottom of my uterus. At almost 32 weeks pregnant, this wasn’t good news. Only about 7% of babies are breech (head-up) at that point, and only about half of those flip by the end of pregnancy. [Note: Other sources give slightly more encouraging stats… but not much more encouraging.]
In the middle of the night, this discovery felt like a death sentence. Sure, I could try to flip Orientalis via Spinning Babies, but if that didn’t work, then I could kiss my home birth goodbye. I didn’t even know where I’d go to deliver via C-section — after all, there was no chance I’d return to the hellscape from The Birth of Borealis: Part IV. [Note: Ok, in all fairness, everyone *else* likes that hospital. I think I’m just a wee bit biased.]
How did this even happen? I wondered. Was Ori *always* breech, and Tanya just misdiagnosed it at our [in-person] 28-week appointment?
This was a terrifying thought. If she had gotten this wrong, what else had she gotten wrong?
However, after feeling around my belly again, I concluded, No… it was definitely a butt when she last checked. I remember feeling one of Ori’s legs, right here at the top.
Eventually, I concluded that there was nothing I could do tonight. (Besides pray, which I did.) I’d text Tanya in the morning, and we’d go from there.
Thus, by a dramatic effort of will, I managed to wrench my attention off of my breech baby — and back onto my dead baby, instead.
(But don’t worry — after that, it was back onto Ukraine.)
Ori’s positioning seemed slightly less catastrophic in the light of the following morning. Taylor projected a confidence that the situation would resolve itself, and Tanya eventually called to talk me off the ledge.
“We have options,” she insisted. “There’s homeopathy and Spinning Babies — and if those don’t work, then there’s chiropractic and acupuncture, too.”
“Can you do an ECV?” I asked. “Or would you have to refer me out?”
An external cephalic version is a pretty common Western approach to flipping a breech baby, so I shouldn’t have been surprised at Tanya’s reaction.
“Whoa, ok, I’ve literally only had one client ever who required an ECV,” she laughed. “And I don’t think you’ll be the second. So, you know, you don’t have to jump to the worst-case scenario here.”
I scoffed. “Uh, that’s not the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that an ECV is unsuccessful, I have to get a C-section, and then my baby and I both die from surgery-related complications.”
Tanya was silent for a moment. “Wow. Yeah, that thought literally did not even enter my mind. You need to pluck that notion out of your brain and throw it right out the window.”
“Wow, that’s cute for you to say in the middle of the day. Things don’t seem so sanguine at 2am!”
“No, I believe that,” Tanya admitted. “But as impossible as it will be for you… I need you to stop stressing. Don’t do anything until our appointment next week. Can we change this one to be in-person?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I’ll see you then.”
The following Wednesday, Tanya confirmed my breech diagnosis. She prescribed pulsatilla and forward-leaning inversions, then repeated her prediction that the situation would resolve without the need for drastic measures.
“I’m not worried. If you’re still breech at 36 weeks, then we’ll break out the big guns. Like, for instance, moxibustion is pretty successful — even right up until labor, basically. But we’re not to that point yet.”
I, in contrast, wished that we were to that point. I struggled to battle the constant anxiety of having a poorly-positioned baby. Each morning, I woke up and was freshly dismayed to feel a massive sphere at the top of my uterus. That dismay was compounded by the prospect of pushing said massive sphere out of my body — that is, if Orientalis ever assumed the correct orientation.
Nevertheless, I temporarily settled for the passive flipping techniques: homeopathy, maternal exercises, and sleep positioning. (I already sleep on my side with a pillow between my legs — so that final one, at least, was easy.)
Ori’s poor positioning brought with it an unexpected side effect: I was positively enormous. At only seven-and-a-half months pregnant, I already looked nearly full-term. Plus, with a pair of baby legs flopping around the bottom of my uterus, my belly no longer had the compact curve it had maintained during my first two pregnancies.
Thus, I was made embarrassingly aware of Ori’s breech-ness by continuous, well-meaning-but-pointed comments.
“Wow, that baby’s almost here!”
“When are you due — 2:30?”
And, most of all: “You’re carrying so low! You’re having a boy, right?”
It actually became uncanny. Everyone guessed boy — my mother, the hostess of our Life Group, my MOPS companions, random strangers at Goodwill, etc. Over 90% of the guesses were “boy” — much more than the statistical odds.
At first, I was encouraged by this. I wanted a boy, after all — surely this widespread consensus was a sign that I’d be getting my wish?
But, it was the craziest thing. The more that people guessed “boy”, the more convinced I became that Orientalis must be a girl, instead.
I recognized that my perception was totally ridiculous, and completely detached from evidence — since, you know, I had no evidence (beyond non-medical speculation). So really, it doesn’t matter if the entire world agrees on Ori’s sex — my child already has his or her DNA, and even widespread consensus can’t change that. But, that logic didn’t alter my gut feeling.
Of course, there were a handful of people who didn’t think that Ori would e a boy. Most notable among them is the person with [arguably] the greatest stake in the matter: Australis. My daughter, more than anyone else, has been unwavering in her conviction that Orientalis is a girl. In fact, she’s *so* convinced, she’ll unapologetically butt into my conversations when the topic arises.
A great example of Aza’s confidence occurred during my henna belly session in early March. Leah Reddell, my long-time henna artist, was back to complete this final piece. After doing a polar bear for Borealis and a manta ray for Australis, she had drawn up a gorgeous water dragon for Orientalis. I fought back a wave of sadness at the thought that Occidentalis never got his wolf.
As Leah sketched the dragon’s outline, she confirmed, “Now, you don’t know this one’s gender, right?”
“A sister!” Australis immediately shouted. “Ori is a girl.”
Not to be outdone, Bo countered, “No, Ori is a boy!”
Turning toward the kids, Leah asked, “Why do you think that?”
Aza said nothing, but Bo explained, “Because Ori looks like a boy.” — whatever that means. (Don’t all babies look the same…?) He then quickly added, “But only God knows right now.”
“That’s true, bud,” I agreed. “And we’ll find out in April, right?”
“Yeah!” the kids cheered. At that point, Taylor herded them out the door — because, compared to toddler squeals, there’s hardly anything *less* conducive to precision artwork.
As the henna wore off my belly the following week, I kept yearning for the baby within to flip. Every evening, Ori would make a solid effort to do just that — twisting to a nearly-transverse orientation that was, quite possibly, the most uncomfortable thing I had ever experienced. (Not the most painful — just, the most nauseating.)
Thus, I went to bed each night hopeful that, in the morning, my child would no longer be breech… but every morning, I could still identify my baby’s massive head.
It felt like there were so many things outside of my control: Ori’s positioning, the war in Ukraine, and even the continued use of masks at Bo’s preschool. (Thankfully, that last one ended after Spring Break.)
However, one challenge — completing The Death of Occidentalis — was nominally within my control… although, it didn’t feel that way. The story was eating me alive, and I just needed to be done with it. But, that required the most precious and rare of all resources: uninterrupted time.
The following Saturday — March 12th — my mother watched Bo and Aza in Golden while Taylor and I attended the Fort Collins wedding of one of his old roommates. It was crazy to think that nearly six years had passed since that roommate stood by Taylor as a groomsman at our wedding. (Gosh, I feel old now.)
But, life goes on, friends move away, and women show up to your wedding unexpectedly eight months pregnant. Thankfully, the bride and groom were more excited at our family addition than miffed at our lack of heads-up. They were swamped with numerous other guests, but each gave us a warm congratulations — even when we left their wedding two hours early.
I had been braced for pregnancy exhaustion during the wedding. However, I hadn’t been braced for debilitating pregnancy pain. It was quite embarrassing, actually: one moment, we were dancing to the first song of the reception; the next moment, I was writhing on the floor in agony.
“What happened?” Taylor asked in surprise.
“You hit one of my round ligaments!” I gasped.
“What — you mean like, just now? When I brushed against your belly?”
I nodded. “It’s like a funny bone.”
The pain was staggering. I literally limped back to our table, leaning heavily on Taylor’s supportive arm. There, I gritted my teeth while I waited for the discomfort to pass.
But, it lingered — and lingered, and lingered.
Eventually, though, I noticed a change in sensation. The round ligament pain had finally passed, but I was still immensely uncomfortable. I shifted in my seat, but quickly realized that the issue wasn’t my position; it was my child’s. A quick palpation of my belly confirmed the sensation.
“We need to go,” I concluded abruptly.
“What!?”
“Ori’s trying to flip. The head is like, right here, and the feet are over, like, here I think.” I indicated both sides of my torso. “So, basically straight-up transverse.”
“Ohhhh… that sounds, like, pretty uncomfortable.”
I groaned piteously in response.
Taylor looked down at his phone. “It’s only nine,” he grimaced. “Isn’t that kind of too early to leave?”
I groaned again. “Babe, I need to get on hands and knees, or this flip is gonna kill me. I think Ori’s actually going for it this time.”
To his credit, Taylor believed me. “Ok. Let’s go then.”
We said quick and apologetic goodbyes on the way out, then drove straight to our hotel. The room wasn’t much, but it did afford me a privacy that the wedding hadn’t. I immediately stripped out of my dress and did Cat-Cows on the bed until I thought I would drop.
Finally, after a prolonged period of discomfort, things finally settled out.
“I think maybe it’s over for now?” I suggested hopefully.
I collapsed onto the bed and tried to evaluate Ori’s position. I couldn’t locate a head — but that wasn’t saying much, because I couldn’t locate anything. I wondered if all the movement had caused uterine swelling, or if I was just too tired to interpret what I was feeling.
Regardless, I’d find out eventually.
And, as it turned out, “eventually” came sooner than later.
I slept terribly that night — obviously — and woke well before Taylor. Immediately, I checked my belly. Praise the LORD — I located a distinctly butt-shaped mass, right at the top of my uterus! Ori’s head had seemingly slotted into my pelvis, because I could no longer find a ball-shaped appendage anywhere.
Despite this excitement, I was still hopeful that I could return to sleep. It only took about thirty restless minutes to abolish that hope. Finally, I slid out of bed, grabbed my laptop, and retreated to the bathroom to work on my miscarriage story.
The upside was that I had been given a huge chunk of uninterrupted time. The downside was that I was struggling through Act V — which is the story’s hardest part, but also its best part. I recognized that this opportunity was a gift: a chance for me to channel all of my accumulated writing skills, sans-distraction.
I stayed in the bathroom for as long as I could — because, as thin as the walls were, at least they afforded a small amount of sound dampening. Eventually, however, my makeshift toilet-lid-office-chair became unbearable, so I slid quietly back into bed and muffled my sobs as much as I could.
The length of time that Taylor continued to sleep is either a testament to my efforts or an indictment of his character. Either way, he eventually stirred and looked up at me with sleepy eyes.
“Having fun?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
I glared at my husband, immensely jealous of his ability to sleep wherever and whenever. “Less than you,” I snapped. But, eager to share our news, I added, “But Ori for sure flipped last night.”
A smug grin spread over his face. “I told you that would happen.”
“Yeah. You’re a regular prophet.”
The following week, we celebrated two significant events: confirming that Ori was indeed head-down, and finally posting The Death of Occidentalis. Both milestones influenced my feelings about this pregnancy — but surprisingly, the latter was significantly more impactful.
I finished the first draft of The Death of Occidentalis later that same day. However, it was nowhere near ready for primetime — and neither was Faith is the Substance. Unfortunately, both still required the normal pre-publication steps: initial edits; uploading to WordPress and conversion of hyperlinks; content edits; and final edits.
I’m responsible for most of those steps, but I rely on my husband for content editing. (Mostly, he just identifies boring parts and advocates for their removal.) His role is unglamorous, but highly necessary — especially for a piece as important as The Death of Occidentalis. Even so, it was really hard to have him read through our miscarriage story. If I could have posted it in good faith without his review, I would have done so.
Eventually, both stories made it through the review process — and even better, my marriage was somehow still intact at the end of it. I published both pieces to the blog with little fanfare, then immediately started work on *this* piece.
There, I thought. I’ve done my due diligence. The story is out there, and hopefully God will place it in the life of someone who needs it.
Because, you know, I’ve learned nothing from Matthew 5:15. I definitely wanted to hide this little light of mine under a bushel.
That is, until my mother read The Death of Occidentalis. She immediately posted it to her Facebook page, and I was shocked by how many people chose to read it — including a number of my friends, too. Unfortunately for me, the message was clear: this little light was going to shine, and the only question was whether I would go along willingly, or be dragged kicking and screaming.
I chose the former.
I won’t get too meta here. I could easily wax long on the impact that Occi’s story had on those who read it — but suffice it to say, God absolutely used the piece for His glory, which is ultimately all that I can hope for.
But, in addition to that, there was an unexpected lightness that accompanied our finally sharing the story. I was encouraged to hear from so many people — that, though he never walked on this earth, Occidentalis had affected their lives. It was like we had held him so tightly for so long — but now, he belonged to many more than just our little family. In a way, my son now belongs to everyone.
I started to think more about Orientalis. Everything I wrote in Faith is the Substance is true: that Orientalis is to be our last baby, and that this child is a mystery to me. Thus, I had long feared what that would mean for me and my family, and so I’d always hoped that Ori would be a boy — because at least that would assuage some of my fears.
However, the combination of Ori’s flip and Occi’s release triggered something deep in my heart — something that I didn’t immediately recognize.
I tried to explain it to Taylor on the way home from Life Group one night. “It’s like… it’s like I’ve been drowning in fear for four years — well, almost four-and-a-half years, at this point.”
Taylor: <grunts in acknowledgement>
“But, like, when you’re drowning, the lifeguard can’t save you. They wait for you to stop struggling first.”
Taylor: <grunts in further acknowledgement>
“And I guess… I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m not scared anymore. Like, I’ve finally stopped struggling, and now I’m trusting that God can and will save me from drowning.”
Taylor: <grunts with piqued interest>
I took a deep breath and plowed on. “Like, maybe Orientalis is a girl. Maybe she’ll have autism. Or maybe Ori is a boy, but he has some other disability. Or —” I squeezed my eyes shut against an unexpected wave of tears. “Or maybe Ori won’t have a disability — but we’ll still need God’s help to effectively love him or her.”
Taylor: <grunts in sober agreement>
“I guess what I’m saying is… like, God has picked the perfect child for our family, and I’m choosing to trust Him. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m ready to meet Ori, because Ori is the exact child that God wants us to have.”
Taylor smiled and took my hand. “I love you, babe.”
I smiled back. “I love you, too.” Then, after a pause, I added, “But, there’s one more thing I have to tell you.”
Taylor: <grunts questioningly>
“I think… I think I want Ori to be a girl.”
At the time of this posting, I’m just over thirty-eight weeks pregnant. I still don’t know whether Orientalis is a boy or a girl — although, notably, all four of us are now leaning toward the latter.
[Note: Bo actually just changed his mind in the last few days. When I asked why, he explained, “Because Aza has a pair of shoes that are very, very small on her, and so Ori has to be a girl so that she can wear them.” — which is really a quintessentially ‘Bo’ thing to say.]
So. in conclusion: We look forward with hope and excitement to the arrival of our final baby, and we pray that God would prepare our hearts to love and cherish that child, forever.
[Author’s Note: I highly recommend that you next read Cooler Genes Will Prevail, which is the true conclusion to this story.]