Found

 I am pregnant again. (!!!)  I need to write about it, and blogging without acknowleding this huge event has been making me feel like a fake.  So if it makes anyone sad, please do not keep reading this post. 
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 In October I wrote about how I lost Kayla's birthstone ring.

I forgot to write about the next part of this story.  It's beautiful.  And hopeful.  Almost a whole month later, my ring was found and returned to me.  The school nurse (whose office is right next to mine) found it in the bottom of a wal-mart sack we use when kids have accidents and need to change their clothes, or we send food donations home with the kids on the weekends.  The day I lost the ring, I had unloaded a lot of supplies for an event we had, then donated the sacks to the nurse.  But I had checked every bag once I realized I lost my ring.

So when she came up to me with my ring in her hand, asking me if anyone had reported a missing ring, I just burst into tears.  My ring had been out in the world and had made it's way back to me.  We marveled over the fact that we hadn't accidentally sent it home with a student or thrown it away.  We repeated the story over and over again to our co-workers, it is just one of those feel-good stories.  

I just felt that it was a good sign.  I'm not usually one to believe in signs or anything, but since Kayla died I've had to open my mind a little to the possibility of new types of experiences.  It felt like hope, a sign of good things to come. 

And so, without dragging this out any more than I have to, I want to share that less than a week after my ring found it's way back to me, I got a positive pregnancy test!  I didn't tell anyone, not even my husband, it was so light.  The next day we traveled to my parents house for Thanksgiving, and over the weekend the tests kept getting darker and darker.  Then I began the long, torturous wait until December 12th, when I could go to the doctor and see if there was really a baby forming or if this would be a new chapter in my grief  journey.

So, cautiously, I am sharing that I am 7 weeks pregnant, that I saw a tiny, flickering heartbeat and have a due date of August 4th, 2012.  If anything happens, I will be devastated (again).

I haven't told anyone I know in real life except my husband (and my grief counselor and my doctor), but I have too many emotions and thoughts to not share it here, with my support system.  Hopefully my family won't be offended, but I really want to wait until I am farther along to talk about it out loud.  It still doesn't feel real to me, or I feel like if I make it too real it might end in heartbreak (again). 

I thought that as soon as I got pregnant again I would feel so much more hopeful.  I'm realizing that it's making me miss Kayla even more, but I AM hopeful and trying to think positively too.  Can't wait for next week and a break from work and some time to process everything I've been feeling.