This has been a hard week for me. I am so glad I wrote a few posts ahead of time because it’s been hard enough to drag myself out of bed and be a productive human being, much less, write a post on crisis pregnancy.

At the encouragement of a few of my blogging friends, I thought I’d share a little of my life after adoption with you today. I was determined, after entrusting Charlie to his adoptive parents, to straighten my life out and make Charlie be proud of who I have become. I was not in a good place when I had him. But I have worked hard and gotten my life straightened out.

I got married about a year and half after Charlie was born. I had my “big fat southern wedding.” I brought Noah home permanently. I started BirthMom Buds with Lani. I was relatively happy and oh, so blessed.

Some birthmoms know that the time when they have their child isn’t their time to parent, but also have dreams of a family with children one day. I was one of those birthmoms. I just assumed that one day, if I was ready, I could have more children. In no way, would they replace Charlie, but I never dreamed that Charlie might be the last, that I’d ever have a problem having children. Both my kids – Noah and Charlie – were unplanned – I thought I was “Fertile Myrtle.” I dreamed of the day when I could have a pregnancy where people say “congratulations” instead of “oh my, what will you do.”

I finally got that chance last year, when after a year of trying – yes I actually had to “try,” it didn’t just “happen,” - we became pregnant. I came up with fun ways to tell people, was happy to wear maternity clothes, I wanted to enjoy pregnancy for once!

But tragedy landed in my lap. Darcy’s heart stopped beating at about 20 weeks gestation and my baby girl became a baby angel. Nicknamed “drama queen” in my belly (because I had to go to the doctor with her so much), we gave her the name Darcy Quinn. No one knows why or how it happened. It’s “just one of those things” or so I’ve been told. In some ways, it felt like I was relinquishing Charlie all over again – but this time it was a closed adoption. My baby girl is in heaven – I never saw her, don’t know if she resembles me or J. I’ll never get to hold her in my arms or hear her utter her first word. One day, I will meet her, but it won’t be an earthly meeting.

This week, the one year anniversary of her death, was so much like Charlie’s first birthday to me. It was a day I just wanted to lie in bed and cry. In fact the whole week has been like that.

When Darcy died someone said something about the stages of grief and how I’d be experiencing and thought to myself, boy, I already know all about those!

It’s ironic that when my life is finally where I feel it should be, when I have all the things I think I need to parent, that getting pregnant and having a baby isn’t as easy as it once was.

It reminds me of the Alanis Morisette song, Ironic.

“A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic... don't you think?

It’s like rain on your wedding day,
A free ride when you’ve already paid
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”

I don’t think I would have done things any differently though, had I been able to see into the future when Charlie was born and know what would happen. I know in my heart that I really did do the best thing for Charlie for where I was at at that time in my life. If anything, it’s probably softened my heart some to understand what some adoptive parents may go through with infertility issues and reminded me what it was like to be a new birthmom.