Mind of a Soon-To-Be-Father: What might have been - Our Beansprout

No matter what happens with Val's pregnancy, no matter how we tend to complain about her symptoms, pains and annoyances, know that Val and I are in total bliss and thankful for it all, because we should have already gone through it by now.

Our families, some of my co-workers and a very few of her friends know, but for those who don't, it was a year ago this week that Val suffered a miscarriage and we lost our little Beansprout, the nickname we gave to the little baby that was going to be due the first week of February of this year.

In April of last year Val and I decided we'd had enough time to ourselves and started trying for a baby Valfrey, and succeeded the first time off of birth control. The first positive test was Friday before Memorial Day. And the second. And the third. And the fourth. By Sunday we were pretty sure, so we very very excitedly showed the evidence to my family as we all gathered at Perkins for breakfast before everyone left town to go home.

Our parents were so thrilled, and it made us even more so, providing a third grandchild for each set. At the same time, three of her cousins were expecting as well, so it was going to be a big year for my father-in-law's side of the family.

We had the eight-week ultrasound in mid-June and the cute little picture to show everyone our little Beansprout (Val's nickname growing up was Bean, so it seemed a cute link).

A couple of weeks later, however, while we vacationed at Chickasaw State Park, Val began to get worried that something was wrong. When we returned home we went to the doctor, who performed the 12-week ultrasound a week early, and delivered the bad news. The baby's heart wasn't beating anymore.

That was just absolutely devastating. The next couple of days were horrible, even more so as we waited for the miscarriage to come naturally, which it did in the middle of the night on a Thursday night/Friday morning. The next month was depressing (you might remember that I cryptically noted on my blog a few times about how bad our late summer had been), and then Val had health problems that developed and made it difficult to try again soon.

By Christmas we started anew, yet didn't think anything would happen for awhile because we had a tough time pinpointing her cycle despite ovulation kits, ovulation temperature gage and all kinds of daily research.

As you know now, we were blessed sooner than we thought and Cooper is growing inside Val's ever-growing tummy, due November 8, and now you know why we might seem a little overly ecstatic sometimes, and despite any bemoaning, there's nothing negative about the experience and the joy of making a baby!