Sadness and Disappointment

Well, I intended this blog to chronicle my training for the Portland marathon - that obviously didn't happen!  I will say that the training went OK.  I ended up with a muscle injury that hampered the last 3rd of my training program, plus JD and I got pregnant, which really slowed me down.  Jocelyn predicted that I was pregnant when I had a horrible time keeping up on our 13 mile training run. I ended up dropping from an ~12 min/mile pace to a 15 min/mile pace.  But I kept going up until the last training run.

As with my earlier pregnancy, which we miscarried at 9 weeks, I had spotting at 7 weeks.  They got me in for an ultrasound, and things looked OK (not great), and they told me not to run the marathon.  I made the decision, after lots of stress & consulting with lots of people (except family - sorry Mom), that I would still go ahead and run, unless I had more spotting.  Unfortunately, 1 week later, after the 2nd to last training run, I had spotting again, so decided not to run the marathon that Sunday.  It was a fairly easy decision for me to make since I had a concrete decision point - if X, then Y.  And with the horrible weather on Sunday (I swear that some runners should have swum instead of run!), I wasn't too upset to not be out there for 6+ hrs.

My entire family came out (Mom, Dad, Sister, Mother-in-Law), and we cheered for Jocelyn, who did amazing! She met her pace time, and finished strong.  We didn't get a chance to cheer for Amy, but she also did awesomely, and finished 30 min faster than she expected!  After the marathon, JD and I put the family to work - Julie and Mom removed all of the hideous wallpaper from the 3rd bedroom (ultimately going to be a nursery), Dad and JD tiled the woodstove alcove, and Sarah made us more curtains - kitchen & long window next to the side door.  They look great and keep the cold out.

My first OB appointment was the next Friday, the 15th, and we got heartbreaking news.  The baby had died probably right after the ultrasound 2 weeks earlier.  We were devastated - we had been told that the first loss was a fluke, and we shouldn't have to go through this again.  Instead, we are now waiting to miscarry and we will have testing once my cycle gets back to normal.  We are lucky that getting pregnant is the easy part for us - I feel so badly for women who try for months/years and then miscarry.  Plus both miscarriages have been early - while still a loss, it makes it easier to bear.

The blessing has been the love and support from family, friends, and co-workers.  Friends brought chocolate and fresh picked fruit, we received beautiful flowers from friends out of town, and a co-worker picked I swear every remaining dahlia from her garden for us.  We have received calls, e-mails and texts of love and support.  I have been lucky that the weather has been beautiful, so I spent nearly all weekend outside in the yard - working in the garden, reading, relaxing.  This weekend, JD's ambulance has been stationed in Hoodland, so he and his partner get to stay at our house, which has been fun.

It turns out that as a friend's mother (who was a midwife) had said, the die had been cast, and running the marathon wouldn't have mattered.  I certainly don't regret not running the marathon - it was the right choice given the information I had at the time, but I'm disappointed.  All that training, and I didn't do the race.  I had said that I wouldn't do a marathon again, but we'll see... the last 3rd of the training is the tough part, but if I start out in better shape, maybe it will be easier.

Anyways, I plan to update the blog more frequently with pictures of our house projects, miscellaneous ramblings, and musings on green living, along with more pictures.  This was a post that I needed to get our of my head, so thank you all for reading, and for your love & support!