A dear friend told me she believes we aren’t given more than we can handle, and that she’s fairly certain I’m a shark; I’m fairly certain as well. I’ve been challenged, for almost a year now I’ve been consistently challenged – physically, emotionally, mentally – and I hit it, I hit the wall and I’m ready to coast – sharks can coast, right? But I can’t. Because here is another challenge…

For those of you who have been following my pregnancy journey, you know that I’ve had spotting throughout my entire first trimester. I had a pause without any spotting, and I thought that I was in the free zone, done with the scary shit, but then last week I began to spot again, brown at first and then bright red and then pink. Yesterday we had an ultrasound to see what was happening and baby girl is just fine – she’s spinning and twisting and waiving “hi” (whoohoo!!), but my placenta has covered my cervix, resulting in Complete Placenta Previa.

Now, there’s nothing I can do about this so there’s no sense in becoming too upset. What I can do, I am doing, which is meditating and visualizing my placenta moving away from my cervix. But at the same time, when you tunnel into the rabbit hole of the Internet and learn more and more about the condition you can become scared as shit – baby girl could be triggered into preterm labor (no!), and if I went into labor, I could bleed out because my placenta is literally covering baby girl’s exit path. So, a C-Section is a must. But how lucky am I that I live in a time and place that has access to medical advancements in order to safely deliver baby girl, and keep me as safe as possible?

I’m searching – I’m finding the positives.

Bed rest is no longer recommended for women in pregnancy as it can cause more harm than good (think blood clots), so I am on restricted activity for the remaining five months. But it’s interesting, this feeling that grows inside of you as your child grows, that I would do anything and everything necessary to keep this little girl safe, to protect her, to get her to this world; I suppose I’m already a mother. So I will restrict my activity. And I will meditate. And I will visualize this placenta shifting (they say that women with a complete placenta previa have a smaller chance of the placenta shifting as it can become stubborn when it’s already covered the cervix, but I will be that woman whose placenta shifts – I will be, dammit).

And each time I hit the wall and cry and feel as though it’s time for a break, it’s time to coast, I find myself needing to pull myself up and face the next challenge, but I suppose that’s just fine because I’m a stronger person now than I was yesterday or the day before, and when baby girl gets to this world I will continue being strong, setting an example of strength for her.

So…I accept my condition. I will stay away from the deep, black hole of the Internet. I will not focus on the scary shit, but on baby girl growing inside of me. I will read to her and sing to her and hope that she stays in there as long as possible. And all of these health challenges have been a lesson in accepting the things that I cannot control – a good lesson for parenthood.

But those that have book recommendations for me to read while on restricted activity – send those my way. And a heads up for the social media world – I’m going to be cutting back so don’t take offense; you can always call.

Again – thank you for reading, thank you for caring.

Xoxo.