Probably

Today has been hard. I only have to wait 5 more days to find out if I'm pregnant this month, but I already feel like I'm probably not. And up until now I've been pretty okay with that. But then last night I realized there are precious few months between now and Liam's due date, and I always assumed I'd be pregnant again on Liam's due date, and that would soften the blow a little bit, knowing that there's hope of holding another baby in our future. But last night I realized that might not happen.

And between that and other inadequacies I've been feeling, I let my worrying spiral out of control. I started to believe I would never bear another child. That happens to women sometimes. There's no reason it should happen to them and not to me. What if that's what God wants me for? Would I be able to stand that?

I don't know. And I really hope I never have to find out. And I'm not completely convinced I won't. But I've decided there's no point in worrying over something I can't know yet.

Here's what I do know:

Probably, I am not pregnant this month. Healthy couples only have about a 20-25% chance of conceiving in any given month.

Probably, I won't conceive before Liam's due date. Between recovering from Liam's birth, having a second miscarriage, and knowing Liam took five tries in the first place, my chance of success in just two more cycles is slim.

Probably, I will get pregnant again. I've done it twice now.

Probably, my next pregnancy will result in a healthy, living baby. After two miscarriages, statistically there's a 65% chance my next pregnancy will be carried to term.

Probably, I will have more than one living baby.

Probably, if I keep trying to have the five babies I had planned, I will have another miscarriage eventually.

Probably, I am meant to contribute to the world by just doing what I'm doing. Probably, I have made a small positive effect on most of the people in my circle, and probably I won't know about most of the results of my actions. Probably, I will never be especially well-known, and I will never have an earth shattering impact. That's how most people live their lives. Probably, there's nothing more to my life than that, and God isn't saving some especially difficult path for me. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe He is. But I don't have any way of knowing yet, and probably, He's not.

I used to hate statistics after Liam died. Statistics said Liam had passed the first trimester threshold, and that meant there was more than a 99% chance of him coming home with us safe and sound. I remember Kam and I discussing when we would announce our pregnancy and I said we've got to be luckier than 1 in 100 people. But we turned out not to be.

It's left me wondering whether that makes me special. But not in a good way. Special in a "God almost never does what He did to you, so you really have no idea what He's going to do to you next," way.

But statistics don't say that probably nothing bad will happen to you. Bad things definitely happen sometimes. Negative pregnancy tests happen sometimes. Getting turned down for the job happens sometimes. Spilling mustard on your shirt happens sometimes. And probably, almost definitely, a real statistical tragedy occurs in every single person's life at some time. You just don't know which tragedy it's going to be, because each of those statistics is so small. But probably, almost definitely, it won't be all of them.

So until I'm proven otherwise, I'm going to try to believe I'm not an exception to the statistic, every time.