In search of my rainbow

In August 2008, three and a half months pregnant, I found myself in Hong Kong for a business trip. Channeling my inner traveler that used to be, I snuck off to the Kowloon night market. Since I couldnt risk sampling the street food, I bargained for fake Pradas, picked up $1 knick knacks for my nieces and nephews and sat down with a psychic. It wasnt the first time. Its one of my favorite traveling pasttimes. I write down what they say and put it away to look back to see if anything they said actually true.

Dressed in an oversized shirt that hid my growing belly, I randomly picked a man in a long line of tables on a dark street. He spoke enough English to ask me for $20 and a few pertinent dates that I no longer remember. He then wrote numbers frantically on a dirty piece of paper circling important information. "You will have two sons. One born in 2008, one born in 2011." Three years in between kids? I was too old for that. And I was due in 2009. And wow, I was having a boy. My husband and I opted to wait until the baby was born to find out the sex. He went on to tell me that I was with a good man that would provide for me. We would have a nice life without much illness. After I left him, I took a cab back to the Four Seasons, scrubbed off the street grime and in the morning, flew back home, putting aside the night before.

Three and a half months later when I was just 29 weeks, 6 days pregnant, my son was born. In 2008, just like the psychic had foretold. For a year it was something I laughed about until I found myself pregnant in November 2009. The doctor proclaimed it, "A perfect pregnancy" at my eight week ultrasound. The psychic must have been wrong, I told myself, but like any woman in her first trimester, I was on pins and needles. I guess I shouldnt have been surprised when I went in for the CVS. Moments after my husband and I giggled at ultrasound images of our baby moving around, the doctor put a hand on my arm and told he was concerned. The nuchold was much too big for a baby of his gestational age, a strong indicator a chromosomal abnormality. At best, there was a 50% chance I'd deliver a healthy baby. I didnt need to wait the three days for confirmation that indeed our son had Trisomy 18. I knew. I wasnt supposed to have a baby until 2011. I took small comfort in that it was a disease "incapitable with life" and that he was a boy. Even if we had not terminated, he would have more than likely died in utero or within hours after a premature birth.

We began trying for a rainbow - the baby that comes after a loss - as soon as the doctor okayed it. I should have known it wouldnt happen right away. The baby couldnt be born in 2010. After four months, I turned to a specialist. Four months and four unsuccessful IUIs later, we upped the ante and moved to IVF which brings us where we are today.