Over the years, I have had a lot of different purposes for this blog. Largely this blog was suppose to be a way to communicate about my family, and more specifically my children. My sweet little adventures. The ones I have dreamt for. As time went on, I came to terms with the idea that my life didn’t have to start when I had children. My life was – is – happening now. And I didn’t want to miss it, so I created the blog (I made my husband create it), but I never actually started it. I thought I would start it when I started my career, but I didn’t. I thought that I would start it when we started trying to give me something to do, but I didn’t. Now this is still not the way I had envisioned starting this blog, but here I am. In every way that I had not intended it to be – here is my story.
My story starts at the very beginning of April 2017. As a planner, I thought a lot about when we would try for a baby. I dreamt about it. I prayed about it. I calculated due dates. Overall, I changed my starting time a lot. And mainly it meant pushing it back. A lot of things happened to get to the time when we finally made the decision to start trying. I finally made the leap and decided not to put off my family any longer.
But it wasn’t easy. I started charting very early on in the process. I needed to know what was going on in my body. It was helpful, but it did not help us get pregnant immediately like I thought we would. We tried for seven cycles before getting pregnant. It was the biggest emotionally rollercoaster. It was terrible. I would wake up early; I would stress; I could not help it. I wanted to be pregnant so bad. We had friends get pregnant during that time. That hurt a little. We had been trying so hard and weren’t pregnant yet. We decided that it was okay for now and we would get pregnant soon. But we didn’t. The months came and went, and it was miserably stressful. I searched through tons of data and information. I looked through the statistics. I knew with six well timed cycles that our chances dropped significantly. I knew it wasn’t as long as some people, but with all the data I had, I knew we should have been pregnant already. (Even though I knew that the chances of getting pregnant each month, even with the best odds, weren’t that great.) Would we ever get pregnant? Would we ever have a child? How is it that I lived my life for so long worried about the possibility of getting pregnant, when it was really hard to do! I was stressed. I was angry. But I had to continue.
So we continued trying, and finally one day, I saw a very faint line on a pregnancy test. When you are trying, you end up taking a lot of pregnancy tests, so I knew even though it was faint, that something was definitely there. I knew that this was finally it. The date was September 14th. I waited anxiously to tell Bryan. It was still very early in the morning, and I didn’t want to wake him up. I had my own surprise. Thankfully he didn’t wake up like he had other times. Thankfully he didn’t ask me what the test said like he had in the past. I laid in bed letting everything sink in. It had finally happened, and I was so excited. I calculated my due date. I figured out all the details. I was 3 weeks and 3 days pregnant. It was so early, so I thought I had so long to wait. I was glad to have found out so early, thanks to all my charting.
When Bryan finally woke up enough and was starting to get up, I asked to turn on the light. I presented him with a onesie and laid it on the bed. He didn’t even read it. He looked at me. “Are you?” I told him I was and told him to read it. I was so excited about that onesie. I had secretly gotten it when we first started trying. It said, “Daddy, I may not be born yet but you are going to be the best daddy a kid could ever have. I can’t wait to meet you. Love, Your baby.”
We were so excited. We shared our news with people. I started feeling pregnant. The changes happened early. By that next week, I was an emotionally wreck. I started not sleeping well. As a therapist, I started trying different tools to help myself. They didn’t work. If you don’t know, I need a lot of sleep, and I treasure my sleep. If I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t do well emotionally. I cried a lot that week. I cried about everything. I got choked up when I talked about unrelated things. It was miserable. So there I was, miserable, for an entire week. I reached out a lot. I told more people so I could have more support. I got a fancy pregnancy pillow. It made sleep a lot more comfortable, but it didn’t really help. I would wake up in the middle of the night and cry for hours. Nothing helped. Until the next week. I could finally sleep! I still would wake up early thanks to digestion problems. Pregnancy really wrecked havoc on all areas of my body. During that week, even though it was early, I got a lot more attached. It was one thing I could do. I started talking to my baby. I told my baby all my hopes and dreams and fears. I promised that Bryan and I would take care of the baby. I promised to do everything I could to take care of my baby. I told the baby to “grow, baby, grow” and I would take care of the rest. I started writing letters to the baby as a way to journal. I fell in love with my baby. It was so early. My baby didn’t even have a heartbeat! Didn’t even have ears! But I loved my baby. With everything I had.
I was really anxious and nervous. It came with the hormones. I worried about keeping my job and making it through the pregnancy. I worried about coming back after maternity leave. I worried about finances. I worried about car seats. I worried about other people. I worried how they would handle the news. I worried about how it would affect my job. I worried if I would be a good mom. I worried about parenthood. And I worried about my baby. I checked the miscarriage rates daily. I watched the numbers go down. Some times were harder than others. When I cried for the entire week, nothing I did could help reframe my thinking. But after that week, I was able to reframe a lot. I was able to have a tiny bit of peace. I told myself that if something was wrong, it was already wrong, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Something was wrong.
We waited anxiously for our first appointment. I was so nervous. I was hopeful too. It was October 6th. Before we left the house, I hugged Bryan. I told him that no matter what I still loved him. I would always love him.
They were running behind at the doctor’s office and I was a nervous wreck. When we finally went back for the sonogram, we both knew something was wrong right away. I couldn’t see the baby on the screen. The tech said that she was trying to see with another angle. We knew that was it. She asked me about my cycles. I told her I was positive about my dates, and that based on my dates, I should be measuring a day ahead. She explained that right now the pregnancy sac was measuring at 5 weeks. I should have been 6.5 weeks. She explained that if my dates were wrong than everything we were seeing would be normal. It was normal not to see the baby at 5 weeks. But I was 6.5 weeks. I should be able to see my baby. I should be able to hear the heartbeat. She was hesitant to give me any kind of confirmation and explained that they would need to do another sonogram later but agreed that she was a little nervous. I started to cry as she finished taking her measurements. By that point the process was uncomfortable and painful, and I didn’t want to be there anymore. She offered us a sonogram picture. We took it. I gave it to Bryan and didn’t look at it much. There was no baby to see. I got dressed and moved into another room to wait for the nurse practitioner who does the confirmation appointments.
It took her awhile to get there and the nurse was asking me all kind of questions about pregnancy that overall made me feel more like something was wrong. Bryan and I talked a little. We texted people that knew. “Most likely non viable.” “No baby.” It was the nightmare. It was three weeks of wasted time. Three weeks of misery. I had had no spotting. No bleeding. But there was no baby. It was only a short time that the baby grew.
The nurse practitioner explained that she sees this a lot and everything ends up fine. I cried as I explained how I was charting. She tried to explain that even with charting the dates could be a few days off. I snapped back that it could be a few days off, not a week and a half. I told her how early I found out. She stopped and clarified how long I had known about the pregnancy. I responded, “three weeks.”
“Oh.”
She gave us information about miscarrying. She said it was better if it happened naturally. She explained that if it didn’t happen in a few weeks that we would need to discuss a d&c because the risk of infection could go up. She had another tech take my blood to verify my blood type and to confirm that the “pregnancy was non viable.” One blood draw wouldn’t give me any information. They would take it again on Monday morning, and then compare the numbers. It needed to go up, and it needed to double.
We went home and cried a lot. I canceled the rest of my day. It was so difficult. I wanted to do everything I wasn’t suppose to do in pregnancy but I couldn’t. I was still pregnant. Bryan told me that he called him Philip (that’s not the name we later decided on). “It’s a boy?” I cried more. Bryan asked if there was any way there could still be hope. I explained how there was not. And if by some miracle there was hope, that something would be seriously wrong with the baby.
I went to supervision at work anyway that day. I needed some normalcy. The distraction was helpful. I cried a lot that weekend. All my hopes and dreams were shattered. I missed my baby.
I went in again on Monday for the next blood draw. The tech explained the result of my first blood draw and how the next one needed to double. I was told that the results would be in first thing Tuesday morning, and they would call me. I was so anxious waiting. I knew there would be no new information. I started to feel hope. I knew it was denial. It’s weird being a counselor and being aware of myself going through the stages of grief. I waited anxiously all morning and stayed home until my first appointment. I called the doctor’s office at 10:00. I left a message for the nurse. I knew I needed this information today, but I knew I had no good time to answer a call for the rest of the day. By my last appointment, I still had not heard anything. If I got the call during the appointment and did not answer, the office would be closed by the time I was done with the appointment. When I got to the appointment, I explained that I was waiting for a call from my doctor. They finally called during my appointment, so I couldn’t ask all the questions I had. My hormone levels had gone up but “not appropriately for pregnancy.” They had not doubled. This was confirmation. But this was annoying. My body still had no idea that something was wrong. I felt like a graveyard. I carried my dead baby. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t want to have all these symptoms. I wanted this to be over. I made an appointment to talk to the doctor.
More waiting. The appointment was over a week away. There was already so much waiting. That was the worst part. I waited to miscarry and researched my options. I decided I couldn’t continue waiting and would take the d&c. After I decided that, I was terrified to miscarry naturally. I read stories about what it could be like. It could be simple. It could be like labor and birth. It sounded miserable. The entire process was already miserable.
My next appointment was October 19th. Bryan took off to come with me again. I had to have another sonogram. That felt like torture. I asked a lot of questions. I was so nervous. I should have been 8.5 weeks now. The pregnancy sac had grown 5 days in two weeks. There was still no baby. So now the pregnancy sac measured 5 weeks and 5 days. She called it a blighted ovum. I still had a hemorrhage, which was there last time. She told me that meant that I might have spotting before miscarrying. I talked to the doctor. I was glad to see familiar faces this time since I normally work with the doctor. She explained everything. She told me that if I wanted to try to miscarry naturally, she would give me two more weeks at most. I told her I wanted this to be over. We sat down with the scheduler. She was able to schedule the surgery for Monday. It was inconvenient for work, but I knew I needed this to be done as soon as possible. She gave me information for a number to call if I miscarried over the weekend.
I was in a panic all weekend about miscarrying. On Saturday I had a small amount of brown spotting. I prayed that it was just the hemorrhage. I was terrified of miscarrying naturally at this point.
I made it to Monday (October 23). I was suppose to be 9 weeks pregnant today. The waiting was miserable. I got to the hospital at 10:15 as scheduled. It was a weird feeling. It was a sad feeling to be “getting rid” of my baby. I was very worried. I knew the procedure was simple, but I knew the hormones and the emotions would be really hard. I cried when they first took me back after the nurse left for me to get changed. They were suppose to let Bryan come back after my IV was in. She let him come back then when she saw me crying. I had to sign all the general consents for surgery – that I could receive a blood transfusion if needed, that I could have CPR if needed. I also had to sign information for fetal death and the remains. That was hard. The signature line said “mother” where I had to sign. Bryan came in to be with me as they got my IV started. We waited around a lot at that point. The hospital was running behind, and then my doctor was running behind. The anesthesiologist came to talk me through the procedure. He explained the extra medicine I would get today to help with pain. “Today is not a day to suffer through the pain.”
It was 45 minutes after my appointment was scheduled and nearly three hours after we got to the hospital when my doctor came and they took me back for the surgery. They told me that they were giving me something to relax me. When I got on the table, I started crying really hard. They gave me oxygen and told me I was doing great. I remember crying hard into the oxygen mask, and then I don’t remember anything else. I woke up in recovery and had some pain. They gave me more medication. I asked to roll on my side to help with the pain. Then I asked when I could see Bryan. I started crying again. I didn’t feel up for moving, but they said they could take me to the other room so I could be with Bryan. I cried some more as Bryan sat with me until we could leave. We left 4 and a half hours after getting to the hospital. This was not the labor and delivery that I had imagined.
Now I’m at home, in some pain, and grieving. It’s hard. There are no other words for it. As I go through the rest of this process, I have no idea what lies ahead. I’m working on getting through each moment. Each moment for myself – my physical health, my mental health, and each moment without my baby. I have amazing support, but it’s the worst experience I have been through.
Today I am a mother. The only experience I have with motherhood is loss. I have lost my first child. He will forever be missed. And I will forever be changed.