This is not for the faint of heart or stomach. I tell it like it is/was and leave out minimal details. I feel like people think of a miscarriage as just that a miscarriage, but they don't know the intensity of emotions and physical pain one brings. SO here it all is.
I grew up w/ a close family and they still are. I always wanted to be married and have children; 5 at one time actually(children that is). I considered myself average: finished high school, had a high school sweetheart, went to prom, put off college, etc, etc, etc. Then my life actually began to take a more serious route when I met Curt in 2003. I realized I had found what life was really all about. I had the perfect family, now I had found the perfect boyfriend. We got engaged and married in 2004. Within a week or so arriving home form our honeymoon I got baby fever. With a very minimal amount of discussion, Curt was on board w/ trying right away. We had a two month time frame to get pregnant in because of my rigorous 20 credits in college so I researched everything possible to get us preggo right away. Now I know it isn't always that easy, but I felt if we were going to have issues getting preggo then I wanted to know ASAP. I took my temperature, checked myself out in ways Curt doesn't even want to know. Plus lots of the good stuff. Low and behold...we got preggo that first month! I had this good feeling right away that we were. I tested a week early and then again 6 more times and a blood test to make Curt believe it. We were on our way to parenthood!!!!
Now, I was by no means a naive person thinking I got a positive test then all must be okay. I welcomed the throwing up cause to me that was my way of thinking things must be moving along okay in there. My mother had two miscarriages and I remember talking to her one day about how scared that I would have that happen. As any mother would, she layed on any happy thoughts and convinced me I would not have a miscarriage. As most mothers, again, she was right. Our baby grew for just about 9 months before she was placed immediately in my arms seconds after birth on July 5, 2005. Complete bliss. I was a mom to the most beautiful baby girl ever!
Within months, I had baby fever again!! We talked and decided to try around September 2006. As the months wore on Curt began to get baby fever and more and more talking led us to try in July 2006. So after just some "checking" on my part, again we were pregnant our first month. I was a lot more laid back w/ this one. AT times I even forgot I was pregnant. I had a lot less symptoms which was always in the back of my mind. So on September 1, 2006 we went in for our first ultrasound. There was the cutest polka dot ever-our second baby!! We both got to see it's little heart fluttering away. I cried and just remember putting my finger over the dot of our baby on the screen. It was another surreal moment in my life.
Shortly after that my symptoms just stopped. I was no longer tired, but yet I was working 35 hours a week that I was not used to, plus taking two classes at school. Motherhood of a one year old will exhaust alone, on top of all the events in our lives at that time. That's when I became concerned. Curt kept reassuring me that we saw the heartbeat, but I would just say but how can I go from being sick all day w/ Laila to not even being tired w/ this one. Well we waited. WHile Curt told everyone and their neighbor, I carried my secret a little better. I began to worry. We had our 10 week appointment and they tried to hear the heartbeat w/ the doppler, but found nothing. The nurse said that usually it is not detected until 12 weeks, but I insisted she try since I had heard it w/ Laila before I was even 9 weeks along. Nothing. The doctor came in and I voiced my concerns about having no symptoms and he patted me on the back and said "consider yourself one of the lucky ones" and sent me on my way. Two days alter I noticed spotting blood. I ignored it at first cause it was just the tiniest bit. The next day it was heavier. I called the doctor and was told to come in the next morning. I had no cramping, but things were not right. I was an emotional wreck.
I saw the doctor and she checked me out and sent me for an ultrasound. I laid there, told the technician what was going on, just waiting for her to show me my little 10 week old baby w/ a heart beating away and legs kicking. I wanted to know that i was one of those women who had crazy things happen, but still had a good turnout. I was told to scoot up and we were sent back to the room. I began to cry and Curt held me. The doctor came in and looked at me. I said "it's not good is it?" and she just shook her head no. I cried "oh, God" and Curt just grabbed me and held me so tight while we both cried. Through our snot, tears, and waling we asked all the questions one thinks of to ask: What did we do wrong? Why did this happen? Where do we go form here? We found out the baby had stopped living about 6 weeks in. All I could think was my angel died after I saw it living-possibly the next day or even minutes after I got up form the table and I went on to carry my dead baby for over 4 more weeks. We had an option of a surgical procedure (d&c) to remove the baby. My stomach churned at the thought of that, not only am I into the all-natural medical stuff, but I'm a major advocate for pro-life. I felt like I did not want the same procedure for my dead baby that women choose to have on their live babies. We were told the risks and sent home to pass things on my own. The doctor told us to take the week off and just cuddle. She hugged us both and told us to call if we needed anything.
Within hours things progresses and I went through the most traumatic 3 hours of my life. I had intense cramps that felt like contractions and was passing buckets of stuff-clots, blood anything. I was told I would pass a large clot and things would subside. As I sat there on the toilet letting anything that could come out go. I welcomed the pain. At least it kept my mind off of what was really happening to me, to us, to our family and even worse, my dead baby. At one point I even had to push a little and something came out and plopped to the bottom. My sweet innocent baby was gone. I was an emotional zombie. This was the point where Curt and I walked on egg shells. I wanted to talk, but couldn't hold back tears. He pushed his true feelings aside to be strong for me. Each of us holding so much inside because we did not know or could even fathom what the other needed right then. What we needed was our baby back and to go on living our normal life w/ two under two on the way.
It took about 6 weeks for my pregnancy hormone levels (hcg) to go back to where we knew everything was out and to not risk any infections. Thinking back I was pretty amazed at how well my body took care of things on it's own. It took a long time for my bleeding to stop and even when it did my periods were all wacky. We were told to wait 3 cycles to try again. We waited about 5 due to my crazy cycles and again, got pregnant with our first try. I was beyond paranoid. At time it literally felt like I was having panic attacks. We told no one except my sister. I needed someone to vent to. She listened and said what I needed her to say "I'll pray for you". I could not here "it will be okay" or "I have faith". Those words did not matter. All my thoughts and prayers were devoted to this baby. We were doing blood tests (hcg) to see if things were progressing and they did great until about 5 weeks in. It was the most stressful 2 weeks of my life. Every phone call from the doctors office about my results my stomach would just drop waiting to hear the results. It consumed me. I was not being the mother i should have been or the wife I needed to be. When I found out my levels were bad, indicating another miscarriage I almost felt relief. There was nothing else to worry about. It was over for the second time in my life. I had lost another dream. An ultrasound confirmed no heartbeat or growth.
We decided to have the d&c procedure done this time cause I was not about to wait things out and be "pregnant" for 4 weeks like the last time. The night before I had another panic attack. I questioned my decision for the d&c. What if my baby suddenly came back alive, what if a miracle happened, what if the doctors were wrong? I only got about 2 hours of sleep w/ those question burning into me. The Doctor confirmed what i already knew, there was no hope. I was then wheeled down the hall away from my comfort, Curt and into a bright cold room. The out. I woke up to tears streaming down my face and the nurse only had gauze for me to wipe my eyes with. I immediately asked for Curt and they got him shortly after. An hour of eating, recovery and discussing discharge papers I was sent home. We crawled into bed and just held each other. I felt like I got sleep that I hadn't got in weeks. Anger hit me this time first, then shock then my sadness came about 3 days after the d&c where I just lost it. I saw it coming. I had my sister watch Laila and I just went back home and cried in my basement. Cried for both our losses; each special in their own way, cried for our life, cried for being a not so good mother to Laila, cried for my life to be calmed. Cried to wake up and find out it was all a dream and I was either 7 weeks pregnant or 6 months and still due in April. No such thing. It felt good to release.
I recovered really well w/ very minimal bleeding or cycle changes. Two cycles later we tried again. The doctors told us to wait one while some said try right away. We figured, let's be safe and wait two. Again, lucky us first month pregnant again. I got the positive test father's day weekend June 2007. We were excited, but very subdued about it. I felt good about things. I really felt this one would be okay. I prayed hard. Two days later bleeding started. It lasted for about 2 days then taped off. Curt's hopes were immediately diminished, but I still held out. Blood tests and an early ultrasound showed we were ahead and things were going great. We decided to not have any other testing done until we hit 7 weeks-the point we've only made it to w/ Laila. I got my levels checked the day before the ultrasound to give a little heads up as to whether things might be good or bad. The levels were really good. I still went into the ultrasound with fear, but enough hope to bring a recorder to record the heartbeat on the screen. Again, I chatted with the nurse then was told to scoot up w/o seeing anything. I thought the worse, but they fit me i for the ultrasound and I knew she was in a hurry so a smidgen held out hope that I was just being rushed along. The doctor came in the room, patted Cur ton the back and said "here we go again". I said "I'm so fucking sick of this". I was so angered. I told the doctor I wanted to stop at nothing and exhaust every test possible to figure out what was happening. The first baby resulted in no answers cause i let it go at home, the second was so deteriorated by the time the d&c happened that there was nothing to test. This one we needed answers. We got them. 4 weeks post d&c the doctor called. Normal fetus. Nothing wrong. Bad luck. Keep trying. What the fuck? You're telling me that i can have a beautiful perfect little girl and go on to miscarry 3 more and it's all fine? No way. I got a test done to check my uterus and fallopian tubes, I was put on extra folic acid, vitamin B-12 and continued with the prenatal, B-6 and baby aspirin I was on the help fix any other problem after the first miscarriage. No test seemed to find anything we could fix. It was so frustrating.
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