I’ve thought and hesitated about writing this post for a
while. This is one of those posts that is not all sunshiny. It’s also long. You’ve
officially been warned. I mostly decided I wanted to share this story because
the more and more I read from bloggers with a similar experience, the more and
more I realized how isolated you can feel when dealing with loss. Finding
others with a similar tale has helped me, so I’m writing today in hopes that maybe
I can help someone too.
One Year. Today. It’s officially been a whole year since my
D&C. July 12, 2012. It was awful. I had just lost my father-in-law exactly
two weeks, to the day, before, now I was losing my baby. I don’t remember much
from that day. Everything was just black.
 |
| Me and the hubs with his mom and dad. |
We had told my father-in-law we were pregnant on Father’s
Day. We gave him a picture of him and my hubby, when he was a little boy. They
were wearing their matching Batman t-shirts. With the picture we also gave him
a Batman onesie. He didn’t get it at first. I think he was trying not to be too
presumptuous. After all, it was only six months since we had had our first miscarriage.
He didn’t handle that loss well, at all. We were so excited to give him his
gift and when we told him, he cried. It was an amazing joy for all of us. We all
needed that happy moment. He had been battling cancer, and losing. When he died
on 6/28/12, eleven days after we had told him, we felt so blessed that he at
least knew about the baby. When we went in for our first ultra sound and found
out the baby had stopped developing my first semi-rational thought was how glad
I was that I didn’t have to break the news to Marty.
I have written before about how 2012 was the worst year of
my life so far. Technically it started December 14, 2011. We hadn’t been trying
to get pregnant, the first time. A girlfriend of mine had recently been
married, I was a bridesmaid, and the day after her wedding she told me about a
dream she had had where I had a little girl. I tried to laugh it off, but it
seemed to linger with me. I had never paid much attention to my cycle, so I
didn’t know what a “normal cycle length” for me was, but on 12/9 I couldn’t
stop thinking about babies, for some reason. When I looked at the calendar I
realized I was at least past the 28-day average, so I took a test. PREGNANT.
Hubs and I went through about every emotion possible in about 24 hours. By the
next day, as we were walking the Reindeer Romp, instead of running it as
originally planned, we were ecstatic about becoming parents. 12/14, less than a
week after we had found out we were pregnant, I started bleeding, heavy, at
work. I had gone to the doc for a blood
test the day before, so I called them as I tried to make my way home without
going into a fit stage. I had had a chemical pregnancy. Many women don’t ever
know they have this kind of a miscarriage. Some doctors don’t even classify it
as a miscarriage, since the egg never properly attached to the wall. Just
enough to trigger the start of the hormones. Honestly, if I hadn’t of had baby
on the brain I would’ve never tested. But I had tested and it was a devastating
loss for us and for our parents, who hadn’t even known we were pregnant yet, we
were going to tell them at Christmas. I went in for my annual early Jan and was
given some suggestions for when we wanted to start trying. We thought maybe we’d
wait, since we hadn’t been trying, but after having gotten to a state of excitement
to be parents, there was no turning back for us. We were definitely ready to
start trying, after the recommended waiting time, of course.
We found out the second time on our anniversary weekend. It
couldn’t have been better timing. We went to our first meeting with the doc’s
office to discuss the process. Our first ultrasound was scheduled and we signed
up for classes. We told his parents and my dad on father’s day. My mom was
going to be coming in to town soon, so we decided to wait to tell her in
person. Our hearts broke when we lost Marty, but we had hope for the future
still. Mom bought us a crib to celebrate. I started having very minor spotting
so my ultrasound was moved up by a week. We weren’t worried. We had made it to
week 11! Then the tech quietly tells us that the baby’s measuring at only 6-7
weeks and there’s no heartbeat. If she said anything else after that I didn’t
hear it. My world went deaf. A “missed miscarriage” they called it. Simply put,
even though the baby had stopped developing my body still though it was
pregnant, so it didn’t trigger the opening of my cervix to remove everything. The
doc came in and we discussed the next step. Since I was spotting my body would
probably naturally start the process in a few days to a couple weeks. I could
be given a medication to trigger it all to start right away. Or I could have a
D&C. I didn’t want to see that kind of blood again and I wanted to just get
it over with, so I opted to do the D&C. It was more immediate and had more
control as well, which appealed, since I felt like I had no control over
anything at that moment. It was scheduled for the next morning, 7/12/12.
It doesn’t seem like it’s been a year already. What makes
today harder is the fact that we haven’t been pregnant in that year either. In
that year, however, we have found our optimism again. We’ve ran tests. Lots of
tests. Results led to me being put on a daily baby aspirin, to try and help
prevent future miscarriages from clotting; probably what caused mine, and the
knowledge that I’ll be put on progesterone once we conceive again. Other than
those, considered fairly minor issues, both the hubs and I are perfectly healthy
and capable of conceiving, according to the doctors. We’ve started trying to
take a more relaxed approach to our situation, to avoid putting too much stress
on us, although, if we can conceive while we’re dealing with a parent who is battling
cancer, I don’t see how stress is our issue. Of course, it has been nice not
waking up and reaching for a thermometer every morning. Earlier this week, we
thought maybe, since I was 8 days late, but after 3 negative tests I finally
started. I think the HSG (a test to check that your cervix & tubes are open)
that I had on day 7 of my cycle, which caused some minor bleeding, screwed with
my body enough to cause the delay. We’ve decided to give it through the rest of
the year before we start to discuss other steps and options. For now we are
thinking happy thoughts, enjoying “us time”, and trusting in God’s plan for us.
After we met with the doc last month both the hubs and I walked away agreeing
we had a good feeling about everything, and that
is the best feeling you could have when dealing with any matter. It’s one we
haven’t had since December 2011.
For those who are new to this kind of loss. I’m sorry. Keeping
your faith is the best piece of advice I can give you. Also, talk. As an expert
rug-pusher, I know it’s not easy to bring up a subject like this with anyone,
especially if they have no experience with it, but no good will ever come from
keeping it bottled up. If you don’t have someone to talk to, talk to me. I’m
happy to talk to anyone about anything, even if it’s not related to this topic.
