*** GRAPHIC CONTENT and TOO MUCH INFORMATION-Read at your own risk!***
I am not writing this to obtain unsolicited advice, no matter how heartfelt it may be. I am not writing this for sympathy, though the continued outpouring support from friends and family has been beyond helpful. I am writing this as therapy for me and perhaps a learning tool for you. A way for you to know and understand what it feels like to be in my shoes or anyone else's who finds themselves here where I am.
As long as I can remember I've always wanted to be a mother. As a matter of fact, I've never wanted to do anything else. Even through high school and college, my plan was simple; Get through this the easiest way I can so I can start my family. I was lucky enough to meet my husband while I was still in my teens and his plans matched mine. We decided to go to college together and immediately get married and start a family. Our plan would be that he would work while I raised our children. Knowing this was the plan, I went to college and selected a major that I knew would keep my interest for four years and that is where it ended. I had no plans to actually pursue a career in journalism, or at least not in the immediate future. I planned to get through the four years, get married, and be a mom. Then, maybe, after my children were in school I would consider a career in journalism...maybe.
Here I am, seven years later, childless, career-less and hopeless. Over the past seven years all of my time and energy went into starting this family we so desperately wanted. Our excitement in the early days turned to fear and most recently our fear has turned to grief. We went from picking baby names and buying homes suitable for children to sitting alone in a five-bedroom house, staring at each other, wondering where the years, our minds, our bodies and our money went. We have spent seven years of our lives as lab rats. We have been poked and prodded while our private life is on display for everyone to see. We've had painful surgeries and procedures, and taken medications that have made us mentally unstable. I have stabbed myself in the stomach up to four times a day with medications I can't even pronounce, while my helpless husband watches with tears in his eyes. We've aged far beyond our nearly 30 years, with my weight soaring out of control while my husband's hair and weight diminishes due to the stress.
Through seven years of this we've never complained as we would do anything for our children whether here on this earth or not. I would die for my children before I've even met them and my husband would do the same. Through all of this we've never given up hope on our children or each other and after years of this we finally received the wonderful news this past fall our first round of In Vitro worked. We were pregnant with twins for about five weeks before the horrible grief set in. The realization that we had finally come this far, all to lose it was beyond painful. The medical bills rolled in, while we continued to grieve. We watched my body change from the hormones and the depression, while we watched our bank account empty. All the money we had saved for emergencies, or for the wonderful day we did welcome our son or daughter, was gone. And for what? For the worst pain we have ever felt individually and as a couple. We got through our pain with the hope that we would do one more In Vitro Fertilization in March. That would give us enough time to save a little money and to get our minds and bodies ready again. This time, we used frozen embryos left over from our last In Vitro. This was supposed to be a less invasive round, but it felt just as invasive, to us, as the first. Even so, we had two beautiful embryos implanted on St. Patrick's Day and we felt right from the start that this one had taken. We prayed as a couple and with our family and friends. This time around we had a circle of people who knew what we were going through and it helped so much having a cheering squad. Two weeks later our greatest joy was confirmed. We were, in fact, expecting. We were out of our minds excited and couldn't wait to see our little baby or babies on an ultrasound screen. Two weeks later we went in for the ultrasound and though we had lost one of the twins, we had one beautiful heartbeat. We were saddened by the one loss, but so grateful for our one beautiful bean.
Weeks went by and I was not feeling myself. Of course I had the normal pregnancy symptoms such as morning sickness, but I had something else I couldn't put my finger on. I just didn't feel like I was okay. Every day I would awake and it would be a struggle just to make it to the bathroom or the kitchen for breakfast. The idea of dressing or getting undressed made me sick to think about it. I was drained beyond anything I had ever felt before. I tried to talk myself into believing this was just the normal pregnancy fatigue, but I knew in my heart of hearts something wasn't right. On top of my severe exhaustion, I experienced a lot of pain in my abdomen, which again I wrote off as a side effect of the medications I was on for this pregnancy. Even worse, I had been spotting blood the entire time, which the doctors told me was normal with In Vitro pregnancies. All of these symptoms and I still was in denial with the help of my own brain wanting this child so badly and the doctors telling us we were okay. At nine weeks pregnant I began to bleed a little heavier and I immediately called my doctor and got in for an exam. She said everything looked good and that we would do an ultrasound just in case. My husband and I cautiously looked at the screen thinking we were not going to be happy with what we were going to see, but to our amazement we saw a head, two arms, and a perfect little backbone. We saw a brain, and a little butt, and the starting of little legs. We saw a wonderfully strong heartbeat. We were even more amazed when this beautiful little being moved around and did a little "butt shake" for us. All our fears went away and we looked at each other and said "after all this time, this is really going to happen for us!." The doctors did tell us that I had a slight bleed, called a subchorionic hemorrhage, which is fairly common and that rarely ever affects the baby. The doctor told us it was perfectly normal and the bleed would work itself out. We felt confident and our doctors felt confident that all would be fine. We smiled all night long while looking at our little one's picture. We couldn't get enough of this little baby that we had wanted so desperately for so long.
Two days later we lost our beautiful baby. I woke up that morning and the spotting and pain were all gone. This was first time in months I woke up without pain. I was excited thinking the hemorrhage had drained itself. I was feeling good, though still a little nauseous from the morning sickness. By 10:00 a.m I was starving. I had hardly had an appetite the entire 10 weeks, but this particular moment I felt like I couldn't get enough food. I ate two pieces of toast, three bowls of cereal and two cans of chicken noodle soup in one sitting. I was amazed at how much I could eat after months of saltines and ginger ale. At this point I was thinking the baby just need a little extra energy since being so active the day before. Almost immediately after eating I felt the worst pain in my stomach I had ever felt before. I knew right then something was wrong. I crawled back into bed and sent my husband a text telling him I was experiencing a lot of pain. He asked me if I wanted him to come home and I told him I would let him know if I needed him to come home, but for now I was okay. The next few hours are foggy to me as I was in such pain that I blacked out off and on. Every 20 minutes or so I would get this amazing surge of pain through my stomach, back and hips. I kept trying to talk myself into thinking it was nothing, but like the entire pregnancy, I knew something was wrong. I took a couple tylenol, got into a warm bath, and went back to bed. The pain began to be more constant and I decided to get back into the bath. I knew then and there I was in the middle of a miscarriage. It felt so much like how people have described labor. I was scared, in pain, and alone. Not wanting to scare my husband I made a vow that I was going to do this alone and then deal with everything else. As the pain got more intense, my bleeding became more intense. I was certain I was going to bleed to death. At one point I felt so much pressure that I was sure I was going to burst. I knew something was happening so I reach down and grabbed whatever it was that was coming out. I looked down and in the palm of my right hand I saw what I knew was the baby. Of course it did not look like a full sized human infant, but I could see the baby's head, and the veins in his or her back. The baby was about the size of a small apple. I had remember reading that if you were to have a miscarriage that you should gather the remains and take them to the hospital with you. So, I found a tupperware dish and wrapped the baby in a paper towel and put it in the dish. I blacked out for a while after this and came to, sitting on my kitchen floor, with the tupperware in my lap. I looked down and the baby was still in there, wrapped in the paper towel, but also the placenta. Without realizing it, I had dealt with passing the placenta as well. I also, funny enough, had shaved my legs. I have no idea how or when I did this, but my legs were freshly shaven. I began to panic as my house looked like a murder took place and I was continuing to have pain and bleeding. I checked my phone and sure enough I had called my husband and my mother. I don't remember speaking to them, but I had called each of them and told them I needed to go to the hospital. My husband came home, picked me up, and took me to the ER. My parents and sister followed and waited for us in the waiting room. While I was at the ER, I gave the baby and placenta to the doctor who examined them. I, too, had an exam as well as an ultrasound, to confirm our worst fear. We did, in fact lose the baby. Come to find out, the reason I had felt so bad the entire pregnancy is that the small hemorrhage I had was causing me to bleed internally pretty badly. Normally the hemorrhage, as the doctors had said, would clear itself up, but in our case caused a blood clot that wedged itself between the placenta and my uterine wall causing the placenta to rip away. A one in a million chance, but clearly our luck in this particular department is poor.
It's been a month since this happened and there isn't a day that goes by that we don't grieve. Every day we walk past the half finished baby nursery full of baby clothes. We've kept it shut up for the most part, but we know it is there. Every day the house is quiet and every day we cry. Both miscarriages were complete coincidences and doctors tell us, still, there is nothing wrong with us. We, of course, know better and have decided, for now, we're giving up on doctors. We still have hope, but for now, we need time to heal. Physically, I am still a pretty big mess, and mentally, well, I have good days and I have bad days. My husband too. For the most part the good days are happening more frequently, which is like any other grief we've gone through before. But here we are, seven years later, after losing two sets of twins, with two failed adoptions (story for another time), losing nearly $25,000 of our hard earned money, and the dream of becoming parents fading away. Though every miscarriage is hard, unlike most people, my husband and I don't have the option to just try again in a few months. It took us seven years to even get pregnant the first time, not to mention all our money. We can't even pick up the pieces and try again. We're lost and not sure which direction to turn. We have faith that God has a plan for us, we just aren't certain of His plans. We hope His plans include children, because quite frankly, it would be a damn shame to allow two people like my husband and me, who were made to be parents, go childless.
So what do we do now? Good question. We're considering adoption again, but not ready to feel the pain if it falls through again. We're considering natural approaches to getting pregnant, but again the pain is too great when it fails. We've considered getting me back into the working world, but where do I go and what do I do? We've considered sending me back to school, but as I've said before we spent our life savings on this, so spending even more money just doesn't seem logical. So, this is where we are. We take one breath at a time and hold on to each other and to the people who mean the most to us. Though I'm not a religious person, I am faithful and believe in God. I get angry at Him and ask Him why, but I have faith He has something bigger for us, but it's hard as a human being to keep the faith when handed so much pain. I'm sure He doesn't blame me when I give Him the cold shoulder from time to time.
Please don't be mistaken that I am down and out by what I've just written. I am strong and my husband is strong. Together we are incredibly strong. There are days that are hard, but I get up and dust myself off. I don't have a woe-is-me attitude and will continue to fight as long as I need to. Again, this is not meant to acquire sympathy or opinions, just a way for me to get it off my chest and educate people in the fact that millions of people go through this every single day. Through all of this I have decided not to sit idly by, but to bring awareness to infertility and pregnancy loss. This is an epidemic and should not be shameful to discuss. This is painful and awareness should be there once and for all.
If you've read this far, thank you. If someone you know is going through this be there for them and understand how difficult their life is. If you are going through this, I am truly sorry and wish you the best of luck. Here is hoping my next bit of writing is about the beautiful baby my husband and I have adopted or given birth too. We will never give up.
