October 9, 2014

Dealing with it

The next few days and weeks were really difficult. I was away from my husband and trying to deal with the loss of a second baby. Now, some may think it's silly that I was so upset over these losses considering that I knew that I was pregnant for such a short time, and to those I say I hope you never experience it. For a couple who has so badly wanted to be parents, it was devastating.

I wouldn't say that I was necessarily ever depressed or am right now, but I have noticed a few things about myself.
  1. I have found comfort in food. As much as I don't want to admit it and want to ignore it, I've put on quite a few pounds that I am hoping to lose soon. 
  2. I became obsessed with finding a reason. I went to the doctor and she wanted to start testing right away, but due to insurance requirements, we would have to suffer a 3rd loss first. I hope it never comes to that. 
  3. My baby fever has become even worse. I hope our chance comes soon!

Bean #2

The doctor told us to wait at least one but preferably 2 cycles before trying again, but we didn't completely follow the rules. I was still taking ovulation tests and trying to get pregnant again as quickly as possible, because I figured it would help me heal. Each month, shortly before my expected period, I would start obsessively testing and hoping that it was our chance.

July 12th was our day! Again, I wanted to wait to tell my husband but when the digital test said "Pregnant 1-2" I couldn't keep it to myself. He was cautiously optimistic and excited and again we decided that we would get overly excited. Yeah, that didn't last, again. We were already talking about names!

I left 3 days later for a month-long trip to visit family. We didn't want to tell our families because it was still early, so we decided that every week milestone that we met would be followed by Eric reading that information to me over the phone from a great book that we had. I was a little nervous because my tests were getting only slightly darker, similar to the last pregnancy, but we decided that we had to be in the clear because a very small percentage of women have recurrent miscarriages.

I arrived in Michigan on a Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I woke up and ran to the bathroom to test again expecting to see a nice, dark line. What I saw was the complete opposite. It was almost gone. I called Eric, at three in the morning his time, balling. We decided to tell my mom and dad since they would know something was wrong.

The next few days, I tested multiple times a day. The tests started to get darker again so I thought "Maybe we ARE in the clear". Sadly that wasn't the case. July 22nd I woke up, grabbed a digital test, took the dog out, went to the restroom, took the test, wiped and saw brown. Again. It was in that moment I knew that our second pregnancy had failed. On top of it all, the test said "Not pregnant". I was supposed to go into the doctor when I got back in a few weeks for blood work and an ultrasound, so I called to cancel. The nurse basically told me that I was crazy and I wasn't miscarrying, but I knew. The next day I started bleeding heavily and was in excruciating pain both physically and mentally.

October 8, 2014

Bean #1

My husband and I got married October 26, 2013 but we didn't go on our honeymoon right away because of work. Instead, we delayed our honeymoon until March 2014. We discussed starting a family many times but decided to wait until after our honeymoon. But I really had baby fever, so it was tough for me to wait those 5 months.

Our honeymoon came and we had a fantastic time in the sun. I had just stopped using the birth control pill, so we were hoping to get our family started soon. At that point, it was in God's hands. When we got home, life went on as usual. But as my expected period approached, I started to feel off. My period was supposed to start, but it didn't. I was so excited and took a pregnancy test but it was stark white and I was crushed. The next few days I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

April 6th- It was one of the happiest days of my life. We got our positive pregnancy test! It was so light that I could barely see the line, but it was there! Our first month trying! I was going to wait a few days to tell my husband to make sure I was FOR REAL pregnant but I couldn't hold off. I told him right away! We were both over the moon excited, but we agreed that we weren't going to get too excited because we knew of a few people who had recently miscarried. That didn't last long. That night we were already discussing our plans of when and how to tell our parents, looking at our potential due date (December 10th, by the way). We knew we were going to tell our families around Mother's Day and we were so excited!

The next few days, many of the symptoms started to disappear. I also noticed that the ten million tests I was taking after the first positive test were barely getting darker. That's what made me worry. I talked to my sister and she assured me that it was probably okay. But the next day I still wasn't feel good about it so I called and scheduled blood work. Thursday I got my blood work and Friday morning didn't go by fast enough because all I wanted was those results.

Friday afternoon on my drive home from work, I received the call and was so excited. But I could immediately hear the concern in the nurse's voice. She told me that my beta numbers were only 89. With my research online, I knew that was fairly low for 5 weeks. She reminded me that beta numbers don't mean anything until the doubling time was known so I needed to come back on Monday.

I was a wreck because I was so scared and anxious for Monday. We decided to stay in that night because I wasn't in the mood to do anything. I went to bed around 8pm because I was exhausted but woke up at 10pm because my back was hurting. I immediately went to the bathroom and felt relieved when I didn't see blood. I downstairs by my husband so he could rub my back and after a few minutes we decided to go to bed. While he let the dog out, I, for some reason, decided to go check again. This time, I saw exactly what I didn't want to see. Brown. A lot of brown.

We ended up spending 8 hours in the ER that night. Nothing was seen on an ultrasound and we discovered that my beta that night was already down to 13. 89 to 13 in 24 hours. We knew it was done. In the span of one week, we skyrocketed to the highest point on life's emotional roller coaster all the way do the absolute bottom. Our  baby, with whom we had already began bonding, was gone. We would never get to meet him/her. We would never get to name him/her. We would never get to hold him/her. We would never get to say the words "I love you" to him/her. Gone.

It was the most traumatic experience of my life, of our lives. I took off work for a few days because emotionally, I couldn't be in a classroom full of teenagers, some of whom were pregnant themselves. Sunday and Monday I had no other symptoms, but Tuesday is when the true miscarriage began and it was again traumatic. I had  started to feel a little better only to have that awful reminder that my body had failed me.

I met with my doctor a few days later and he told me it was more than likely a chromosomal abnormality and most women go on to have healthy pregnancies after miscarriages. He told us to wait a few cycles and begin trying again.

Slowly, I started to get back to normal. I realized the miscarriage was not my fault. I realized that this was a part of God's plan for us and that he would grace us with a baby when the time was right. I realized that life had to go on. Thankfully I have an extremely supportive husband who let me cry on his shoulder, burst into tears at completely random times, and talk about our pain openly. Plus, I had very supportive parents and an awesome sister who was so helpful. They are who got me through that difficult time.

Here I find myself.

Well, here I find myself. 27 years old. Married for a year to the most wonderful man. Mom to an adorable fur baby. Without any human babies. I have to admit that it's not exactly where I had planned to be at this point in my life.

Now, don't get me wrong. I feel beyond blessed with and so thankful for my life, especially because I have an amazing husband and fur baby, as well as extremely supportive family in friends. But I really thought that I'd at least be pregnant right now or with a child. Sadly it just hasn't worked out that way, but I hope it does soon!

To give a clear explanation of why I'm here, I will include my story in a few posts so that they aren't too long. After, I hope to document my journey from this point forward and include any information that may help me, and in turn others, along the way.