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.