One Month Ago...

One Month Ago...

One month ago I was pregnant.  One month ago I went in to see my OBGYN because I felt strange.  One month ago I was told there was no heartbeat.  One month ago my world changed.  

The truth is I knew something was wrong from the beginning.  We had been trying for four months.  Four months of trying to create who was to be our third perfect child.  Four months of disappointment whenever I started a period.  Four months of telling myself it will happen when it’s supposed to happen.  Ugh, four months.  And, then the day came and my period didn’t.  A quick stop at the drug store.  Two trips to the bathroom.  I was elated.  We were elated.  

The planning started.  I can’t help it.  It just happens.  I think it’s a defect.  I pictured how to arrange three carseats in my SUV.  The color of the nursery walls.  The giggles between what could have been three brothers.  How the boys would protect a baby sister.  You know the planning.  The dreaming that takes place when you’re awake.  

Two weeks after our positive tests I started spotting.  Not bad spotting.  The spotting that I had with both boys.  The spotting that stopped with both boys.  This spotting didn’t stop.  I saw my doctors.  Our first ultrasound was scheduled.  I saw a heartbeat at five weeks.  A tiny (huge sigh of relief) heartbeat.  But, this ultrasound was different.  A large subchorionic hematoma surrounded 90% of the embryo.  I left with the words of my doctor pounding in my head.  “Try and stay pregnant.”  Try?  Ok, well, I’ll do my best.  

What was I supposed to do?  Not play with my kids.  Not pick them up when they wanted a hug.  Not pick them up to put them in bed or on the potty.  Lay around all day with my feet up?  I don’t lay around.  I just don’t.  Big things are happening in our house these days.  So, I went about my life as I normally would.  Being a mom to two active boys.  We told no one but a handful of people we were pregnant.  We told no one because I felt strange.  I had doubts.

Two weeks after my first ultrasound I went back to my doctor.  The bleeding hadn’t stopped.  In fact it had gotten worse.  Again, a wonderful heartbeat.  A strong heartbeat.  The hematoma was getting smaller.  40% in fact.  I was told the bleeding was from the hematoma resolving itself and that the bleeding should subside.  I left with the words of my doctor pounding in my head again.  “95% of babies after 7 weeks with a heartbeat go full term.”  Relief?  Sure.  Some.  But, it didn’t last long.  I was reminded with every trip to the bathroom that something wasn’t as it should be.  I scheduled another ultrasound for five weeks out.  I would be 12 weeks along.

At nine weeks I passed two clots.  Small, the size of dimes.  But, they were clots.  I felt funny.  I wasn’t nauseous.  I was losing weight.  I had very localized cramping on my lower right side, right were the hematoma was located.  I called my doctor and made them squeeze me in.  Something wasn’t right.  

As the ultrasound machine warmed up I kept telling myself there was going to be a heartbeat.  There had to be a heartbeat.  I’m not supposed to have a miscarriage.  The second the doctor located our baby I knew.  I’ve had enough ultrasounds to know exactly what they are supposed to look like.  There was no heartbeat.  I said it before the doctor did.  That, that was the moment that will forever be burned into my memory.  I sat there staring at our baby that wasn’t a baby anymore.  A teeny tiny human being that had slipped away from us days before I was told.  There was fluid build up, the beginning of an infection.  I scheduled my D and C after three more ultrasounds to confirm our life changing news.  

The next day I wasn’t pregnant anymore.   

I’m struggling.  What to do with the plans?  The plans that flooded every single possible second of free time.  The names we had picked out.  The ultrasound pictures of our third child.  The few items I had bought on sale to get a jumpstart on this baby’s closet.  The dreams I had of the three of them in our backyard.  The juggling three kids under three- by the time I was 30.  What do you do with the plans?  My plans haunt me now.  

I wasn’t going to write this but the truth is I was pissed.  I was pissed that this happened.  I was pissed that I marked every week out on my calendar and that I made all of these plans.  I was pissed that this teeny tiny human being would never be held.  Drool all over my shirt.  Throw up in my face.  Get grass stains on new clothes.  Get rocked to sleep.  Kiss their big brothers.  Wrestle with Daddy.  Feel the sun.  Be a part of our incredible family.  This isn’t supposed to happen, right?  Not to me it wasn't.  

A month ago I was pregnant.  Five minutes ago I took a birth control pill.  What a difference a month can make.

Now I’m faced with planning.  More planning.  But, this time it’s planning that I do not want to partake in.  When can I get pregnant again?  When should we get pregnant again?  Do I want to get pregnant again?  Planning sucks.

Two weeks post-op there I was.  Sitting in the exact same room where the planning stopped.  When I last knew that I was still pregnant.  It took my breath away.

Yesterday was a hard day.  I don’t know why, it just was.  Each day gets easier- except for yesterday.  I don’t blame myself anymore.  I did.  I know I shouldn’t have, but I did.  That just happens, too, much like the planning.  Each day I’m reminded that life goes on, as hard as it may be.  It just continues.

Why don’t women talk about this more?  I mean COME ON!  The numbers are staggering.  Thirty percent?  I thought my doctor was joking when he told me 30% of women miscarry.  Not me.  I wasn’t supposed to miscarry.  I was supposed to have a normal pregnancy full of nausea and vomiting, aches and pains from chasing my two toddlers around, and cankles.  I wasn’t supposed to miscarry.  I did.

My life is wonderful.  I look at my two boys and my phenomenal husband and know that my life is wonderful.

It’s just that some things don’t go as planned.