Life and Love: Miscarriage and Ectopic Pregnancy Losses Part 1

This blog post has been on my mind a lot lately maybe because God knows someone out there needs to read it. Maybe it’s for my own benefit. This is going to be a three part series because it’s long but I hope that this will benefit someone out there, in letting them know they are not alone, to encourage someone that there is hope after a pregnancy loss.
I have been pregnant six times and I have four children. The first time we found out we were pregnant was December 23rd 1999. Funny how the day and even what I was doing sticks in my mind. I was so extremely crabby, I was vacuuming our living room and when my hubs came home from work I sent him to the store for a pregnancy test. We were not trying to conceive, we were using birth control and we had only been married for about 17 months. He came back, our friends came over and sat with us while we waited. Sure enough, there were two lines, I was pregnant! I freaked out, I cried, I was not ready to be pregnant, I was scared, I was not in control. After a while I calmed down and was a little more rational.
Later that night we decided to call our parents and tell them they were going to be grandparents,  early Christmas present for them and sharing the news with other people helped us to be more excited.   We also found out that some friends of ours were also pregnant and we would be due within days of each other.  I was starting to feel better, was starting to get a little excited yet I was still unsure.
I had never been pregnant before but from the very beginning I always felt like there was something wrong. The clinic here does not see a pregnant woman until she is 10 to 12 weeks along and I was only 5 so it would be a few weeks before I would see a doctor.  I tried calling another clinic 30 minutes away and they would see me about a week earlier so I decided I would just have to wait it out and I was probably worrying for nothing.
Life continued on for a few more weeks and then on January 6th, I had some spotting but it was mostly brown. Sorry if it’s tmi but it’s just part of my story. I called the nurseline and they told me that it’s not uncommon to have some spotting or brown discharge early on in pregnancy, it could be implantation bleeding, just watch it and take it easy for the rest of the night. I tried not to freak out and just hung out on the couch but eventually the bleeding increased and my neighbor who was a nurse decided we should go in to the ER. We went in, they took some blood, they examined me and told me that yes, I was probably having a miscarriage, call the OB tomorrow and tell them what is happening. That was it. I don’t really remember the rest of the night.   The next day was my husband’s 23rd birthday and also the day of our very first ultrasound.  The ultrasound tech was just wonderful, her name was Emily and she was so kind and compassionate, unlike the doctor in the ER the night before. We were told that the sac was empty, I was having a miscarriage and to just wait it out.
They sent us home and the waiting game was on. We waited until the following week, went back in, still bleeding, still pregnant. After doing this for almost 4 weeks the doctor finally told me that I had to have a D&C because my body wasn’t doing what it needed to and they had let me wait long enough.  I did not want a D&C, did not want to be put out, did not want to deal with all of this.  In a way, I was still pregnant, I hadn’t lost the baby.  They also handed me a pamphlet that talked about how the baby would be buried in the cemetary across the street under a tree.  The baby was too small to require a funeral but with a D&C they take the remains and bury them together once a month.  I remember sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office and trying so hard not to cry, surrounded by pregnant women, scared and alone in my grief.
On February 4th I went in tot he clinic and had a D&C procedure.  Physically I was fine, I felt normal but inside I was hurting.  I was depressed, I didn’t do anything but stay home all day and watch tv or sit on the computer.  I didn’t really know anyone who had been through a miscarriage and we had only been living in this town for about a year so we didn’t have a lot of friends or support where we lived.  I eventually found some women in an online community on Babycenter and that was really helpful, to be able to talk with someone who was going through what I was going through.
During this time we were attending a church in town but it didn’t have a lot of young people our age and I didn’t grow up in a church so I didn’t know that maybe our church should have come alongside us in this time of grief.  When I think of women who have lost babies and how our current church has reached out to them, I am so thankful!  To have people to walk along side of you during this time of loss is so so important.  That is why I want to share this story and also give you a few more links from women who have also lost babies, you are not alone!!
In April we found out we were expecting again, this time we actually tried to conceive!  I was so excited and also so worried, I was constantly checking to make sure I wasn’t bleeding and I was so relieved when we were able to get in early and have the blood draws to make sure my numbers were increasing like they needed to and then to have an ultrasound at 6 weeks to see the little jelly bean all safe and snug in the sac!
Our due date was December 28th but I ended up being overdue which led to being induced and so we went in on January 7th, the night of my husband’s 24th birthday.  I was so thankful that God redeemed that day for him, making one year later a happy day, the day we go in to have our first baby!  Well she wasn’t born until January 9th but that was ok, we were just happy to have a healthy baby girl!

After that we had 2 more healthy beautiful babies. We were not sure if three kids was the stopping point for us or not.  We had scheduled a vasectomy a few times and then I’d call my hubby and ask him to cancel because I wasn’t sure I was ready to be done. So our life as a family of five just continued on for a few years…….

 

To be continued!

Here are a few other blog posts on pregnancy loss, I am sure there are more out there.

Thank you for reading this post and I pray that if you have lost a baby, you will find hope and healing through these blog posts!