My Early Miscarriage

I hesitated to write this post, but I know that if a momma out there was suffering a miscarriage and could find comfort or camaraderie in my story, then I would want to help her. I would want her to know that she isn’t alone in her pain and in her grief. And I would want her to know that no matter how long she knew she was pregnant before her pregnancy was lost, that it counted, it mattered, and she has every right to grieve that loss.

THE GOOD NEWS

I got the positive pregnancy test on Christmas Eve. The year 2020 had been full of doubt and uncertainty and a climate of fear, but we were going to end the year on a good note. We were pregnant with Baby #2.

I remember taking the test alone in my apartment, while everyone else was enjoying some Christmas festivities. I was ecstatic and was wondering if I was going to be able to contain myself or if my glee would give me away. I decided that if anyone noticed anything, that I would just blame it on excitement for Calvin’s first Christmas morning.

I immediately downloaded the pregnancy tracking app that I used and loved with Calvin. I knew that the baby was barely an embryo and wouldn’t even have a discernible heartbeat yet, but I wanted to watch every second of that baby’s growth and development. I started doing math and looking at my calendar to determine my due date. I added an event to every Monday in my personal calendar to remind me of how many weeks along I was.

I told Colter that I was pregnant on Christmas morning. I had gotten up early that morning to prep breakfast and to take another pregnancy test. I wrapped up the positive stick in red wrapping paper and placed it in the tree where I didn’t think it would be noticed right away. We opened all of our gifts that morning and at the end of it all I pulled the little red gift out of the tree and gave it to Colter. I told him, “I actually have one more for you. I wasn’t sure if it would arrive in time, but we got lucky.” He opened the gift and pulled out the test. He was immediately brimming over with excitement and happiness. He joined me in fantisizing about our baby and what Calvin was going to be like as a big brother.

We started discussing how and when we would tell our families. We decided that we would get Calvin a “Big Brother” sweatshirt that he would open at his birthday party with our families. I would be about nine weeks along and we would have the first ultrasound to be able to show people. I found a couple of sweatshirt options on Etsy and then we joined my family for the rest of Christmas Day, just bursting at the seams with happiness over our little secret.

A WEEK OF BLISS

I had one full week of absolute bliss. All I could think about was the baby. I was thinking about the pregnancy and how it would be different from my pregnancy with Cal. I was already noticing the fatigue that plagued me during my first trimester with him. I subscribed to have a prenatal delivered every month and started thinking about budget adjustments we would need to make and what we would need to purchase new for this baby.

At night I would lay in bed with my hands over my unchanged belly, just thinking about the possibilities and the future and thanking my Heavenly Father that we had been blessed to be able to grow our family once more. I wanted to shout the news from the rooftops, but something stopped me. I called my OB’s office and scheduled the eight week ultrasound and checkup. I had a day to look forward to. The day that I would get to see the baby for the very first time. The thought of potential miscarriage didn’t even cross my mind. I was so completely wrapped up in the bliss of my coming baby.

MISCARRYING

We went to Idaho to see my family for the New Year. We drove up to Idaho Falls on New Year’s Eve and had a family party. There were people and dogs and food. It was a wonderful evening. The next day, we got together at my grandma’s home for brunch and a Zoom call with my uncle who lives in upstate New York.

Around 12:30, we were wrapping up the Zoom call and Colter and I were preparing to leave. We had a long drive and a couple of stops to make on the way home. I woke Calvin from his nap, fed him some lunch, and Colter loaded up our car. It was taking longer than I had anticipated to leave and I was feeling a little crunched for time. Right before we left, I decided to make a quick bathroom trip with the hope that we wouldn’t need to stop for a potty break on the way home.

That’s when I realized that I was bleeding. Quite heavily. I remember looking down and seeing the blood and hearing myself whisper, “No, no, no, no please, no…”. I cleaned up as best I could, rolled up some paper towels as a makeshift pad, washed my hands, and left the bathroom. If I had been in a rush to leave before it didn’t compare to the urge I felt to just get on the road so I could cry. We gave quick hugs goodbye, I didn’t breathe a word to anyone, and we left.

We got Calvin settled in the car and had started to back out of the driveway when the tears started to fall. Colter stopped the car and asked what was wrong. I told him that I was bleeding and that was all that I could get out. We continued home, stopping at a gas station to fill up and purchase some pads for me. My bleeding continued to get heavier as we made the three hour drive home and I began to feeling cramping in my lower abdomen.

We stopped to say a holiday hello to a few members of Colter’s family. I felt so drained and sad, but I didn’t want to discuss the loss with any of his family, so I kept it inside and we kept the visit short. We got home, unpacked the car, put Calvin to bed, and I went to bed with a heating pad for my cramping uterus.

INITIAL GRIEF

I cried for hours that night. I laid in my bed in the dark and I just cried. Colter was out in the living room playing video games with his dad and siblings, so I had the room to myself. I cried and sobbed so much that my body started to shake.

As I cried, I cried out to Heavenly Father, asking Him why this was happening to me and begging Him to give my baby back to me. I knew He could do it. He’s done greater things. I knew that it was well within His power to stop the bleeding, to heal the embryo, and for Him to recreate this pregnancy in my womb and for this baby to be born healthy in its time. But that was not His plan for this baby or for me at this time.

The next day was hard for all three of us. My bleeding and cramping continued throughout the day. I also felt exhausted. Not in the way I had been feeling for the last week, which was an early symptom of the pregnancy. No, this exhaustion came from feeling like a hole had been punched through the middle of me and all of my light was leaking out of that hole. Luckily, it was Saturday, so we got Calvin up at his normal time, we all stayed in pajamas all day, we put cartoons on to help entertain Cal, and when he went down for his naps, so did we. Colter and I felt like we simply couldn’t get enough sleep. I kept hoping that I would wake up with a start and realize I had been having some vivid pregnancy dream.

I told a few close friends and we told both of our parents, but it almost felt pointless. What could they possibly say that would make anything alright? No one could make this better or make it go away. It just was, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

I took the day off of work on Monday, but didn’t want to burden my coworkers with any more time off, so I went back to the office on Tuesday. That five hour shift was much more difficult that I had anticipated. I had much more quiet time to sit and think and feel and I did not like how I was thinking and feeling. I wanted to sprint home, scoop my baby into my arms, and have my mind and body totally occupied with taking care of him. Sitting alone at the office, scanning paperwork and waiting for the phone to ring, all I could think about was my lost baby. All I could do was miss what never was.

WHAT I FOUND TO HELP

If you are going through something similar and reaching this section, hoping for the magic key to moving on from your grief, I am going to disappoint you. I don’t think there is some magic eraser that is going to wipe out all the bad feelings and turn back time to before you experienced this loss. In fact, I don’t think we ever move on from grief, but we move through it.

I picture grief is like a hurricane. It’s terrifying and loud and all consuming and nothing can stand in its way. No matter how fast you run from it, it’s bigger and faster and will always catch up to you. But if you can find a way to face it, and move through it until you find the eye of the storm, then you’ll have found a way to continue on with your life. The loss will always be there, and you may have to readjust every now and then to stay in the eye of the storm, but you can eventually find the calm amongst the pain and chaos.

I did do a few things that helped me find the eye of my miscarriage storm a little quicker. What worked for me was:

• Finding something tangible to remember the baby by – for me, personally, I didn’t want to sweep this pregnancy and baby under the rug and pretend it never happened. Treat it like a blip in our journey to another child. I wanted to have a tangible reminder of this baby, even though we never saw, heard, or knew them enough to name. I chose to get a tiny charm with the birth flower (based on the month of the due date) to add to a necklace with a larger charm with Calvin’s birth flower on it. As I give birth to more children, I will add large charms with more birth flowers, but this baby will always be represented with a tiny peony.

• Writing a letter to the baby – one of the hardest parts of an early miscarriage (in my opinion and experience) is the loss of all of the things that could have been. From the moment I got a positive test, I started dreaming and planning for this baby and all they would grow to be. When I lost the baby, all of those dreams were lost too. I wanted to tell someone all of the things I hoped for, but who to tell? I ended up writing a letter to the baby (I chose to address the baby as a she and call her Peony) and told her everything I pictured and dreamed and hoped for her. Even though no one will ever read that letter, it was therapeutic to release those dreams.

• Unfollowing – it seemed like the second I lost my pregnancy, everyone around me started to announce their own. I began to feel some really intense jealousy for all of those mommas. I did feel happy for them, but the unfairness of my own situation was left screaming in my face. So every single person who announced a pregnancy after I lost mine, I have unfollowed for now. I’ll eventually add them back to my feed, but for a little while, I really needed my space and to not have the progress of other people’s pregnancy in my face every day.

• Accepting that it’s okay to not be okay – smothering your sadness by denying that it exists doesn’t do you (or anyone else) any good. If you aren’t okay, then you aren’t okay. Once you accept that and realize that you are going to have to do things differently in the moments you aren’t okay, then you are going to be able to care for yourself better. That first Saturday, I started to feel guilty that I hadn’t kept up with my usual tidying habits during nap time. And then I realized that I wasn’t okay, and that that was okay. So I told myself, “To hell with tidy…I am miscarrying my baby. Cleaning just doesn’t matter right now because cleaning isn’t something I can handle right now“ and my house was a mess for days. And that is just fine.

GETTING PREGNANT AFTER A MISCARRIAGE

We decided not to take a break from trying for a baby. Once my doctor confirmed that my hCG levels had decreased enough, we continued trying to get pregnant. And it was so hard. Every day I waited to ovulate, I worried that my system was in a little bit of shock and that it was going to take months before my body was ready to conceive again. And then I ovulated and the torturous two-week wait began. And then that wait was over and I was simultaneously jumping out of my skin because I couldn’t wait to take a pregnancy test and paralyzed with terror to take one. I wasn’t sure if I was more scared of a negative result or of a positive one that I could lose just as easily as I had lost my last pregnancy.

Those were all feelings and fears that I had never anticipated experiencing in my life. I had never prepared for the fear of becoming pregnant and losing that child. I think that my miscarriage is going to affect every pregnancy I have afterwards. I will always know how precious and delicate the life I have been blessed to carry inside of me is, and how immediate and powerful the bond of motherhood is.

I am now almost 24 weeks pregnant with my miracle baby. My rainbow after the storm. The positive test that I was both desperate and terrified to get. Every day I spend dedicating my body to this baby is hard, but it is such a bigger blessing and privilege than I ever realized before.

If you are experiencing a miscarriage or have experienced one, know that I hear you and I know how much it hurts. I know how desperately you can ache for that baby. Please reach out if you ever need someone to cry to, yell to, or to just talk about your angel baby to. I will listen to you.