Over the next 48 hours I had more spotting. On Monday I called my doctor’s office and notified them of my pregnancy. I spoke with a nurse who reassured me that the spotting was normal and that it wasn’t concerning until I was “saturating a pad.” Saturating a pad? That seemed like a lot to me. I had friends who were TTC who were on progesterone supplements and asked if we should check my progesterone level due to the spotting. If your progesterone level is low, the pregnancy will not survive. This nurse said that “they don’t do that in this office.” I made my first appointments for 8 and 9 weeks, and my first ultrasound for 11 weeks, and tried to put my worrying brain to rest. The next few days were filled with so much JOY. Tony made a point of carrying anything heavy and helping me into his truck or car so I wouldn’t overexert myself. We started dreaming of what this little person would look like. We were due on September 29th, 2016. I pictured the Christmas card we would send out that year, the nursery décor, tiny little clothes and all the fun ways we would tell our friends and family.
Through this JOY, I constantly had to talk my worrying brain down. I knew the statistics on miscarriage. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. I had friends who went through one, two, three miscarriages before being blessed with a baby. I am a NICU nurse, trained to search for a tiny change in patient status that might alert to a bigger issue going on. In the world of neonates, timing is everything. Tiny doses, tiny details, tiny signs of trouble that you as the bedside nurse are there to notice. You take note of these tiny details and alert the doctor if you feel that that tiny life is trying to tell you something. I’m not a good nurse that shift if I don’t look for these tiny details because in a matter of minutes, or hours, that tiny life might be in trouble. That is the world that I know. So trying to ignore tiny details in my own life is very hard for me to do. God gave me Tony, my incredibly optimistic better half to help put things in perspective and ease my worry. I prayed in church that week that I would be strong and have great faith in God’s plan for me. It became very clear to me in that week of unease that pregnancy for anyone, but especially for me, is a huge test of faith. Do I trust God? Do I trust that His plan for me is better than my plan for me? Do I trust that He will not let me fall in times of trouble? I crafted a felt banner that week that read “Walk by faith, not by sight,” and hung it at the bottom of the stairs. I prayed that I would have faith in the unseen and began to write letters to my baby in a daily journal.
I went to work on Thursday February 6th and by 11am, I was no longer spotting, but bleeding. I was now full of doubt that this was “normal,” and called my doctor. I waited on hold, and realized how terrified I was of losing this little life already. We had known for barely a week. How could I be so attached to this little life? How could I have dared to dream so much in one week? The nurse told me that it could still be “fine- that bleeding can be normal.” I told her I was a NICU nurse and that I did not believe this was “normal.” I asked again about testing my progesterone level and she shot me down, again. She told me that I could go get my beta HCG level drawn, and that they like to see it double in 48 hours. But this was a Thursday and I wouldn’t be able to go on a Saturday for the second one. She put me on hold again, and when she returned she told me that they could work me in for an ultrasound at 9am the next morning. I was supposed to work. I found my old preceptor, who is the unit matriarch and broke down crying, begging her to cover for me the next day. She agreed in an instant. I barely slept that night.
The next morning, Tony and I met at my doctor’s office for our ultrasound. I’d read that at 6 weeks pregnant you are supposed to see a gestational sac and embryo. Tony was so optimistic. I was trying to be, but my fear was louder than my faith in that moment and I remember feeling my heart pounding harder than it ever had before. I tried to take deep breaths but I was terrified and fear was winning. We were called into the ultrasound room met the tech. I laid back and took Tony’s hand as the cold transvaginal probe went in. We looked up at the TV screen mounted on the wall. There was nothing there. No sac. No baby. The tears began to well up in my eyes. The tech said that it could still just be too early, and the doctor would be right in. It was a doctor who I hadn’t met before. I work with most of the OB’s in this practice, attending deliveries that require NICU assistance. He was unfamiliar to me. He came in, sat down and asked me to describe what had been going on. I told him about the cramping all week, the spotting on and off, and then the increase in bleeding as the day went on yesterday. Oddly enough on the day of the ultrasound, I had no cramping or bleeding. He looked at the scan and said that my lining was “very thick” and that I had definitely been pregnant, but that he believed that I had had a miscarriage. There was no sac or baby to be seen and there should at least be a sac. I remember feeling like I was outside of my own body when I let out this wail and just started sobbing uncontrollably. Tony started then too- never letting go of my hand. The nurse practitioner who I normally saw for annual exams came in the room next, and asked if she could sit with me. That meant the world. She told me her first pregnancy was ectopic and now she had a healthy baby. She told me I was young, and had so much time. The doctor chimed back in with “there was probably something wrong with it- you know? You’re a nurse. I don’t have to tell you these things.” “This is just nature’s way.” Yes I was a nurse. And yes I knew these things. Did I want to hear them now? No. I remember asking the doctor if it was over. Would I have any pain or bleeding? He was non committal in his answer saying that I “might.” He told me that we could stay in the room as long as we needed and that when we were ready to go to the waiting room and wait to be called back for my lab test. He wanted to confirm that the HCG was low, and have me go back in a few days to confirm that it was dropping. Tony and I wept together in that dark room, and when we felt as though we had no more tears, we headed out to the waiting room. We were told it would be a short wait. But it wasn’t. I think we sat there for a good thirty minutes, red faced and puffy eyes, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might see us on the worst day of our lives. Finally I was called back and had my lab draw done. I remember the lab tech was very nice and shared that she had high hopes for me. That was comforting to hear. After that, walked to the car, feeling completely numb. I checked my phone. My dear co-workers were standing by waiting for the news. I told them that I had in fact miscarried and they told me that they would pick up my assignment and handle it. They sent their love and told me to go home and take care of myself. They were a Godsend that day. Tony drove, and I felt numb until he said “I didn’t know how badly I wanted to be a dad until now.” Picture the love of your life saying something like that to you. It erases any moments of verbalized doubt about “being ready” from the past and highlights how much this hurts. Not just for you and your quite literally aching womb, but for your husband and his once full heart feeling less full. We both began to weep again, saying how happy we had been knowing that little life was coming. It was awful. I’m not sure how he saw through the tears to get us home safely, but he did. My rock. He had to run to campus for a quick meeting that is now referred to as the most inconveniently timed meeting of his career but we agreed it was one that he shouldn’t miss. Before he left, he told me he loved me and he waited until my mom picked up the phone when I called her. Most of you reading this know that my mom and I are best friends. We share the same style of thinking, faith, laughter and we have planned so much life together over the years. She shares my JOY and my pain with me in everything I do. She lives across the country, so I had been waiting to tell her that I was pregnant via Skype (she doesn’t have an i phone…) so I could see her reaction. She didn’t know I was pregnant. When I told her, “I had a miscarriage” my mom, whom I am extremely close with, said “you were pregnant?” She couldn’t wrap her head around what I was saying to her. And that’s how I think too. I take a while to process news such as this, and unfortunately for me, my mom was very slow at processing this information that day. She had never had a miscarriage. She and I share everything. She didn’t know what to say. Later that day she apologized for not knowing what to say. I crawled into bed and tried to nap. I felt so exhausted. Grief has the overwhelming ability to suck every ounce of life out of you. I texted close friends and they were for the most part wonderful. One of my dearest friends had experienced two miscarriages the year before and she said the most amazing things to comfort me. She totally got it. Every aspect of what I was feeling. And she survived each one of her miscarriages. She told me I could do this. That I would be okay, and that she was there for me no matter what I needed. (Thanks a million BG!) Tony returned home and we got lost in a pizza, ice cream cake and a movie. The tears flowed on and off but it was nice to be distracted. When I crawled in bed that night, I had so much trouble falling asleep. It was below freezing outside and I began to have hot flashes and chills and mild cramping. At 4am I called in sick to work. I had been up all night and I felt horrible. I took 2 benadryl and had a small snack and crawled back in bed. 5 hours later I woke up in the worst pain of my life. I felt like I was dying. My insides were on fire. I texted my miscarriage survivor and said that I was in so much pain. She told me to get a heating pad and take 800 mg of ibuprofen immediately. Tony ran to the store and came back with fluids and a heating pad. I have not experienced the pains of labor, but the pain I felt was what I imagine labor would feel like. I was experiencing intense contractions and bleeding. I remember sitting on the toilet and feeling like my organs were just going to fall out one by one. The combination of the mind numbing physical pain and the aching emotional pain was absolutely devastating. Also, fear of the unknown most definitely amplified the pain. No one prepared me for how much it would hurt. I survived that day with my husband on one side, my dog on the other, the heating pad on my lap, and the tiny sliver of reassurance that my body was doing what it needed to do to heal completely on its own.
In the days that followed, I felt every emotion possible- and then some. I probably felt emotions that have yet to be defined by experts. I remember feeling so angry on one particular morning. I was in the middle of moving clothes from the washing machine to the dryer when all of a sudden I felt enraged. I began slamming the door over and over again to the dryer. My poor little dog and my husband were not a fan of this behavior. To them, I was not acting like myself at all. Who is this angry blonde in our kitchen, slamming doors over and over again? Tony finally said something to snap me out of my anger and I felt horribly ashamed. I ran into the living room and fell onto the floor in a heap and just sobbed. Bless his heart, I don’t think Tony knew what to do with me that morning. He gave me space, all the while staying within a reasonable distance to make sure I was okay. When I felt that I had cried all the tears that I could, I sat up and blankly stared out our front window. I remember thinking to myself, “how is the world still going on?” “Why does this ever happen?” “Did this really happen?” “Did I make this all up?” I remember feeling like it was all a dream on many occasions. And yet the doorbell would ring, and each bouquet of flowers or card sent to the house would instantly bring tears to my eyes because it reminded me that it really did happen. We really did lose our first baby. Flowers and cards meant the world to me. It meant that someone outside of our little family recognized how deep a loss it was. It meant that someone else outside our home acknowledged and honored the little life we once knew.
