Thursdays

For the past three weeks, Thursdays have been bad days.  Even with several good days before it, Thursday would hit and I would feel in a funk.  I think I realized why.  Thursdays are the days of the week I always looked forward to, as it began a new week of pregnancy.

Today I would have been 14 weeks.

I am feeling better, really I am.  Most days I am tear free (yes, just like the shampoo.)  Crying has been replaced with several happy times, content moments, and even laughter.  I spend some time with a dear friend yesterday (for the first time in many weeks I realized) and it was lovely to feel human again.

But then I woke up and even without realizing it was Thursday felt somehow different.  Today on a walk with Lucy I saw a butterfly with a broken wing and it made me cry.  I guess hormones are still there...  

Thankfully, tomorrow is Friday...

The f*ck-its

I thought I was feeling better earlier this week.  Managing to maintain somewhat of a regular routine.  Went to work, cleaned the house, even went on a couple short runs with Lucy.  I felt like I was actually starting to get it together.  Then over the last couple of days it was like I was suddenly reliving the nightmare of last week all over again.  I now have a case of the fuck-its.  I am angry a lot of the time.  At other people.  At myself.  At life in general.  After a particularly bad day at work yesterday I came home and drank as much wine as I could stomach without throwing up (which, turned out to be only two small glasses.)  It was strawberry flavored, very sweet, and somewhat sickening.  But I didn't care.  Yesterday was a terrible day, and it followed a terrible night before.  And being at work is... difficult still. There are several co-workers of mine who are pregnant, which is so hard to be around....

I called in sick to work today.  I need some time off.  Time that should have been taken off last week.  Yesterday I nearly snapped and all but told a coworker to fuck-off when they did something I didn't agree with.  Completely out of character for me.  I think it was then that I decided that I was probably not going in today.  The dry mouth and headache this morning when my alarm went off confirmed it.

The one and only thing that gives me any sort of happy emotion these days are thinking about being pregnant again.  Not that another baby would ever take the place of the one that I lost...  But it is like something is missing now...  Something that I made and it was mine and I would have done anything to keep.  And I want it back...  Every night I still rub my coconut oil on my flattened belly and allow myself to pretend I still have a baby in there, even if just for a minute.  I don't know how this would even sound to other people, sad or crazy, or both.  I wish I could say there was something else for me to focus on but there really isn't.  Somewhat sad and pathetic I suppose, but I have really never wanted anything more.  Then I start to worry it's going to take a long time to conceive.  And when we do that this could happen again.  I have been worrying a lot about other things lately too.  Scared that family members are going to die.  What if something happened to Erik?  I worry every time he rides his bike.  Or drives his car...

And even with all of the hours (days, probably) I have into reading about pregnancy loss, and knowing that they all say "it's not my fault," I still can't help but wonder...  Was it the fact that I continued to run and exercise after I found out about the pregnancy?  Was the it 1/2 cup of green tea (and measly 15mg of caffeine it contained) that I was drinking in the mornings?  Was it Lucy's flea medicine I continued to put on her, even though I was wearing gloves every time and carefully washed my hands afterwards?   The list goes on...

I don't even know that I will publish this post...  I sound whiny with a pathetic "why me" attitude and kind of like a crazy person at the same time and I know it.  I suppose that this was more of a journal piece than anything else.  I am so hopeful that the only direction I go from here is up...

Checking in...

It has been a week today since I lost the baby.  Seven days since this happened.  Since then I have been....

Crying...  everyday.  everynight.  at work.  at home.  in the morning.  late at night.  while eating.  while walking with Lucy.  in the shower.  in the car.  in private moments.  in the middle of a public place.  while typing this...

Going to work when I wasn't ready to and definitely should have stayed home.

Finding it incredibly hard and exhausting to try and act normal and like everything is okay at work just days after the loss of the baby.  I don't think I was able to pull it off.  At all.

Getting angry when I hear others complain of trivial things.

Realizing how much of my free time was spent reading baby blogs, yard sale-ing for baby items, shopping online for baby stuff, reading baby books, sewing and crocheting things for the baby, reading through lists of baby names, reading the daily updates on the several pregnancy apps I had on my iPod, taking photos of my pregnant belly, and updating the blog with weekly pregnancy updates.

Finding myself unable to fill up this newly found free time with useful things.  

Wanting to be alone as much as possible.  Talking to anyone about anything at all has been exhausting.  Grocery stores and public places are full of babies and pregnant women which make me so sad.  Avoiding these situations as much as possible.

Sadly watching my breasts shrink down to their pre-pregnant size.  And wearing bras that actually fit.

Deactivating my Facebook account, staying off Pinterest, and trying hard not to read the baby blogs that I follow.  I made the mistake of reading one and became so angry that she dared to complain about the discomforts of pregnancy.  Doesn't she know how lucky she is?!  Please lady, give me your stretch marks and swollen ankles.  I will take them.  Really.

Reading books that I checked out from the library regarding pregnancy loss.  "Miscarriage: Women Sharing from the Heart" has been especially helpful.  I read nearly the entire book in an afternoon.  Highly recommended to anyone going through this...

Taking pregnancy tests (the kind with 2 pink lines) every few days.  It's my "scientific" way of monitoring my decreasing hcg levels and making sure my body has naturally completed the miscarriage.  The + line is becoming fainter with each test.  I will be having blood work done next week to be sure.

Feeling so alone even though I know that I am one of the nearly 2 million women who will experience a pregnancy loss this year in the United States.

Taking it one day, one hour, sometimes one minute at a time.

Healing...

Taking no shortcuts...

I have come to realize what it is like to lose a baby.  Through my life, I have been told by many women, often during casual conversation, that they have suffered a miscarriage.  "I'm sorry to hear that" I would say, and quite frankly I am not sure I have said even that much every single time.  To be completely honest, hearing that from someone, especially when it happened to them years ago, really didn't evoke much emotion in me.  It would pull at my heartstrings so much more if they had told me they said by their elderly mothers side and held her hand as she passed away.  Even telling me that their beloved family dog had been hit by a car and died would make me feel more emotion and offer more support.  These were situations I could relate to, or at least, imagine happening in my life.  I couldn't possibly imagine losing a baby.  For one thing, I had never been pregnant.  Never felt the joy, excitement, and amazement of life growing inside me.  I didn't have children that I could imagine having lost before I ever got a chance to meet them.  And besides, miscarriage was something that happened to other women, and wasn't something I was ever going to have to worry about.  It happened to older women, or those who already had kids, or those who smoke or drank or ate unhealthily during pregnancy.  It most certainly didn't happen to young, first-time mothers who "did all the right things."  Or so that is what I let myself believe...

Throughout this grief process, and I know I still have a long way to go, I have felt so many strong, often unbearable emotions.  But deep inside, I have always known that this is exactly how I need to feel right now, and this is how I am going to get through this.  In the book I read yesterday, titled "Miscarriage: Women Sharing from the Heart" one of the first pages in the book says "sometimes we have to hurt more before we can hurt less.  Sometimes the way to feel good is to take the time and the opportunity to feel bad.  There is no shortcut around grief."  I immediately felt a sense of relief upon reading that.  I had known that even while it doesn't look like it to others, I am on the right path.  On the outside, I look like a hot mess and I know it.  I can't talk about the baby or the miscarriage without crying, often hysterically.  I have been eating very little, just enough to keep me going, and sleeping has been hard.  Sometimes I barely sleep and some nights I can sleep for over 10 hours.  I haven't worn make-up, done my hair, or performed any other self-grooming activities besides shower and brush my teeth in over a week.  I hardly talk to people at work, and don't really feel ready to venture out in public yet.  This seems to be of concern to my family and people who are eying me as I go through this.  "Don't worry" I want to tell them, "this is normal and I know deep inside that eventually I will slowly feel better.  This is what I need to do to heal."  But for some reason everyone expects you to pick up and move on just days after it happened.  I am getting calls and texts everyday: "Are you feeling better now?"  This shows me they are not understanding what has happened.  A 10 week old (or any age baby) inside of me was not just something I can forget about.  People are acting like my goldfish died and it is high time I move on.  To me, it was just as much a baby as a baby not in the womb.  They say a man becomes a Father when the baby is born, or perhaps the first time he is able to place his hand on the Mothers stomach and feel the baby kick, or maybe even at the ultrasound appointment where he can see his tiny baby doing flips and somersaults and hear the fast ticking of the heartbeat.  A women sees herself as a Mother long before that.  In the books I have been reading this week, they say that a woman starts to form an attachment to the baby even before conception.  For me, it was the day I took that test and saw the two pink lines.  That very moment, I knew that no matter how tiny it was, it was a baby inside me.  A baby that would grow in my belly, and eventually we would get to meet, hold, smell, love, nurse, and watch grow.  So when that was taken from me, when the baby inside of me died, it was just as much a traumatic event as if a "living person" had passed away.  Because the baby was living, even if we didn't yet have the chance to meet him or her.

It has been very frustrating hear everyone say things like "you have to move on," "don't worry, you will have another baby," "it's going to work out fine," "it happened for a reason," and "at least you were not further along."  I actually don't have to move on according to any timeline, let me be sad and grieve according to my own timeline please.  You don't know that it's going to work out fine - this could actually happen again.  You telling me everything is going to be okay is just setting me up for further disappointment if it does.  Telling me not to worry and that we will have another baby minimizes the loss of this one - another baby isn't going to make me forget about this one nor will it "replace it."  How can you tell me this happened for a reason?  Unless you performed some genetic test on me or the baby you really don't know why it happened or that there was a "reason" for it.  It is not at all comforting to believe there was any good or "appropriate" reason for my baby to die.  And telling me it's a good thing it didn't happen later makes me feel that I shouldn't be allowed to be this sad.  At which point would I be allowed to feel like this?  If I had carried the baby to 20 weeks?  To full term?  If I lost the baby at 5 or 6 weeks would I be allowed to be sad at all?  I know that everyone has been trying to be helpful by saying these things, because I have heard them from most everyone in one form or another.  I may come across ungrateful by telling the truth about how these comments make me feel, but I do know that everyone truly has my best interest at heart.  Unfortunately people just don't know what to say in this situation.  Not that I expect them to.  A baby died, and while some people don't understand that, to me, the Mother, this was a real, living, person who I planned on knowing and loving for the rest of my life.  I think sometimes the best thing to say is just "I'm sorry.  I am here for you."  And be there.  To listen.  Because nothing you can say will make it any better...

1:59am

Note to reader:  after careful consideration, I have chosen to share the details of my miscarriage here on the blog.  While I don't expect everyone to want to read this, perhaps someone someday who is going through this same situation will stumble upon this and it will help them.  Also, this happened, I documented it, and I don't want to pretend like it never occurred.  Therefore, it will stay.  This post contains graphic details and would probably best be skipped over if you have no desire to read about how this tragic event happened.  (edit: July 2013)

I was right when I thought yesterday that the worst was yet to come.  Last night after finishing the last post, I soon after went to bed.  Just after I got into bed, the cramps really picked up in intensity.  I told Erik it could be a bad night, and he said he was prepared to be there with me through it.  Knowing that there was nothing that could be done to stop the miscarriage and wanting it to be over as soon as possible, I attempted to naturally help things move along by drinking several cups of Red Raspberry Leaf tea throughout the day, as it is known to stimulate uterine contractions.  I laid in bed and tried to relax to take my mind off the pain.  Somehow they must have subsided long enough for me to fall asleep.  This was shortly before midnight.  The next thing I remember was rolling around in bed trying to figure out what was happening in my stomach.  I looked at the clock, 1:59am.  The pain was way more intense than I had ever felt.  I went and sat on the toilet and a large amount of blood came gushing out.  The pain was all across the lowest part of my abdomen.  I knew this was the mini-labor that the nurse had warned me about.  Even though I spent hours yesterday reading about how this could happen, I suddenly felt so unprepared.  I had no idea what to do and found myself going between sitting on the toilet and kneeling or squatting on the bathroom floor rocking back and forth across a pile of bath towels.  I was trying to remember how real contractions were timed, even though this wasn't a true "labor."  They were lasting what I estimate to be 3-4 minutes each, but between the waves of pain it never completely subsided like I thought a real contraction would.  It went from intense to moderate cramping, which at the time felt like a nice break.  There was no regularity in the timing, they seemed to come completely randomly, spaced out at different intervals.  I really do hate the 1-10 pain scale I am forced to use as a nurse (and I don't know what kind of jacked-up pain scale my patients are using when they tell me between the bites of their dinner they are scarfing down that their pain is definitely a 10, because to me a 10 is someone cutting off my leg without anesthesia) but for lack of a better description I was somewhere around a 4-5 between the waves of pain and creeping up in the neighborhood of 8 during the worst ones.  I remember thinking to myself several times during the worst pain that if this is anything what true labor was like I wasn't sure I could handle an unmedicated childbirth.  Then again, hopefully when that time comes I won't be lying by myself on the cold bathroom floor in the middle of the night.  I can see how important it is to have support people around you during labor and now I am even more serious about having a doula... Anyway...  I thought about waking Erik up a few times (and frankly I am surprised he didn't wake up with all my moaning and moving around the bathroom) but I decided there was really nothing he could do for me even if he got up.  I thought several times about the muscle relaxers in the medicine cabinet just a few feet away leftover from my back injury last September, but knew that while they would relieve the pain, they would also stop the contractions, which was what my body needed to do to empty my uterus completely.  Wanting desperately to avoid medication/D&C/medical intervention I opted to leave the drugs where they were.  I thought about filling up the bathtub with hot water but not being able to remember the last time I scrubbed it out, I opted to stay away from a potentially germ-filled tub which could cause an infection.  Then I remembered that a heating pad usually helps with my menstrual cramps.  I got myself together enough to get my rice pillow from my closet and made my way to the kitchen to microwave it.  I couldn't believe how much it helped.  Within just a minute or two the pain subsided to mild cramping which felt like a glorious vacation.  I was actually able then to lay on my back with the heating pad on my abdomen, close my eyes for a few minutes, and breathe normally.  For about 20-30 minutes I rested before the intense pain picked up again.  Back and forth from floor to toilet again, it felt like I wanted to push something out but nothing was coming.  I was waiting to pass the baby but as far as I could tell it never came out.  I never really looked closely at what was coming out of me as I sat on the toilet but I suppose the initial gush of blood could have contained what I had been looking for.  It was pretty dark in the bathroom and I was in no shape to be examining the bloody mess.  I became nauseated several times because of the pain and somehow thought to press on the acupressure points on my wrists which actually helped a lot and I never actually threw up.  The rest of the whole thing is kind of foggy in my mind, I was exhausted after only sleeping for two hours and wanted nothing more than to get back in bed and just go to sleep.  I made it downstairs one more time, heated up the rice pillow as hot as my skin could handle it, got into bed and put it across my belly.  I think that was around 3:40am or so.  I think I fell asleep soon after that but at some point rolled onto my stomach which caused a horrible pain that woke me up immediately.  I don't remember much after that but I guess I fell back asleep.  My alarm went off at 7am and I knew there was no way I was going to work in an hour.  At this time I only had some mild cramping so I just laid there until Erik came up to get dressed and kiss my goodbye.  I called into work and told my manager that I was sick, even though I think she knows from my co-worker what was going on.  I really didn't want to get into it at that moment.

Emotionally and physically today I feel completely drained.  I am not as tearful as yesterday but instead feel very empty inside and somewhat "checked out."  I would love to just sleep for a month and wake up feeling better with this all behind us.  Something about putting this story down in print is helping me realize that this is happening and this is the way it is.  As much as I want to, I can't change a single thing about it...

With any given pregnancy there is a 20% chance that it will end in a loss.  One in four women miscarry during their first pregnancy.  If my story can help just one person (I guess even just myself) then it was worth putting it out there.  I read a lot of forums yesterday where women described their miscarriage experience.  Some helped, some didn't.  Everyone's story is different.  This was my experience.  I hope and pray this is the only time I ever have to go through this.  That being said, I would take that physical pain every single day until the baby came if I could have just kept it growing inside me.  It hurt so much less than the agonizing emotional pain that came before and after.  And on a side note, I think instead of me doubting my ability to carry on through a natural labor, I feel just a little more ready for what it will be like.  Granted, this was a much shorter and undoubtedly less intense "labor" than the real thing, but I still did it.  On my own.  In the middle of the night.  On the cold bathroom floor with nothing for pain besides a heating pad.  And I think, when the time comes for the real thing, with Erik by my side, I can do it again.

50/50

 Note to reader:  after careful consideration, I have chosen to share the details of my miscarriage here on the blog.  While I don't expect everyone to want to read this, perhaps someone someday who is going through this same situation will stumble upon this and it will help them.  Also, this happened, I documented it, and I don't want to pretend like it never occurred.  Therefore, it will stay.  This post contains graphic details and would probably best be skipped over if you have no desire to read about how this tragic event happened.  (edit: July 2013)

Here is where you would expect to find my 10 week update.  Except that there will not be a 10 week update.  As I write this I am in the middle (beginning?  end?) of losing our baby.  It started Friday morning with a very tiny amount of spotting.  I knew immediately that was not right.  Many women have some bleeding during early pregnancy, but I just had a strong feeling that something was wrong.  I called and spoke with the nurse at the midwife's clinic.  She said that there was a 50% chance it could be a miscarriage.  What?  What kind of shitty statistics are those?  Immediately panic set in.  I didn't want to believe her.  50/50 odds in my book are pretty damn awful.  She offered to set up an immediate ultrasound, or have me come in for an appointment to see if the heartbeat could be heard, as that could be reassurance that everything was okay.  Knowing my current health insurance wouldn't cover any of that I opted to take a different route.  (And in case you are wondering I do have insurance that covers the initial appointment and will have Erik's insurance in August which will cover maternity care.)  I went into the clinic where I work and had the Womens Health RN check with a doppler for a heartbeat.  Nothing was heard.  She said 10 weeks was still pretty early to detect it, although in some cases it can be heard.  She and a Nurse Practitioner at the clinic reassured me that since I was having no other symptoms I shouldn't worry about it.  We had planned to visit relatives in the DC area for the weekend, and they all recommended that I go and try not to stress about it.  The bleeding seemed to stop as the day went on, so I tried to relax, but of course as a worrier by nature I couldn't completely shake it from my thoughts.  The next morning, more bleeding.  Still very light, but definitely there.  Again it seemed to stop as the day went on.  Sunday (yesterday) same story.  But instead of stopping as the day progressed it increased mid-afternoon.  Erik had a bike race in the morning and several of his family members were there to watch it.  After the race we went back to his Grandparents place for a potluck lunch with everyone, and that is when I noticed an increase in the amount of blood.  I also realized that my previously super-tender breasts were no longer sore at all.  I just felt different.  I knew then exactly what was happening.  Trying not to panic because I didn't want anyone to know what was going on, I tried to just not think about it.  We were after all, suppose to be sharing the happy news with his family during this very lunch.  I remember repeating random words in my head as a distraction.  Heart racing and holding back tears the entire meal, I was focused on the clock the entire time.  Counting down the minutes until 4:00pm when I knew we would be leaving so we would be back in town on time to pick up Lucy from my friend's house.  I don't know what his family was thinking, I didn't say two words or eat more than two bites the entire meal.  Perhaps they were questioning Erik's decision in his choice of wife.  I tried to make that the least of my worries.  Finally we were on the road, where I allowed myself to lose it.  Erik didn't know what to say, which was fine as I didn't want to do much talking at the time.  He just held my hand and let me cry it out.  At home, I showered and immediately went to bed.  Surprising how exhausting it can be to cry for hours and hours.  I slept for somewhere around 10 hours and woke up dazed and foggy.  It felt like a bad dream but I knew after waking up a little that it wasn't.  In the morning I called my Mom and between hysterical sobs tried to explain everything.  She was supportive and of course very sad about the whole thing.  I knew she would tell my Dad, and I had her call my sister as well.  I didn't want to talk about it any more than I had to.  The bleeding became heavier today, accompanied by cramps that have ranged from mild to moderate intensity.  The nurse at the Midwife Clinic had told me on Friday that at this stage of pregnancy if I did lose the baby I would go through a mini-labor.  That hasn't happened yet, so far this feels mostly like a regular menstrual cycle, although a bit more cramping than I would usually have.  I almost feel like the worst part has yet to come.  I talked to a Midwife at the clinic this morning and she was most concerned about my rh factor and whether or not I would need to come in for rhogam.  I was about 95% positive that my blood type was b-, which would mean I would need to have the shot if Erik's blood type was positive.  After becoming pregnant (and believing that I was b-) I did some reading about rhogam and decided for many reasons that I would likely decline the mercury-containing injection during the pregnancy.  Forgetting that it would be necessary after a miscarriage, I didn't think about it until she mentioned it.  Before I made up my mind about getting the shot I wanted to find out Erik's blood type to see if it was even really necessary.  While I was waiting for him to get back to me on that, I decided to find my blood donor card just to verify that I am indeed b-.  I found the card and was completely shocked to learn that I am b+ and would not need to worry about rh incompatibility.  That was the only relatively good thing that happened all day.  The rest of the day was a mix of laying on the floor crying hysterically and feeling numb, my body doing robot-like motions for tasks that needed to be done.  Walk Lucy, feed cats, force myself to eat a few bites of cereal.  I e-mailed one person at each of my jobs and told them what was going on, asking them to pass along the information to the few others who knew about the pregnancy and also telling them to never mention it to me.  Maybe later I will be interested in talking about it, but for now I know that as much as a sympathetic look is going to send me into a crying fit, which is the last thing I want to happen while at work.

I have had about a hundred million thoughts today, but for some reason my mind seems to be repeating the cruel mantra "dead babies" over and over and over and I can't make it stop.  I don't know why I can't stop thinking those words.  I feel a little crazy with a voice inside my head that I cannot turn off.  I am not an especially religious person but I have also spent a lot of time wondering if unborn babies make it to heaven.  I want to find a way to honor the baby but I am not sure how.  I am really not sure at this point what comes next...

What I do know is that the blog is set back to private so no one else can read this.  I never made it "public" but I did change the settings so those with the web address could read it, and shared that with our immediate families after we told them about the pregnancy.  I decided that this blog is here to share our story in it's entirety, and even though right now this is not something I want anyone to know about, it did happen and I can't change it or hide it without deleting everything.  Since I am writing this primarily for myself, I don't want to delete anything anymore.   Even though I might never want to read this post again, I found myself unsure of how to deal with these roller-coaster emotions and somehow found myself sitting here typing.

The Midwife told me today that we should wait at least six cycles before we start trying to get pregnant again.  Due to my unusually long cycles, for us that translates into around 8 months.  No way in hell am I waiting that long.  I don't know how long we will wait, how long my body will take to complete this miscarriage (I am hopeful for a completely natural one) or when my cycle will return - that alone could be months.  What I do know is that next time we will probably not tell anyone (family included) until we are much further into the pregnancy, and have confirmation that all is well with a doppler found heartbeat.  I am hopeful that it's not going to take as long as I know it could.  I know there were many people excited for us and looking forward to this new family member, but no one thought about, dreamed about, and loved that baby as much as me.

I am now more thankful than ever to have Erik by my side.  Had it not been for him I would surely be in a much worse place than I am right now.  He has held me while I cried, went grocery shopping when I couldn't get myself to leave the house, brought home my favorite foods and chocolate treats to try and cheer me up, and even made the trip to rite-aid when I needed more feminine products.  "Do you want the ones with wings?  The long ones?  This one has aloe infused in the special cotton lining...  How about the ultra-thins?"  If there were any other women in the feminine products isle while he was asking me this on the phone I am sure they had a good laugh.  He is a pretty amazing guy and I am realizing now more than ever how lucky I am to have him as my husband.  I know we will get through this together and maybe even be a little stronger because of it...