But one story I hadn't shared on the blog kept popping up also as a part of my birthing memories. And that was my first, my rawest, my this-is-the-closest-I've-ever-been-to-giving-birth experience. And it was, in some ways, a tragedy. Yet I felt strongly impressed that I wanted and needed to share it on the blog, so if anyone were like me, stalking around blogs to read birth stories, they wouldn't miss what has been an essential part of my body's journey in pregnancy and childbirth.
When we got pregnant in December 2014 (after trying for a little over a month, no less), I was so naive and unprepared, blissfully certain that everything would go perfectly according to plan and already telling people about our new addition to the family at Christmas, even though my due date wasn't until August (I thought I would never forget the due date, but lo and behold, four years later, all I remember is that it was in August - my journal tells me it was August 23, 2015).
I felt very tired throughout the month of January, but not particularly nauseous, and I never even came close to throwing up. I was also having more headaches, and gradually learning that I needed to start eating smaller, closer-together meals to stave them off. In late January, my energy started coming back, which made me feel pretty good. Later I learned that this is when the baby had stopped growing. In my journal, I am full of optimism though. Baby is the size of a lime, now! I'm finally 10 weeks pregnant! Hooray, double-digits!
Now I'm mostly going to start quoting my journal, since my memories get very detail-vague and feeling-specific (as in, I remember the details wrong but the feelings that accompanied the events are still burned very strongly into my mind).
February 8, 2015: "2nd trimester this weekend, baby! Honestly I haven't felt very pregnant the past two weeks. Since the nausea has gone away, I've just felt a little bloated. Like having gas (oh, and I have that too). I probably won't be able to feel the baby move for another month. I haven't had any other trouble. I was really energetic and bouncing off the walls on Monday, so on on a whim, I went to work out at my parents' after work. It felt awesome, but after about 10 minutes of fantastic workout mode, I got really tired and kept having to lie down and breathe. I listened to my body and slowed down and did everything to stay comfortable. My workout took me a lot longer, but I felt great. Mom sent me an email reminding me to be careful about exercising while pregnant and recommended swimming. I thought that was kinda sweet. Glad she's thinking about me and Baby.
Matthew and I went to the birth clinic this week. The appointment was a little dull. They didn't check Baby at all, just took my blood pressure and asked me questions about my period and insurance. The midwife made a worried face when I said my November period was super light, but didn't explain any of her thoughts. I could guess what she was thinking since I thought myself, hey! Maybe I was pregnant back then! But I took a negative test in early December, so probably not. I felt this would be an awesome place to have a birth away from doctors and hospitals and epidurals. But I am really impatient to meet Baby or just have some proof of his/her existence. I want to hear a heartbeat, see a picture on a screen, find out the gender, and get a belly! I am automatically thinking of the baby as a boy because I want a David so bad. But if it's a little girl, that would be great too.
One more baby thing: after I worked out on Monday, I thought I had fixed my energy problem, but I kept getting waves or bursts of energy that burned out when I tried to work out after 5 minutes, but drove me crazy if I did nothing. Also, I was super horny. After one time [okay, we had sex, y'all], a little bit of brown fluid came out. I'd read this was fairly normal [sidenote: this is because the Internet will tell you whatever it is you want to hear when you're Google searching stuff about babies and pregnancies. The Internet has seen it all], but was still a little worried and grateful when nothing more brown came out later. It would be devastating to lose a baby, and I'm not even that far along! I can't imagine how awful it would be in the 2nd/3rd trimester."
My next journal entry is on February 12, 2015, and I want to note that I had not actually yet had the miscarriage at this point:
"The last 24 hours have been very difficult, physically and emotionally. I lost the baby. I was only 10 weeks (I was actually 12, but the ultrasound measured me at 10) and the baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks. We had an ultrasound today after I started cramping and bleeding pretty heavily over the past 24 hours. I had a sinking feeling ever since our appointment when the midwife couldn't find a heartbeat. I'd waited so long for that moment of reassurance and it was really hard to have more uncertainty. By Wednesday it was killing me. I was afraid I'd done too much heavy lifting on Monday or Tuesday moving books, but knowing that Baby had stopped growing three weeks ago meant it didn't really matter what I'd done. Even though I'm full on cramping/bleeding, I feel much more clear-headed and put together. The hard part now is telling people. My co-workers were very sweet, so sweet their texts made me cry almost more than I did finding out. The more the technician apologized to me and said she was sorry, the worse I felt. I had to go to the bathroom and have a meltdown and took ten minutes to come out. Then Matthew and I drove home and I got Sarah and we spent the evening together.
I'm just ready to get this period over with. It should hopefully only last a few days. Maybe in a week or two we'll be trying again. I hope so. It will be a little fun to be in the "Are we pregnant?" phrase again [sidenote: as anyone who has been in the position of trying and wanting desperately to be pregnant after a miscarriage knows, it was not fun. It was stressful and heartbreaking.]. Not looking forward to a second first (ha!) trimester again though.... ah, whatever. I'm ABSOLUTELY looking forward to it. And now I'm writing furiously to get through these painful cramps. Bring them on. "
Another note: I'm actually editing quite a bit from these journal entries. I tend to ramble a lot when I'm writing, and spun off into a couple of side-thoughts about Sarah having a potential boyfriend (which came to nothing, but hey, now she's GETTING MARRIED SO THAT OBVIOUSLY WORKED OUT OKAY), how sweet and thoughtful my co-workers were/are, and some other personal thoughts/feelings that are actually a bit too painful for me to type up and relive here. Anyway, if you're looking for the ACTUAL miscarriage story without all the painful build-up, it starts here:
February 15, 2015:
"It's strange to look at my last journal entry because I don't even feel like the same person any more. As I was writing it, I was thinking about how little I knew in the previous entries and how naive I had been. Well, this entry is here to explain how little I knew and naive I was just in that last entry! I've learned more in the past few days about pain, myself, what I am capable of, what my purpose is, and what really matters to me than I might have learned or experienced in my entire life. I do feel that I've come closer to understanding life and death, and I feel that I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And yet, I feel incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully blessed. It still hurts to see other people pregnant and to know that it will be longer than we hoped before we get to have a baby. But I am feeling confident in our decision to get pregnant and more prepared physically, spiritually, and mentally for the experience of birth and labor. I also feel in awe of the great power and miracles at work within my body without my knowledge or control. I took a while to write this entry, even though the experience of my miscarriage was barely a few hours after I wrote my previous entry, because I struggle to find words strong and meaningful enough to convey the sensation, feelings, and events that took place on Friday, February 13, from about midnight to 6 am.
Once the pain began to subside, my words were just "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," and the relief/shock/awe/amazement/fear that I was going through still seems inexpressible. The memories of agony were replaced so quickly and profoundly with relief and awe that they faded almost immediately. It is only with some tough mental effort that I can recall just how terrifying and painful what I went through was. I'll do my best to write it down. Since it happened, I've told the story over and over again. It never feels complete. It feels like I must be leaving something out because how could a story with such powerful and incredible moments ever possibly be really told fully? Although miscarriage is very common, it does not seem that we talk very much about what it is LIKE and above all I want to change that so my sisters and daughters will know the truth of my experience, the fact, what to expect, what is happening. Knowing these things would have been hugely reassuring to me. I was fortunate to know as much as I did. If we hadn't had the ultrasound, I might have panicked even further, worried over whether the baby was alive/in pain, and been emotionally overwrought over the traumatic taking away of my last piece of hope for a healthy pregnancy.
By the way, emotional is not a word I would use to describe the miscarriage. I believe I was blessed, after my long period of crying in the bathroom (post-ultrasound), to let my emotions go and to focus instead on the physical healing of my body, which took 100% of my concentration. I honestly had no room to spare for emotion while going through the miscarriage (or m/c, as the Internet labels it). I found it to be a very mentally exhausting process, having to keep my panic and paranoia under control, managing pain and fatigue, and essentially keeping myself in survivor mode. But above all else it was PHYSICAL. The most physical experience I've ever had that I recall. I tried to think of things to compare it to in terms of pain, exhaustion, duration, intensity, fear, uncertainty, etc., and everything I come up with just seems ridiculous. Post-IUD cramps? Pretty bad, but I was able to stay on the bed the whole time and never felt I was going to be ripped apart or explode. Hiking Timp? Ha, please. I could stop and rest whenever I wanted. Workouts? Nope. I was always in control and never pushed myself to the point of searing pain, thanks. Depression/grad school? Well... this was grueling because it took so long to go through, I'll grant you, but even then I had breaks from hating myself and hating school and there were good times mixed in with the bad. Oh, and my favorite comparison? A heavy period. Ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha. If that's a heavy period, you're going to need your uterus removed. But here's the frustrating thing: the ultrasound tech, the midwives, the Internet - they all said the same thing, that a m/c at this stage would be like a heavy period, with "clots and tissues." I read helpful suggestions like taking a shower, massage, peaceful music, heat pads, and rest would help. I've done heavy periods before, so I though, okay. I can do this. It will be harder emotionally than physically, right? WRONG."
Okay, at this point I had to take a break from writing about the miscarriage and I didn't get back to it until ten days later. My next journal entry (about the details of the actual miscarriage itself) is over 16 pages long, and this blog post already feels pretty long by itself, so I'm going to go ahead and post this.
Once the pain began to subside, my words were just "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," and the relief/shock/awe/amazement/fear that I was going through still seems inexpressible. The memories of agony were replaced so quickly and profoundly with relief and awe that they faded almost immediately. It is only with some tough mental effort that I can recall just how terrifying and painful what I went through was. I'll do my best to write it down. Since it happened, I've told the story over and over again. It never feels complete. It feels like I must be leaving something out because how could a story with such powerful and incredible moments ever possibly be really told fully? Although miscarriage is very common, it does not seem that we talk very much about what it is LIKE and above all I want to change that so my sisters and daughters will know the truth of my experience, the fact, what to expect, what is happening. Knowing these things would have been hugely reassuring to me. I was fortunate to know as much as I did. If we hadn't had the ultrasound, I might have panicked even further, worried over whether the baby was alive/in pain, and been emotionally overwrought over the traumatic taking away of my last piece of hope for a healthy pregnancy.
By the way, emotional is not a word I would use to describe the miscarriage. I believe I was blessed, after my long period of crying in the bathroom (post-ultrasound), to let my emotions go and to focus instead on the physical healing of my body, which took 100% of my concentration. I honestly had no room to spare for emotion while going through the miscarriage (or m/c, as the Internet labels it). I found it to be a very mentally exhausting process, having to keep my panic and paranoia under control, managing pain and fatigue, and essentially keeping myself in survivor mode. But above all else it was PHYSICAL. The most physical experience I've ever had that I recall. I tried to think of things to compare it to in terms of pain, exhaustion, duration, intensity, fear, uncertainty, etc., and everything I come up with just seems ridiculous. Post-IUD cramps? Pretty bad, but I was able to stay on the bed the whole time and never felt I was going to be ripped apart or explode. Hiking Timp? Ha, please. I could stop and rest whenever I wanted. Workouts? Nope. I was always in control and never pushed myself to the point of searing pain, thanks. Depression/grad school? Well... this was grueling because it took so long to go through, I'll grant you, but even then I had breaks from hating myself and hating school and there were good times mixed in with the bad. Oh, and my favorite comparison? A heavy period. Ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha. If that's a heavy period, you're going to need your uterus removed. But here's the frustrating thing: the ultrasound tech, the midwives, the Internet - they all said the same thing, that a m/c at this stage would be like a heavy period, with "clots and tissues." I read helpful suggestions like taking a shower, massage, peaceful music, heat pads, and rest would help. I've done heavy periods before, so I though, okay. I can do this. It will be harder emotionally than physically, right? WRONG."
Okay, at this point I had to take a break from writing about the miscarriage and I didn't get back to it until ten days later. My next journal entry (about the details of the actual miscarriage itself) is over 16 pages long, and this blog post already feels pretty long by itself, so I'm going to go ahead and post this.
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| Christmas Day 2014: The morning we found out we were pregnant |
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| February 2015: This was about a week before I found out I had lost the baby |
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| 11 weeks pregnant |
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