Breaking the Mold

Miscarriage. You know about it, but you rarely hear about it. It’s such a taboo subject, yet you don’t realize just how taboo until you go through one yourself. It seems wrong to give such a negative connotation to such a common occurrence. About one in four pregnancies are lost within the first few months. Some experts believe that this number may be as high as one in two pregnancies. Many women miscarry before they ever know they are pregnant. (http://attainfertility.com/article/fertility-after-miscarriage). That’s 25-50%, not a small number. While I understand the many reasons why it has become taboo, I feel compelled to let others know that you shouldn’t feel ashamed, scared or uncomfortable talking about it no matter which side you’re on.  This is the reason I’m writing. Not sympathy, but understanding and awareness.

Having a miscarriage is a horrible, horrible experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I lost my first child (here's our story). I was only 7 weeks along, so it seems like the blow should be less. It wasn’t. It was hard, yet I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone. Who could I turn to? My husband and family were there for me, but so far away. I wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t. How would I begin talking about it? No one even knew I was pregnant.

No one talks about their struggles getting pregnant or miscarrying. For some it’s because it’s a very personal matter and they don’t want anyone to know. But for many, it’s all you think about. It consumes you. Deep inside you beg someone to bring it up, to talk to you about it. As someone who has experienced some of this, I know this feeling. You so desperately want it to not be taboo. You want to be able to talk about it freely and not feel embarrassed or ashamed. It’s therapeutic to discuss it, to realize just how common it is and that you’re not alone or that different from most other women. We shouldn’t have to discover through google just how common pregnancy struggles and miscarriages are. We should feel comfortable talking about it. We should feel comfortable consoling others who have been through it.

I encountered many faces as I went through my miscarriage. Nurses, doctors, techs, strangers, friends, and family. Some knew how to respond, others didn’t. Why? Because it’s taboo. No one talks about it, so no one knows how to talk about it. 

 When I was in the ER I came across both sides of this. The doctor caring for me was not afraid to say the word miscarriage. He was a he. He had never had a miscarriage and had no clue what I was going through, but he allowed me to feel comfortable in my feelings. To grieve. He acknowledged how I felt and was there for me. That meant the world to me, especially since I was alone. The nurse and the ultrasound tech were just the opposite. They were obviously uncomfortable around me. They didn’t know what to say or how to interact. Instead they made very shallow comments or just ignored me all together. This was the hardest part of all. I didn’t want (or expect) sympathy or someone to cry with me. I just wanted to not feel like an alien. As a nurse, I feel it is so important to treat patients as a person, not a disease (or in my case, a miscarriage). Just sitting with your patient/friend/family, listening to them, validating their feelings can go such a long way. And you don’t even have to say a word.

This is where it all started. Why do we not tell people when we have struggles? Especially people we love. Why do we hide miscarriages? Why do we keep things bottled up inside, put on a happy face and go on like nothing ever happened? Because that is the norm. It’s taboo. People don’t talk about it, so people don’t know how to talk about it. How does this help anyone? It doesn’t.

After my miscarriage, I wanted to know more, I wanted to learn more. That’s just me. I started researching. I came across thousands of message boards with women asking questions, talking with strangers, reaching out to anybody for support. Why? Because who else were they going to talk to? Surely there was no one else in their lives who had had a similar experience or who would understand?

Not true.

I knew of a few friends and family members who had gone through a miscarriage before I went through mine. After I started talking about it, I learned just how true the statistics were. EVERYONE I talked to had either had a miscarriage (or multiple) themselves, or knew someone close to them who had. They never talked about it. Instead, they kept it bottled up inside until someone, anyone, shared the commonality. You hear all the time about the easy conceptions, pregnancies and births. That’s easy to talk about. Why can’t we feel safe talking about the struggles? Why do we have to feel alone? Like we’re the only ones in the universe going through this.

We don’t.

For those women who have (or one day may) go through infertility issues or a miscarriage, don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed. You’re not alone. For those of you who know someone who has gone through something like this, don’t ignore them. If you care about them, acknowledge their grief. You don’t have to have the “right” words, just being there is all they need. BREAK THE MOLD. Let other women know that it doesn’t have to be taboo.

Lessons in Patience

Make a baby? That’s easy! If 16 year olds can do it, I sure can!

We decided to start trying to have a baby this year. We’d done everything “right”. We had been married 2 years, together 5. We were happy, healthy, and financially stable. I had finished 2 master’s degrees and become settled in my dream career. My husband was quickly approaching the peak of his dream to fly F16s (a dream he’s had his whole life, and has worked so hard for). It was time, we were ready, the stars aligned.

I went off birth control a year early. I was sure that once we started trying, we would get pregnant immediately. I mean, why wouldn’t we? I knew it would be a logistical pain. My husband was finishing pilot training in Mississippi, and I was living/working in Texas. We saw each other as much as possible, but from what I had heard it helps to be with your partner when you’re trying to conceive ;). So, we decided we’d officially start trying the next May. Until then, we’d practice ;).

In April, my husband came home for my birthday. He was only here for a few days. We ate, drank, had fun. He went back to MS, I left for a conference in LA. A few weeks after my birthday, I realized I was late. Could it be? Already? After only one time? Could we be that lucky? I did the math, it wasn’t impossible although I had a feeling it was. I decided to call my doctor on a Friday afternoon (these things ALWAYS happen on a Friday afternoon). She assured me that it was definitely possible and asked that I come in and do some blood work to see if I was indeed pregnant (it would detect it much earlier than a home pregnancy test). I went in at 3:30pm and left…. wondering. I called the office as I pulled out of the hospital garage to see when they thought the results would be in (I have ALWAYS been very impatient). They told me it could take a few hours and the office closed at 5pm. I was confident I would hear something before they closed (I have also ALWAYS been very optimistic). Nope. Nothing. I waited all weekend (an eternity for the impatient). Monday morning I got the call, I was not pregnant. I was not sad or really surprised to hear the news…. I had a feeling I wasn’t…. a feeling I would later learn to be my closest friend, who would guide me through my ups and downs. My husband on the other hand, was upset. His “feeling” told him we were. His reaction was the hardest part of all for me. It proved how ready he was. How hopeful he was. The past pessimist was finally becoming an optimist like me. I hated to give him the news, but was confident when telling him it would all be ok and things would eventually happen when the time is right. We’d have to follow God’s plan.

onths went by and I still wasn’t pregnant (nor had I had another cycle). I was growing concerned, my patience was running thin. Everyone kept telling me that I was fine, it was just taking my body some time to regulate after being on birth control for 10 YEARS! I didn’t want to believe that… I was sure there was something wrong. As soon as I returned to Texas in July (after being in Mississippi for 2 months) I went straight to my ObGyn. She ran a gamut of tests. Everything came back normal. I had not started ovulating yet, but she was sure that my body would get in the normal flow of things, and I eventually would. “Mrs. Impatient” still didn’t believe it. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I bought books, apps, everything I could get my hands on to learn about fertility and my body.

15 days later, I started ovulating.   

I was ecstatic. It was going to happen! I realized this was just a (first) lesson in patience. I can’t control everything.

That month my husband and I were apart, so I waited for the next month. By that point, I’d come to realize just how ridiculous and impatient I was being. It had only been 6 months since we said we were going to officially start trying. What was I freaking out about? It can take the average normal, healthy couple up to one year to conceive. Why was I stressing after 6 months? So, I decided to stop (stressing), leave it up to God and good timing, and just have fun in the process.

That month we conceived!

I was with my husband for 2 weeks, then I had to come back to Texas to finish my last mini-mester before we moved to Arizona. It was by far the most stressful month I’ve had in a long time. We sold our house and had to deal with all the inspections/repairs that came along with that. We found out we would be PCS’ing 2 months earlier to a totally different city than we originally planned, and I would have to fly out and find a place for us to live. Add to that working, packing, and seeing those 2 pink lines we had been waiting for.

It was a week before my “missed period”. That “feeling” came back...I was pregnant... I could feel it. It was too early to test, I told myself to wait at least another week. The last thing I wanted was to see another “big fat negative”. So I left it alone. A few days passed, and the symptoms started! My breasts felt like they had been used as punching bags, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus, I was tired, I was craving red meat?!? (if you know me, you know that’s odd).  So I decided to go for it. I had a pack of 3 pregnancy tests, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to waste 1. The box said to wait 3 minutes… the result came up in 30 seconds. OBVIOUSLY PREGNANT! I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t believe it! Who would sell fake pregnancy tests? That’s just mean. I sent my husband a text, but I knew he was asleep and wouldn’t wake until the morning. So, I called my best friend. We did the happy dance together, then I went to sleep. HA. NOT. I couldn’t wait for the next morning to come so I could tell my husband. I woke up extra early (again, very odd for me) to take a digital pregnancy test. I wanted the cool “pregnant” sign to show. It popped up in 30 seconds too. This was for real. He called me as soon as he woke up (not knowing what for). I told him I wanted to FaceTime. I had something I wanted him to look at because I wasn’t sure what it meant… ha. Stupid FaceTime wouldn’t work! Then I realized I was in a bad area so I moved my “set up” to the bedroom. We were FaceTiming! But it was black! “Why can’t I see your face?” He still had the light turned off…. typical. He knew immediately why I wanted to see his face at 6am…. “Are you pregnant?” “Just shut up and turn the light on”. We really love each other. As soon as we could see each other I turned the camera to my 2 POSITIVE pregnancy tests! We were both so excited to share in that moment. Lola (our Great Dane) joined in as well. It felt so great to finally share good news.

I called my doc, she had me go in to do blood work to confirm. Sure enough! I was preggers! Not even 4 weeks along. There’s nothing they can do/see that early so she told me to wait until we moved to AZ and see a doctor there at 10 weeks. I immediately set up (a few) appointments to scope out the competition. Then it was a waiting game. Another lesson in patience. I was getting pretty good at this whole patience thing. So I did everything “right” (again). I took my prenatals, continued to exercise (lightly), ate really well, didn’t let everything going on around me stress me out, and just enjoyed my pregnancy. I never would have thought that I would grow to LOVE having sore breasts, no sleep and peeing every 5 minutes, but it was just confirmation and reassurance every day that I really was pregnant.

Life was good. The future was bright.

As a planner, I was already planning the future with this little person whom I hadn’t yet seen or met, but couldn’t wait to. When/how we’d tell our family and friends the big news. How we’d announce the gender. Names. Nursery colors. Midwife or OB? Birth plan. What he/she would look like. What kind of stlye and personality will Lil G have? It was all so exciting. I wanted to tell everyone. Strangers and friends.  I wanted to announce it to the world! And so did my husband.

But we decided to wait. Like most people do.

12 weeks? 14? 16? 20? There’s no magic number. How do you decide? Some people announce as soon as they find out, others wait longer. It’s a personal preference and no decision is better than another. As a medical professional, I know (too much) about all that can go wrong. Just how fragile pregnancy is. So, we decided to wait 16 weeks to tell everyone, 10 to tell our family. That couldn’t come soon enough.

It wouldn’t come soon enough.

At my 7 week mark. Friday the 13^th, I woke up to a beautiful day. I had been so happy to wake up everyday since I found out I was pregnant. I am usually NOT a morning person. I went to work, everything was great. I did start to notice that some of those\ symptoms that I had been monitoring so closely as reassurance everything was ok, were starting to wane. I chalked it up to be me just “getting used” to them. I’d also started to get that “feeling” again… this time that things weren’t going to be ok. My friend reassured me that those feelings were normal during your first trimester and that everything would be fine. I went about my day, came home, had something to eat and then developed an awful headache. I decided to turn in early. 7pm on a Friday night. No shame. Sleep always helps my headaches, plus the baby could use some rest… I hadn’t been getting much with all the peeing I was doing throughout the night.

I woke up at 2:30am. My headache wasn’t any better. Of course, I had to pee. I went to the bathroom and there it happened. I lost my baby. Was I dreaming? Was this a horrible nightmare I’d wake up from later? Nope. I called my husband, told him very matter-of-factly, and told him to go to sleep and call me in the morning. I didn’t go to sleep. I laid in bed with Lola resting on my tummy, waiting for the sun to rise so I could start my day, have a normal routine and pretend nothing had ever happened. 
Wishing that nothing ever happened. 
The sun came up, I got dressed, and I took Lola for a walk. I tried to act normal, but I couldn’t. I was in another place. A lonely place. We walked by several people, but I felt miles apart from them. Lola knew. Lola felt it. A dog as sweet as they come growled at every person that walked by us. Something she never does. She was protecting her mom. I didn’t really notice it at the time, but now it gives me chills.

My husband called me when he woke up. He asked if I had called my doctor. I hadn’t even thought to. Why should I? It’s Saturday morning. What can they do now? Then the nurse-me kicked in and I realized that was probably a good idea. I called the office, was sent to the answering service and had to utter those words I’d been dreading (to a stranger) “I think I’ve had a miscarriage”.  She told me she would get in touch with the on-call doc and have him call me. He called me back pretty quickly and for the first time I couldn’t even speak through the tears. He gave me time to explain to him what had happened and then suggested that I go to the ER. I was not looking forward to this.

I arrived at the ER and had to utter those excruciating words several more times. They told me they wanted to look into it and be sure that it truly was a miscarriage. Bleeding during pregnancy isn’t always abnormal. I knew mine was. They did a pelvic exam. PAINFUL. They did a ton of blood work. Sent me to ultrasound. PAINFUL. 45 minutes of a probe inside of me looking for what? I don’t know. I knew there wasn’t anything left in there. The ultrasound tech, with a flat facial expression, never said a word. PAINFUL. They took me back to my “room” where I waited for the results. The doc came in and confirmed that I had miscarried. “It appeared as if I had never even been pregnant”. I knew what he meant, but that was not what I wanted to hear. Otherwise, everything else looked healthy. I would not need a D&C. There was nothing I could have done. There was nothing that I did wrong. The baby most likely had a chromosomal anomaly (the cause for 85% of first trimester miscarriages). We could try again in a few months. ALL PAINFUL.

I let my husband know. He shared the news with his parents, I shared with mine. No one knew we were pregnant. The hardest part (aside from not being able to go through this with my husband by my side) was telling my mom. I tried to do it via text, but she called me instead. I couldn’t contain myself. I cried like a baby and told her the news that I had been pregnant, but wasn’t anymore. The first thing she asked was “Are you alone?”. I was. I hadn’t really even considered it. I live 300 miles from my family. My husband has been 600 miles from me for over a year. I do things on my own. I’m ok with that. It never dawned on me until that moment that I was all alone. There was nothing anyone could do. Alone or not.

I just wanted to crawl into a hole and come out when it was all over. When the pain was gone. But I couldn’t, I had to be strong. 

I went home and sat in the quiet for a while. I didn’t know what to do or think, or how to “be”.  Part of me felt like it was silly to be so upset. I was only 7 weeks. I hadn’t even seen the baby. But I was upset, and that was ok. I decided to go to dinner with some friends. I had to get out of the house and be with people that I love, and that didn’t know what I had just been through. I needed to take my mind off of what I had lost. It helped. I felt better when I got home, hopeful that everything would be ok. It took me a while to fall asleep, but I finally did…. almost 24 hours after it all started.   

I only slept for a few hours. I woke up and my first thought was “Was it a dream? Did it really happen?”. It had. I lost my baby. It had finally sunk in. I let myself cry for a few hours, then I peeled myself out of bed and attempted to follow some semblance of a routine. Through it all, all I wanted to do was crawl back in that little hole. I couldn’t bare the thought that this was my story now. I mourned the loss of my baby throughout the day, and went to bed determined to have a better day after. This day was the hardest.

It remains difficult, but it gets easier. The next day was a lot easier. I woke up and didn’t feel like crying immediately. I was sad, but hopeful. I knew everything was going to be ok. I had prayed that we would have a healthy baby, and ours wasn’t. God was just taking care of us. Even though I was only 7 weeks along, I still consider that baby my first, and will never forget the hopes and dreams I’d already had for it. I know there is a happy healthy baby in our future, and I will continue to be PATIENT until the day God puts him/her in our arms.