The month of October is used to raise awareness about pregnancy and infant loss. I spent every day this month up until the 15th to post things on Facebook to help raise awareness about the topic. I'm sure people thought I was depressed, but the truth was, when you suffer the loss of a baby, often the loss may be before you have told family and friends and you suffer alone. Other times, you share your loss with friends and family and in all honesty, unless they have suffered loss, they will never completely understand how you feel. Miscarriage is often taboo to talk about. For years ladies were expected to just deal with it on their own. Ladies, that is NOT healthy for you! In my experience, being open about things also helped others open up to me. With my first loss I received private messages from family members that suffered the same kinds of loss, but yet I never knew they had miscarried before. Friends and people around me came to me because I had the courage to open up and speak out. Had I not started sharing about our losses, I may have suffered through the pain of the losses alone. Instead, I became part of a support system that helped me to deal with the losses we had suffered. Our conversations made me feel less alone in the pain and others were able to share with me what helped them to make it through their losses. In turn, I have learned how to help others that go through loss. I joined our local SHARE group and met even more families and we are all able to learn from each others' experiences. Having a support system is SO important in grieving!
After our third miscarriage we started to look more seriously into adoption. We had a difficult time trying to figure out what was best for our future family plans. Ever since I was little I had this "want" to adopt someday. My ex-husband and I had looked into adoption at one point during our fertility struggles, although we had always planned to adopt since he had been adopted. But for Steve and I, we had wanted to try to have our own biological children. We had discussed adopting down the road if things didn't work out for us, but we knew we wanted to at least try to have a biological child. So, after our third miscarriage we decided it was time to explore adoption more seriously. At this point I began researching agencies, laws, adoption stories, and how in the world we would be able to afford adoption. We also still were not sure if we wanted to stop trying to have a baby, or try further fertility treatments. I often was bothered by "giving up" trying, as well as being mad at my body for not being able to do what it was made to do. We went through every fertility test available to us by this point and had absolutely zero answers as to why we kept miscarrying. Obviously, as we were researching, we continued to try to have a biological child. We continued with fertility treatments that we not covered by our insurance, saw specialists, and continued to get no answers. We also had two more miscarriages.
Our last pregnancy, like the others, we found out early and started monitoring the pregnancy. Weekly blood tests and ultrasounds were scheduled. This time, by hcg numbers were doubling perfectly with no lagging at all. This time, like the others, we were cautiously optimistic that things would go well. At five weeks we saw the start of the sac and my numbers were great. A couple of days later I started cramping and spotting. This is normal in pregnancies to a point, but I knew better for me. Steve and I had decided at the beginning this pregnancy that this was going to be our final try. Each time I got pregnant Steve would begin his worrying about me and what we knew could happen. He would begin to prepare himself for having to be supportive of me if the worst happened again. So, when the cramping and bleeding started, I think he knew and he began preparing for the worst. Part of me did the same, but my prayers and pleading with God became more steady. I went in for my now six week appointment and I remember laying on the table during the ultrasound, silently begging and pleading to God to let there be a baby with a heartbeat. The ultrasound took what seemed like hours and my thoughts were interrupted by the ultrasound tech, Ann, asking me if I saw the slow flicker on the screen. Yes, a heartbeat! The heartbeat was slow, but in a healthy pregnancy they start slow and speed up, so this isn't necessarily a bad sign. I knew though that it was not great news when she kept digging around with the ultrasound wand and snapping pictures, yet staying quiet. I have had Ann do ultrasounds on me before and she is great about pointing things out to me. I know when techs don't say a lot, things are questionable. She told me we were finished and had not yet said anything about printing pictures out. I knew at that point, things weren't great. The doctor came in and explained that the baby was measuring great but the sac was small, most likely shrinking. She told me that at the next week's ultrasound it may be better but most likely the sac will have shrunk and I will have miscarried. I asked for pictures of my baby, holding back tears. My doctor knew about all of my losses and we have talked about how having something tangible to remember our angels is important. She had told me before that sometimes that is the only tangible thing we have to remember our babies. She understood. Right away, she had Ann print me three pictures of our baby. She also said that I should continue to pray, but be prepared that I could miscarry before our next appointment. On October 22, 2014. we had our follow up appointment and the sac was gone from the screen. My body was going to rid itself of what was left of the pregnancy at any time. Strangely, although not in shock, I took it better than the nurses and my specialist. I knew how it would end. There was a newer nurse there that day. She started tearing up as she told me she was sorry. I saw the tear slip down her cheek as she walked out of the room. Perry, the make nurse, was sorry as well. His usual joking and wonderfully silly personality was replaced by sadness for our loss. My wonderful doctor came in and I'm not even sure how to explain the look on her face. She was quiet, she said she was so sorry and even more sorry that we had no answers for us. She told me that it hurt her that she could not find a reason that this keeps happening to us. I could tell that her heart hurt for us. She was more visibly upset than I felt. This is why I loved seeing this doctor. She truly cared and she invested in us. We miscarried that weekend.
It isn't common to have a molar pregnancy. Our first one was a partial molar pregnancy that required an emergency D&C. It is rare to have multiple miscarriages. Steve and I have had five. It is even more rare rare to see a heartbeat and then miscarry. Four out of the five miscarriages we had were after we saw the heartbeat (we didn't have an ultrasound until later with the first miscarriage). We have great luck with beating crappy odds.
We saw a nationally known specialist last January. She works under one of the founders of IVF or the first "test-tube baby" if you will. Even she cannot make any promises for us. Her best guess was another $3000 test and if that came back positive that would mean $400 treatments every two-three weeks from the time we try to get pregnant until 22 weeks into a pregnancy...if we made it that far. Insurance would not cover a single penny of it until about eight weeks or more into a pregnancy...oh yeah, and they would only do it with IVF, which were aren't promised a pregnancy with on the first try. That also, is not covered by insurance. AND if we got pregnant, that doesn't mean we wouldn't miscarry again. At this point, we knew God was telling us that we were on the wrong path. There are so many babies out there that need homes. The money we would spend (and possible get nowhere) would pay for most of an adoption. Yes God, your plan for us is clear now. Now I know why I have always had adoption and love for all children in my heart ever since I can remember.
I told you I was going to get more personal. I didn't even get to the main point of where I intended to go with this post. This is enough for now. Reliving the last loss took a bit out of me tonight. Yes, I cried while writing this tonight. Yes, I strayed from my original idea of this post. I promise, I will post again this week about my original thought process. I want to tell you more about my feelings on life around me and God's plan for us. I already changed the title of tonight's post from "Do Something" to its current title. So, I will leave you with a link to a video that I was originally going to base my blog around and then, next time I blog I promise to get back on that topic.
Have a great night and be sure to check out the video link below and try to figure out what I might blog about next...
