Miscarriage has a way of robbing you of your joy...
We have been struggling to conceive our first child since January 2013. In August of that year, I was diagnosed with PCOS. I was started on medications and eventually did conceive. We found out we were pregnant on January 9, 2014. We were elated! It had been a whole year, finally it was happening for us. We went in for an ultrasound at 6 weeks and there was a beautiful beating heart; everything looked great. We got more and more excited, we told our families and close friends. I just could not keep it secret, I was so happy. At what would be our 10 week ultrasound, we were looking forward to seeing our baby again. As soon as the image showed up on the screen, my logical brain new something wasn't right. The tech was quiet, and all we saw was a small, motionless figure. My emotional brain was having a hard time processing it until she finally said the words 'I am afraid I don't have good news.' The baby had been gone for 3 weeks at that point. My world felt like it came crashing down. Processing that news was overwhelming and all I wanted was to get 'it' out of me.
They scheduled my D&C for the same day. I was drugged and emotional and in my own hell. I tortured myself every day, counting how far along I would have been, reliving our last ultrasound. I felt very little support from some of our family, like no one wanted to acknowledge that this little life existed. Ignorant, hurtful comments came and some people chose to not say anything at all. This made me feel completely invalidated, our baby was not important to everyone. Eventually as time went on, my body healed, and I was moving on. We attempted to use medical intervention to conceive again, but I was denied 2 out of 3 cycles due to have 1 small cyst on 1 ovary. We finally decided to take a break from the doctors, ultrasounds, testing, and financial burden (no infertility insurance coverage), and focus our energies elsewhere.
On July 28, 2014 we found out we were pregnant again, all natural! I was immediately terrified of going down the same road again. I had blood work done, everything was going well, but I convinced myself that it wasn't going to end well. When we heard a heartbeat at 7 weeks, I cried and was overjoyed that my fears were not realized...yet. I never let go of my worries as miscarriage has a way of robbing you of your joy and optimism for future pregnancies. Only 2 weeks later at week 9, we found out we had lost this one too at 8 weeks. D&C was scheduled, but I decided I couldn't wait a week to start moving on, so I opted for the medication Cytotec and to miscarry at home. It was painful, messy, and devastating to feel what should be your baby come spilling out you and down your toilet. I am currently going on week 5 of recovery. I feel like I haven't mourned this loss the same as I felt like I was almost expecting it. It's a messed up place to be in mentally, watching all of your friends conceive, seeing baby pictures and announcements on Facebook; it's all just shoved right into your face. These losses have affected me in ways I probably don't even know yet. I am no longer naive to this struggle- miscarriage happens, still birth happens, infant loss happens and it can happen to anyone. We have decided to not seek medication nor really try for a baby again and see what happens. We have hope for a healthy pregnancy, but we are a pretty amazing family as we are, there's nothing we can't get through if we stick together.
