A year later - pt 1

 This week has been a long one. Long for a couple of reasons, the most obvious to most people is that I am extremely pregnant and struggling. The other reason which is not obvious to the observer is that the past week mark the anniversary of our previous pregnancy.

I think I have been dealing quite well, it obviously has been on my mind, but I haven't broken down. Of course there has been grieving and I've gone through the potential scenarios of the "what ifs" and "how our life would be different" if the miscarriage had not of happened. But I am making a conscious effort to put my focus and energy into the life that's growing inside me right now. I think it really helps, I can't even imagine how I would be dealing if I didn't have this little one keeping my spirits up.

I have decided to go ahead and re share my previous posts about the miscarriage. I am posting it in 2 parts as it was done previous on my other blog.  I had started my first blog as a way of coping, and hoping to find others who had experienced loss so I wouldn't feel so alone. I found some of my regular readers that way and I appreciate everything I have learned from them.
So some of you may have read these posts already, but despite that I wanted to bring them here, to keep it all together in the case that I completely delete that blog one day. Also I found it much more therapeutic to re read these posts myself than try to write new ones at this time.

<3 

Originally written February 27, 2011. 


"Today was supposed to be an amazing day. I had it marked on the calendar for weeks, a select few already knew why and others were going to find out. It's the hardest thing sometimes to keep a secret, especially one that had been so exciting. I wanted to announce it to the world so everyone could share my happiness, but I knew better than to so that from watching othersand now more than ever am glad I kept my mouth shut. If you haven't caught my drift yet I'm referring to the fact that today was the day we were going to announce to our families that we were expecting. It hadn't been planned, but was an exciting and welcome surprise. And as the days went on it became more and more exciting. As weird as it may sound I even was excited when I started feeling the sickness. I refer to it as that because it never happened in the morning, only after dinner like clock work between 6&7 pm. I didn't need a watch I knew what time it was. 

Unfortunately it was all short lived, the tell tale physical symptoms (I had practically the whole list) only last about 2 weeks which I thought at the time was odd, but those that knew said I should feel lucky. I had my first prenatal appointment at 9 weeks 1 day, and everything appeared well. A few days later (9 weeks 5 days) we went for the ultrasound. I was so excited and nervous I'm surprised I didn't throw up. Excited to see that exciting little image on the screen, but also nervous at the way my body was feeling. Now here's the thing; I felt fine, great in fact. Too great, with everyday my body was feeling more and more normal and in my gut I think I knew what was happening but hoping I was wrong. The image on the screen didn't make me feel any better. Now the technician was unaware but during my nursing consolidation I had spent some time in the ultrasound lab, I had a general idea of what I was supposed to be seeing... And it wasn't there.

The image was too small, it looked like a blob, at almost 10 weeks it should be starting to resemble a baby and it didn't. So maybe the dates were just wrong, it happens to people, apparently it happened to my mom while pregnant with me... I think Hubby truly thought that's what had happened, but it was just one more thing for me to worry about. There was no heart beat either, although the technician and the hospital doctor didn't seem too concerned. This all happened on a Friday, the day my doctor is not working so I had to wait all weekend worrying. 

Come Monday I called my doctor trying to get some sort of relief, she had me come in to review the ultrasound. Inconclusive. WTF? What kind of results was that? Even she said the report was lacking in details, but hope was not lost (in her mind) we could just be a few weeks ahead of ourselves. So she sent me for blood work and the hospital would contact me for a follow up ultrasound. Two days later I had my confirmation. My hormone levels had indeed dropped, we weren't wrong with our dates, the baby had stopped growing. I was utterly devastated. It didn't seem fair, we were so excited, embracing our unplanned surprise and planning the future. Why did this happen to us? Was god punishing us? Did I do something wrong? I had so many questions running through my head all at the same time feelings of sadness and loss. All the answers I got were the same "it's not your fault", "you did nothing wrong", "it wasn't meant to be"... I know chances are it was simply nature’s way of weaning out the weak, developmentally something was wrong and my body recognized this rather than carrying on with the pregnancy. 

It doesn't make it easier though, I think about it almost everyday. My emotions still are uncontrolled; I don't think my hormones have returned back to their normal levels yet. It really hasn't been that long. Some days are good, others are hard. Like today, it was supposed to be a happy exciting day."