Things I Should Have Learned by Now

In less than 3 weeks I will be 30. Try as I might to slow down time, it's fast approaching. Part of me doesn't mind the idea of being 30 but there is another part of me that is dreading it. There are things that I had hoped to achieve before 30. I also thought I would be a little wiser by the time 30 hit. There are certain things that I should have learned by now that I just haven't. True, I do have another 3 weeks to learn it but if I haven't by now I probably won't. 

My biggest mistake in life was stressing when my plans didn't go the way I had expected them to. I thought that my 20s would be spent setting up the life I wanted to live and then in my 30s I could enjoy the fruits of my labor. This meant that I would be done school, started in my career in teaching, married, living in my dream house with 2 kids. 

I started freaking out when I was 27 and realized I wouldn't be teaching until I was in my early thirties, if I was lucky. I really started freaking out when I hit 29 and had been trying for my first baby with no luck. Panic set in when I realized that I would probably not own my dream house until I was in my 50s because of impending student loans (still panicking on this one). 

The lesson I should have learned from all this? Appreciate what I have accomplished. It may not be my dream house, but I do own a home, I may not be teaching, but I at least have my bachelors degree, I may not have a baby but I do have a husband who has shown me time and time again how much he loves me. I should have learned by now to stop freaking out when things don't go as planned. Things never go  as planned but when I look back on life and think about what has happened so far, it all worked out in the end.  

You'd think by the time I hit 30 I would have also learned patience by now, but I haven't. With everything that's happened so far, I'm still as stubborn as when I first started,  not understanding why things aren't going the way I hope they would. Taking a step back and letting what will be, will be. Just let go. Give up control of everything and just enjoy the ride.

I haven't yet, but I still have 3 weeks. Greater miracles have happened, right?

An Update

Last time I mentioned my struggles with conceiving was when I shared the story of how Dave and I lost Bean in June. In the past two months, we have gotten the results back on Bean's genetic testing, plus my blood work (15 vials!) and Dave's. 

The genetic testing determined that had she lived, Bean would have been a girl. Sometimes it's comforting to know what she would have been, other times it's heartbreaking to know that I could have had a daughter. That word is so different to me now, daughter. The way it pierces my mind now, the context of the word has such a heavier connotation. The thing is, she would have never survived because it was determined that Bean had triploidy, which means she had an extra set of all the chromosomes we normally have. You and I have 46 sets of chromosomes, she had 69. As sad as I am for having lost her, I'm also thankful that I lost her as soon as I did. Although rare, I could have entered my second trimester before I miscarried or even given birth to her only to lose her a short time later. I'm already a mess, if I had gotten through the whole pregnancy only to lose her at birth, I'm not sure I would have survived that. 

Dave's genetic blood work showed he had no abnormal genes that would cause issues in pregnancy. My blood work showed no issues either, although we did determine I am a carrier for cystic fibrosis, so Dave will need further testing to see if he is a carrier too. If he is then we are faced with a 25% chance that we could have a baby that suffers from it. So the good news is that there is nothing major going on with us that would prevent us from having a healthy child in the future. 

It sounds ungrateful to say but part of me is not consoled by the fact that there is nothing wrong with Dave and I. Had there been, there may have been a chance we could have fixed it. What this means is that we've just had really bad luck and  what happened to us could happen an infinite number more times before we have a baby. That, coupled with the fact that we aren't conceiving easily, makes it tough for me to have hope. Like I said, I know I should be more grateful that it isn't something serious, or unfixable, but unless you're in my shoes, its tough to explain. 

So the game plan now is to start trying again. The doctor and I have already agreed that Dave and I will try to concieve naturally for the rest of this year and if we don't have any luck I'll go back on Clomid in January. This works out well for me since I will be student teaching this fall (a sign that maybe God had something different planned for me?) and Clomid makes me very rage-y, which isn't a great mix when I'm trying to teach high schoolers. 

Now I just wait and hope for the best. My biggest struggle right now (besides all this) is trying not to allow myself to be consumed by trying to conceive and not letting all this get me down. I'm not going to lie, it is not an easy struggle to try and overcome and many days it's a battle I lose. But each new day is a different day with a new outlook, so I take each day, bad and all, one day at a time. 

Well This Just Sucks.

June 5^th was a day I was looking forward to for weeks. It ended up being one of the worst days I’ve had in my life.

June 5^th I was supposed to take pictures with Dave to announce our pregnancy. I had picked out the perfect dress. I had the location for the pictures picked out—the library at the University I attend. It was so fitting. I dreamt about the day, hoping for a sunny evening so the lighting would be right.

June 5^th I was 3 days away from 12 weeks. It was a shitty day. It was gloomy and rainy all day, and it was so fitting.  Instead of taking pictures to announce a moment I never thought I’d get the chance to do, I had to have another D&E.

I found out I was expecting on Easter Sunday. I surprised Dave with the pregnancy stick (back in its packaging) in his little Easter basket I put together for him. Since I miscarried last summer I was a little anxious, so we had gone in for blood work to check my levels and then went in for an early ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.

I saw my baby’s heartbeat on April 28^th and at that moment nothing else in the world mattered. I saw him kick his little bitty legs on May 20^th after we went to the emergency room when I started to spot. The heartbeat was still strong and my entire world revolved around those little flutters I couldn’t feel yet and the blinking light on the screen I knew I’d be able to hear for myself soon.

He was still kicking around and the heart was beating strong when we saw him again on May 25^th. Just a little over a week later on June 4^th I went back into the doctor because I was still spotting and his heartbeat had stopped.

My little bean was no more.

I had less than a 1% chance of losing the baby I affectionately called Bean and couldn’t wait to meet in December. Less than 1%. Statistics mean nothing to me anymore.

I’m still trying to come to terms with this. I’m waiting on answers which I hope to have soon and I hope that somehow that will bring me some kind of relief from this pain, guilt and sadness I feel. I fear that it won’t.

I originally stopped blogging because I was so exhausted from having my little bean growing inside me. My creative energy was completely sapped, but I was happy to step away from all my creative outlets. Now I don’t write because it hurts too much to say that it happened again to me. It shouldn’t have, the odds were in my favor.

It hurts to be present amongst other women, women who have babies, women who are pregnant, even women who don’t carry around the weight of struggling to conceive and then miscarrying. I envy all of you. It hurts to be present even among people who are just happy, because I am reminded that right now that is the furthest thing from my grasp.

I know in time I will heal. I know that if I stay strong and keep my head up, I’ll stop feeling like I’m drowning. I want to start every sentence with “I just wish…”.

I just wish this hadn’t happened again. 

Thoughts

Fair warning, this post is a big pile of word vomit...it's just on my mind and I feel like I have to get it out there. 

It's been right around four months since I learned I miscarried. Losing a baby you never met gets easier but it also doesn't. I can't explain it but I'm not a big pile of tears and mess sitting in the corner somewhere wasting my life away but at the same time, I walk around everyday with a small piece of me that feels lost and sad. There are times where I still think about where I would be at if I were still pregnant. What I would know by now, like the gender, maybe the name, what our nursery would look like. I won't lie to you, it makes me sad. I see other pregnant women and it hurts. I see babies and I feel a yearning in my stomach for the baby I lost.

A few things I've learned along the way after losing my little "Fry" (which is what Dave and I called her for the brief time we had her, and side note for the sake of not having to do him/her this whole post, let's just say her since technically all babies are female until the sack drops to determine gender):

1. Just because I didn't announce my pregnancy doesn't mean that I'm going to hide my miscarriage. I'm glad I didn't tell the world that Fry existed before we lost her because then I was able to tell people I lost her on my own terms. There were no awkward "oh hey how's the baby doing in there" and whatnot.

I had an argument with an in law a bit back and he tried to throw in my face that since my miscarriage was posted on Facebook (not by me by the way) that it was appropriate to discuss it in a public and very embarrassing setting. Long story short, he was trying to make fun of me hanging out with little ones as a sign of being pregnant again, less than 4 weeks after I had lost Fry. When I called him out on it, he claimed he was justified since I clearly was asking for it by making it public. For starters, he's an a-hole, but more over, I don't mind people knowing I lost my baby and I feel like I need to share that. It's okay to talk about it, and it's okay that the world knows, I just expect people to be respectful of my feelings.

I bring this up because a co-worker (who works in a different department) asked me when I was going to try and have children. He said he knew that I was going to try after I completed my bachelors degree and wanted to know why there were no babies yet. I told him that I was pregnant and had lost my baby in July. He got very quiet and looked like he was going to cry. He said I'm sorry I don't know what to say, I'm so embarrassed. And that's the thing, he should't have been. I wasn't and it was kind of him to care enough to ask about my life.  Some of you may disagree with me, but I feel like I would do a disservice to Fry if I didn't tell people about her. We don't hide memories of loved ones we've lost or pets, so why should we for babies we've never met?

2. You think after getting over the miscarriage and waiting for your period to arrive that getting pregnant again would be easy...you already did it once, right? Well no, it's not easy. 

3. I don't know if it's just me, but no one tells you about the weight you gain after a miscarriage. Four pounds. Now that may not seem like a lot to you but that four pounds just put me in the "my pants are too tight, all I want to wear are leggings" category.

4. After I lost Fry, I felt like everyone around me was either pregnant or had a baby. That wasn't the case but in fairness, I had to shop for four different baby showers in the past three months. Do you want to know how many I've had to in the past 28 years prior? Maybe four. Thank you Murphy's Law?

5. I'm dreading February 6th. Is it a day I'll ever be okay with again? How am I going to be on that day? Something tells me I'm going to have to curl up that day with a good book and a lot of cupcakes.

6. Does anyone else really talk about the aftermath of a miscarriage? I feel like I read a lot about the moment it happens but nothing else after. Luckily, I've got Ashley to talk to about this and commiserate with, but where's all the blog posts about the aftermath? If you have one, please share it in the comments section below, Sharing stories may be therapeutic for everyone.

Good Grief

via

It's been a little over a month since I learned I miscarried and for the most part I'm doing okay. I still have my moments.

Right after my surgery, for about a week I felt nothing. I wasn't happy, I wasn't sad, I wasn't anything. I was literally in "feelings" limbo. People would ask me how I was doing and the only answer I could say was "I don't know" because I really didn't know. I went on autopilot and it scared me. As much as I didn't want to hurt, I knew that feeling the pain would help me work through everything. 

Then the beginning of the next week, I finally felt sad. It sounds weird to say, but it felt so good to feel sad. Feeling the pain of the loss, made me feel normal and human again. I cried to Dave, asked the questions I am sure everyone has asked at some point in time, "why us?" "is God punishing us?" "is this karma coming back, did I do something so bad that karma is reaping punishment?" 

There are still fleeting moments where I think about how far along I would have been. There have been epic meltdowns when stupid companies continue to email me and tell me weekly bump updates, even after I unsubscribe and tell them I've lost my child, three times. I would apologize for my harshly worded email but quite frankly I'm not sorry, and if said company was a real human being they would get a swift kick in the crotch. 

My heart aches when I see Dave interact with little ones. I know our time will come someday, but we had it. It was right there and now it's not. It still hurts, and I'm sure that's a pain that will never completely go away. 

I think the hardest part right now is the fact that this is right about the time that I would have announced it to the world that I was pregnant...which means every other girl out there who found out they were pregnant at the same time is announcing it now. It's funny, it doesn't bother me too much to hear that someone else is pregnant, I'm genuinely happy for them, but once I hear they are due in February it's like a punch to the gut. It takes everything I have not to curl up into a ball right there on the spot. 

I was working on my quilts the other day and heard "Small Bump" by Ed Sheeran. At first I thought, "oh great, just what I need to hear. This guy crooning about his soon to be baby", but something told me to keep listening and so I did. At the end of the song, he sings "Cause you were just a small bump unborn for four months then torn from life. Maybe you were needed up there but we're still unaware as why" and that last line pretty much summed up everything I was feeling, have been feeling, and probably will be feeling. 

It's a good song, I recommend giving it a listen. 

Every Little Thing is Gonna be Alright

Before I start this post, I'd like to throw in a warning that I'm still feeling a little woozy from going under yesterday (I'm writing this Tuesday afternoon). I wrote a few emails this morning and thought they were well written until I went back and reread them. So if that happens here, I get a pass. 

This picture has nothing to do with this  post...I just felt I needed something picture-wise

Monday wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be. It helped that I got so much love and support from everyone. The love stretched across oceans as far as South Africa and Jamaica. If there is one thing I could not say about yesterday it was that I was lonely. My phone went off nonstop and Dave showed me every message, text, email, Facebook post that came across before I went into the surgery. I truly found my strength yesterday from the love and encouragement from all of you. I will never be able to express how much it means to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

A few things from Monday I want to point out but don't feel like putting in paragraph form:

- Monday I had my D&E, which isn't to be confused with a D&C like I have been. D&C's are for when you can't stop bleeding (sorry if that's TMI), D&E is called dilate and evacuate....that's pretty self explanatory.

-I was a little nervous heading in to the hospital but Paoli is such a great place, I had nothing to worry about. The entire staff was incredibly kind and supportive to me and even laughed at my terrible, nervous jokes.

-Speaking of staff, Mike the RN, I'm sorry. After they gave me the relaxer I wouldn't stop pointing out your height. And mental note: saying "it's okay you're the adorable kind of short" doesn't make anything better. So thank you Mike for being a good sport and staying kind the whole time, if I had been you I would have punched me in my boob when I went under. Which you may have done and I have no clue about.

-I followed Ashley's advice and told them how anxious I get about going under and they gave me a great relaxer which made everything better, except one thing. I got so relaxed I wouldn't shut up. My doctor told Dave I continued to talk even after going under. I have no idea what I said, but if what I do remember is any indication, Mike the RN got the brunt of it (I am so sorry!)

-It's probably best not to "argue" with the doctor when she tells you to eat simple that evening, like chicken noodle soup. Apparently I felt that tomato soup and grill cheese would be better and stated that enough times that my doctor tattled on me to Dave to ensure I would eat what she told me to and not what I damn well pleased. 

-I'm not sure how I feel about all this currently. I'm still so tired and out of it that I can't really place where my head is right now. I do know this: in the past week I have been shown so much love and support, it makes me want to cry happy tears. From my neighbor bringing me a hot meal the first night we found out about the miscarriage, to all the positive thoughts and well wishes, to my mom who has done more for me than this post could manage, to the edible bouquet MJ sent me, and the encouraging texts and emails Angie kept sending, and for everything else that could keep this run on sentence running, it has all been so meaningful to me. I can only hope to show you guys half the love you have all shown me. 

I know in time, everything will be alright.

I Will Never Be the Same

On May 31st, Dave and I found out we were expecting. On July 1st we learned that our baby, who should have been 8 weeks old, never grew past 6 weeks. 

When I discovered I was pregnant, I read up about miscarriages, what caused them, the probability of it happening, if there was anything I could do to avoid it. I'm not a pessimistic person, I just work better if I educate myself as much as I can on topics. Knowing that this was common, that there was nothing I could have done differently, hasn't made this any easier. 

Walking into the doctors office, Dave and I were so excited. I couldn't stop talking about how I hoped to hear the heartbeat and take a video of it to share with family. When we got into the room, the woman gave Dave a goody bag and told him to fill in the cards to get freebies and coupons. He couldn't have filled that paperwork out any faster. When the doctor came in, I made a few crass jokes about the probe and laid down. I couldn't see the screen but Dave was able to, and that was more important to me. He would take it all in so much better. I wanted him to be able to say he saw our baby first. 

The doctor kept clicking and moving the wand around, and I could hear pictures from the ultrasound being printed out from underneath the machine. She was chatting with us the whole time, then asked me the one question I was dreading. The one I knew would mean that this happened to us. "Are you sure of your dates? I'm not seeing an 8 week fetus". I knew my dates. I would bet everything I had on knowing my dates. She showed Dave everything she was looking at and finally found the baby and measured it. She told us she was only measuring at 6 weeks and was going to try and measure again and look for a heartbeat. She never found one. She began to clean up and said that it was most likely a miscarriage, but that she could be wrong. She left the room so I could get dressed and I looked at Dave and lost it. I prepared myself for the possibility of this happening but I couldn't believe it actually did. 

When it came time to leave the room, I tearfully told Dave I couldn't go out there. I knew there would be a room full of pregnant women staring at me, they would know, like I had a huge red "M" on my shirt. I can't tell you how I got out of the office building, I just went on autopilot.  

Two days later, I went in for the second ultrasound to confirm that it was a miscarriage. I had to drink a ton of water before the scan and on the ride up to the office, I spilled water all over my pants, and it looked like I had peed myself. It was a 45 minute ride to the office and I was hoping my pants would dry enough that it didn't look that way, but that didn't happen. When we stepped out of the car, I broke down again crying to Dave, "Isn't it bad enough that we are here for what we are here for? Do I really need to go in there looking like I pissed myself?" I spent the rest of the visit telling every nurse within earshot that I hadn't pissed my pants to the point that it became a joke to Dave and I. I guess it's a good thing I could laugh at myself then, but it was so embarrassing. 

I always assumed miscarriages would be quick. It would start and be done and over with in a few days. It's been five days since I learned that the baby stopped growing and nearly three weeks since it has, and yet it's still in me. I think right now that's the hardest part. Why is my body holding on to it so tightly? Why can't I just let go? 

I have the D&C scheduled for today (Monday), in fact I'm probably at the hospital as you read this. I'm not going to lie, I'm terrified. I hate surgeries and going under, but I don't think I'm really going to start healing and moving past this until I do. I wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing I think of is the baby that will never be, and then I'm awake for hours. 

Dave and I talked about whether or not this was something I wanted to share here. I knew I needed to, that it would be therapeutic to write this out and throw it out to the universe.  I fear I will never move past this. That I'll never be over it. I'm afraid I'll have trouble conceiving in the future. I fear that I'll always think about this baby and what he or she could have become. I'm afraid one day I'll forget him or her. I'm afraid of what is to come and saddened by what will never be. 


I have my moments where I am okay and then I'm not. Writing this out has helped a little. I know with time, I'll be fine. I know that I've dealt with difficult things in the past and I've been strong enough to work through them, and I know I'm strong enough to work through this. I  just need time to find that strength.