Waiting for the Blue Indicator Line
It was finally time, we had decided. We felt that our relationship had finally reached that stability quotient we were concerned about earlier in the year. We had experienced some very trying times, and while the going was tough, we somehow made it through with our hands still steadfastly clasped together. While some aspects of our lives weren't completely ideal, we thought it better to start now than wait until it may be too late. So we did.
Uncertainty, fear, confusion, excitement, moments of joy... these were all the things we felt while waiting to know. In fact, we decided after our stint of trying that maybe it wasn't the right time. The decision was made to hold off a little longer. A sense of relief washed over us, knowing that it wasn't quite time yet, even though we felt it to be initially. My second-guessing nature won out in that moment, and we felt relief knowing that it probably wouldn't happen our first go-around. There's only a 25% chance, right?
But then I was late.
If there's something that one needs to know about me, I am never late. I can determine the start within a day because I am just that regular. I thank my lucky stars that I inherited those genes from my parents, so that I wouldn't be left wondering or fearing when it would begin like some of my peers. Many a fearful moment was never experienced by me because it always came, on time, as expected, within a day or two of when I had marked on my calendar. But something, this time, was different.
I tested myself on the third day after missing to have the result come up negative. I was totally confounded in that I still hadn't started, but I was having symptoms like I would normally have before I start. So I waited, growing ever more nervous at how I still hadn't started yet all the tests I took came out negative. It just didn't make any sense. They lie to you on those pregnancy test boxes -- "99% accurate from the first day of your missed period." YEAH RIGHT. Here I was, 7 days after missing my period and STILL turning up negative. I tried to relax knowing that stressing in either case would just make me feel unwell.
We went to a corn maze with M's parents on the Sunday, a whole week + a day after I was supposed to have started. There, I asked my sister-in-law who had a baby in May how she knew. She described what she felt and as she was saying those things, a flicker of recognition went off in my brain. I was experiencing those things, and incredibly late to boot. But I had tested the day before and yet again, the result was negative. I knew something was up, and I knew that with every passing day and no period, the higher the likelihood that I was indeed carrying a new life form. My sister-in-law was of course excited when I told her what I had been experiencing but she promised, as ladies do when big life changes are confided to them, to keep it a secret until we chose to share it publicly.
That night, I went to sleep. I dreamt about what it would like to be pregnant -- the feeling of being a part of something greater, the nausea, the uncontrollable appetite, the swollen ankles -- all of it. I had been thinking about these things for weeks now, ever since we had decided "it was time." I woke up at 4:45am, completely awake and completely aware of myself. I realized that I needed to empty my bladder so off I went. On the way to the water closet, I decided to grab a test on a whim that maybe today the result would be different. I performed the test as directed and watched the indicator count down through sleepy eyes. This test took an eternity to generate results, so although I had woken up and felt aware, I was slowly starting to feel the weight of sleepiness on my shoulders. I closed my eyes... and after a few minutes, opened them to see the results.
"Pregnant"
My stomach leapt into my throat. "Pregnant" I blinked my eyes rapidly wondering if my vision had suddenly gotten worse and made the "Not" disappear. Nope, there it was.... "Pregnant." A smile exploded onto my face and I raced out of the water closet (without flushing, sorry Mom) to share my good news. I pounced on the sleeping form of my husband and shrieked in his ear "The test says I'm pregnant!!! I'm pregnant!!!!!" Of course, as anyone would when woken up from the dead of sleep, he rolled over and said "hmmm." Clearly, my excitement had not yet alerted him to the awesomeness of this situation. I repeated again, and he said "okay. congratulations... *snore*"
I didn't care that he hadn't completely woken up to take it all in. I was elated, on cloud 9, soaring through the treetops.... I felt so unbelievably happy that I had to pinch myself to ensure that it was real and that I was not dreaming. Finally, after 28 years of wondering (okay, really from when I was like 6...), I could finally learn what it would be like to have a baby. It was finally happening. Every indecisive feeling I had, every fear I had about the nausea, every concern I had about how to have the baby disappeared in that moment where I read the word "Pregnant" for the first time. The greatest thing to ever happen was about to happen to me... and I just couldn't wait.
After officially determining that I was about 5 weeks pregnant, I set to work looking up every website ever that discussed pregnancy and gave tips on what to eat, what to do, how you should feel, EVERYTHING. The next few days were a blur, full of increasing hormones and making plans to reveal to the wider world our good news. The hormones were real, you guys. My chest felt heavier every day and the dull ache just kept encroaching on painful. I kept waking up at 5am completely and totally awake, which is incredibly uncharacteristic of me. Standing in the store, I saw a book that mother read to my sister and I as children, and I was just reduced to a pile of weepy, nauseated tears. My husband came home with a pretty flowering plant for me as a congratulatory gift, and my eyes turned to water the second I watched him come through the door with it. I had started feeling nausea pre and post-meal... which really sucked. Morning sickness is a total misnomer and really should be renamed all-day sickness. I felt sick at just the weirdest times.
The third day after my positive pregnancy test, I felt a sharp little twinge in my lower abdomen. I didn't really think anything of it at first and just forgot about it. Slowly, though, the twinge became more of an ache and I started feeling concerned. Especially after my morning trip to the water closet revealed some spotting. I didn't want to think anything of it, but I had already experience the implantation spotting (or what I thought was that) a week earlier while I was late. Over the course of the day, the spotting became ever-present, and I really started to worry. I tried to assuage myself by finding articles on what it could be and focusing on how most women who experience this end up having happy, healthy pregnancies. But the fear was growing in my mind, even if I tried to pretend it wasn't there. My chest had stopped aching, and I feared the worst. I went to bed early, after having my husband reassure me that we were going to be okay, no matter the outcome. The cramps worsened over the day, and by nighttime it felt like my usual period cramps. I closed my eyes and willed myself to relax so I could get some rest.
The next morning, I opened my eyes at my usual time. I felt relaxed and surprisingly well-rested. I went to the water closet as per usual in my morning routine, and there I saw what I hoped I wouldn't see. I called out for my husband and in a fit of panic I showed it to him. I was bleeding and bleeding heavily. I didn't know what to do. I had called a clinic the day before so I could have a medically-verified pregnancy test run to ensure I was indeed pregnant, and so I could ask about my issues the day before to calm my fears. We decided I should still head to the clinic that morning so they could help me deal with this new development. My husband left for work a little after his usual time, and while I begged for him to stay with me, he couldn't due to his obligations there. I drove to the clinic by myself, trying to calm myself down between moments of hysteria. While at the clinic I was informed they weren't really a clinic and were not equipped to help me deal with my situation. The woman I spoke with asked me if I knew Jesus and if she could pray with me. I'm not of the religious type, but I accepted her trying to comfort me in the way that she felt comforted. I was referred to the emergency room so they could help me to diagnose what I already knew was happening.
M couldn't come home because he unfortunately was the only person able to be in his office and attend an event later on that evening. I felt furious at his co-workers and could not understand after he explained the dire situation, how they still could not make it work so he could come home. He called his mother who before he hung up the phone was already on the way to meet me. My mother was out of town and my sister lives in a completely different state, so my mother-in-law was the only person who could be with me at that time. I spent the next hour waiting for her to arrive curled up on the couch, alternating between crying and napping. I was feeling exhausted already and it wasn't even 10am yet. She arrived, and I fell apart at the sight of her. She reassured me that everything would be okay.
We went to the hospital, and I was admitted pretty quickly after arrival. Apparently, they don't mess around with bleeding pregnant ladies at this hospital. I was given a rather shifty and scant hospital gown to wear during my examination. They drew blood, stuck a tube in my arm for further blood-letting, and took my vital signs while lying down, sitting, and standing up. I was trying to keep my sanity throughout this whole experience, joking with my mother-in-law and playing trivia with the classical music station I happened upon in the bedside TV. I had been basically crying non-stop the entire morning, but after arriving at the hospital, the realness of the entire situation caught up with me and I started feeling numb to it all.
The doctor came in, and she performed a pelvic exam in which I just bled all over her. It was pretty terrible, and I am still totally embarrassed by it. The doctor herself was about 5 months pregnant, so I felt that she was particularly keen on taking good care of me seeing as she was pregnant herself. I was eternally grateful for her very straightforward demeanor and her ability to give me the facts while still being aware of how I was feeling. After the pelvic exam, she came back to discuss the results, and things did not look good. My hCG level was abysmal (8.1!!! so incredibly low) and the amount that I was bleeding really clinched it. I was suffering a spontaneous miscarriage, and there would be no way that my pregnancy could still be viable after the level of tissue loss. I, of course, was devastated. The silver lining, as she explained it to me, was that it was our first time ever trying to become pregnant, and we had succeeded! She said miscarriages are far more common than the statistics suggest, and having one miscarriage doesn't mean I'm doomed to have successive failed pregnancies. "You're young, and you got pregnant on the first go-around. You shouldn't have any issues getting pregnant the next time, and your pregnancy will most likely be just fine. One miscarriage doesn't doom you to a life of infertility."
I took the news like a hardened soldier and thanked her for her kind words. After getting a bag of IV fluids (she was concerned about my heart rate and the amount of blood loss), I got dressed and headed home. I felt oddly stoic leaving the hospital, armed with my discharge papers and a number for an obgyn referral. I fell apart once I arrived home and my mother-in-law departed. I felt alone in my house, and I just dissolved into the couch, watching the hours pass by. I was unbelievably sad where just a few days before I was unbelievably happy. I couldn't believe this happened, and I feared that the things I had done and the food I ate doomed my pregnancy. I knew rationally that this was not possible, but it certainly didn't stop me from thinking those things.
Here I am, now not quite a week after my pregnancy was officially deemed not viable, trying to come to terms with what happened. I am still sad, but the sadness is not the deep ache I experienced when I initially discovered what was happening. I now have hope where before all I could see was loss. In the end, I'm grateful it happened when it did and not later, as I am unsure how well I would have been able to recover. To know that I was pregnant is enough for me, to know that it could happen, to know that it is possible... to know that I would be and will be inexplicably happy finding it to be true. To me, that above all else is what keeps me going. I know there are brighter days ahead. I just have to wade through some really tough and dark times before I can get past the clouds. This year has taught me that through trusting the people around me and finding strength in my partnership with my husband, anything is possible.
When that next blue line appears, I'll be ready. :)
Uncertainty, fear, confusion, excitement, moments of joy... these were all the things we felt while waiting to know. In fact, we decided after our stint of trying that maybe it wasn't the right time. The decision was made to hold off a little longer. A sense of relief washed over us, knowing that it wasn't quite time yet, even though we felt it to be initially. My second-guessing nature won out in that moment, and we felt relief knowing that it probably wouldn't happen our first go-around. There's only a 25% chance, right?
But then I was late.
If there's something that one needs to know about me, I am never late. I can determine the start within a day because I am just that regular. I thank my lucky stars that I inherited those genes from my parents, so that I wouldn't be left wondering or fearing when it would begin like some of my peers. Many a fearful moment was never experienced by me because it always came, on time, as expected, within a day or two of when I had marked on my calendar. But something, this time, was different.
I tested myself on the third day after missing to have the result come up negative. I was totally confounded in that I still hadn't started, but I was having symptoms like I would normally have before I start. So I waited, growing ever more nervous at how I still hadn't started yet all the tests I took came out negative. It just didn't make any sense. They lie to you on those pregnancy test boxes -- "99% accurate from the first day of your missed period." YEAH RIGHT. Here I was, 7 days after missing my period and STILL turning up negative. I tried to relax knowing that stressing in either case would just make me feel unwell.
We went to a corn maze with M's parents on the Sunday, a whole week + a day after I was supposed to have started. There, I asked my sister-in-law who had a baby in May how she knew. She described what she felt and as she was saying those things, a flicker of recognition went off in my brain. I was experiencing those things, and incredibly late to boot. But I had tested the day before and yet again, the result was negative. I knew something was up, and I knew that with every passing day and no period, the higher the likelihood that I was indeed carrying a new life form. My sister-in-law was of course excited when I told her what I had been experiencing but she promised, as ladies do when big life changes are confided to them, to keep it a secret until we chose to share it publicly.
That night, I went to sleep. I dreamt about what it would like to be pregnant -- the feeling of being a part of something greater, the nausea, the uncontrollable appetite, the swollen ankles -- all of it. I had been thinking about these things for weeks now, ever since we had decided "it was time." I woke up at 4:45am, completely awake and completely aware of myself. I realized that I needed to empty my bladder so off I went. On the way to the water closet, I decided to grab a test on a whim that maybe today the result would be different. I performed the test as directed and watched the indicator count down through sleepy eyes. This test took an eternity to generate results, so although I had woken up and felt aware, I was slowly starting to feel the weight of sleepiness on my shoulders. I closed my eyes... and after a few minutes, opened them to see the results.
"Pregnant"
My stomach leapt into my throat. "Pregnant" I blinked my eyes rapidly wondering if my vision had suddenly gotten worse and made the "Not" disappear. Nope, there it was.... "Pregnant." A smile exploded onto my face and I raced out of the water closet (without flushing, sorry Mom) to share my good news. I pounced on the sleeping form of my husband and shrieked in his ear "The test says I'm pregnant!!! I'm pregnant!!!!!" Of course, as anyone would when woken up from the dead of sleep, he rolled over and said "hmmm." Clearly, my excitement had not yet alerted him to the awesomeness of this situation. I repeated again, and he said "okay. congratulations... *snore*"
I didn't care that he hadn't completely woken up to take it all in. I was elated, on cloud 9, soaring through the treetops.... I felt so unbelievably happy that I had to pinch myself to ensure that it was real and that I was not dreaming. Finally, after 28 years of wondering (okay, really from when I was like 6...), I could finally learn what it would be like to have a baby. It was finally happening. Every indecisive feeling I had, every fear I had about the nausea, every concern I had about how to have the baby disappeared in that moment where I read the word "Pregnant" for the first time. The greatest thing to ever happen was about to happen to me... and I just couldn't wait.
After officially determining that I was about 5 weeks pregnant, I set to work looking up every website ever that discussed pregnancy and gave tips on what to eat, what to do, how you should feel, EVERYTHING. The next few days were a blur, full of increasing hormones and making plans to reveal to the wider world our good news. The hormones were real, you guys. My chest felt heavier every day and the dull ache just kept encroaching on painful. I kept waking up at 5am completely and totally awake, which is incredibly uncharacteristic of me. Standing in the store, I saw a book that mother read to my sister and I as children, and I was just reduced to a pile of weepy, nauseated tears. My husband came home with a pretty flowering plant for me as a congratulatory gift, and my eyes turned to water the second I watched him come through the door with it. I had started feeling nausea pre and post-meal... which really sucked. Morning sickness is a total misnomer and really should be renamed all-day sickness. I felt sick at just the weirdest times.
The third day after my positive pregnancy test, I felt a sharp little twinge in my lower abdomen. I didn't really think anything of it at first and just forgot about it. Slowly, though, the twinge became more of an ache and I started feeling concerned. Especially after my morning trip to the water closet revealed some spotting. I didn't want to think anything of it, but I had already experience the implantation spotting (or what I thought was that) a week earlier while I was late. Over the course of the day, the spotting became ever-present, and I really started to worry. I tried to assuage myself by finding articles on what it could be and focusing on how most women who experience this end up having happy, healthy pregnancies. But the fear was growing in my mind, even if I tried to pretend it wasn't there. My chest had stopped aching, and I feared the worst. I went to bed early, after having my husband reassure me that we were going to be okay, no matter the outcome. The cramps worsened over the day, and by nighttime it felt like my usual period cramps. I closed my eyes and willed myself to relax so I could get some rest.
The next morning, I opened my eyes at my usual time. I felt relaxed and surprisingly well-rested. I went to the water closet as per usual in my morning routine, and there I saw what I hoped I wouldn't see. I called out for my husband and in a fit of panic I showed it to him. I was bleeding and bleeding heavily. I didn't know what to do. I had called a clinic the day before so I could have a medically-verified pregnancy test run to ensure I was indeed pregnant, and so I could ask about my issues the day before to calm my fears. We decided I should still head to the clinic that morning so they could help me deal with this new development. My husband left for work a little after his usual time, and while I begged for him to stay with me, he couldn't due to his obligations there. I drove to the clinic by myself, trying to calm myself down between moments of hysteria. While at the clinic I was informed they weren't really a clinic and were not equipped to help me deal with my situation. The woman I spoke with asked me if I knew Jesus and if she could pray with me. I'm not of the religious type, but I accepted her trying to comfort me in the way that she felt comforted. I was referred to the emergency room so they could help me to diagnose what I already knew was happening.
M couldn't come home because he unfortunately was the only person able to be in his office and attend an event later on that evening. I felt furious at his co-workers and could not understand after he explained the dire situation, how they still could not make it work so he could come home. He called his mother who before he hung up the phone was already on the way to meet me. My mother was out of town and my sister lives in a completely different state, so my mother-in-law was the only person who could be with me at that time. I spent the next hour waiting for her to arrive curled up on the couch, alternating between crying and napping. I was feeling exhausted already and it wasn't even 10am yet. She arrived, and I fell apart at the sight of her. She reassured me that everything would be okay.
We went to the hospital, and I was admitted pretty quickly after arrival. Apparently, they don't mess around with bleeding pregnant ladies at this hospital. I was given a rather shifty and scant hospital gown to wear during my examination. They drew blood, stuck a tube in my arm for further blood-letting, and took my vital signs while lying down, sitting, and standing up. I was trying to keep my sanity throughout this whole experience, joking with my mother-in-law and playing trivia with the classical music station I happened upon in the bedside TV. I had been basically crying non-stop the entire morning, but after arriving at the hospital, the realness of the entire situation caught up with me and I started feeling numb to it all.
The doctor came in, and she performed a pelvic exam in which I just bled all over her. It was pretty terrible, and I am still totally embarrassed by it. The doctor herself was about 5 months pregnant, so I felt that she was particularly keen on taking good care of me seeing as she was pregnant herself. I was eternally grateful for her very straightforward demeanor and her ability to give me the facts while still being aware of how I was feeling. After the pelvic exam, she came back to discuss the results, and things did not look good. My hCG level was abysmal (8.1!!! so incredibly low) and the amount that I was bleeding really clinched it. I was suffering a spontaneous miscarriage, and there would be no way that my pregnancy could still be viable after the level of tissue loss. I, of course, was devastated. The silver lining, as she explained it to me, was that it was our first time ever trying to become pregnant, and we had succeeded! She said miscarriages are far more common than the statistics suggest, and having one miscarriage doesn't mean I'm doomed to have successive failed pregnancies. "You're young, and you got pregnant on the first go-around. You shouldn't have any issues getting pregnant the next time, and your pregnancy will most likely be just fine. One miscarriage doesn't doom you to a life of infertility."
I took the news like a hardened soldier and thanked her for her kind words. After getting a bag of IV fluids (she was concerned about my heart rate and the amount of blood loss), I got dressed and headed home. I felt oddly stoic leaving the hospital, armed with my discharge papers and a number for an obgyn referral. I fell apart once I arrived home and my mother-in-law departed. I felt alone in my house, and I just dissolved into the couch, watching the hours pass by. I was unbelievably sad where just a few days before I was unbelievably happy. I couldn't believe this happened, and I feared that the things I had done and the food I ate doomed my pregnancy. I knew rationally that this was not possible, but it certainly didn't stop me from thinking those things.
Here I am, now not quite a week after my pregnancy was officially deemed not viable, trying to come to terms with what happened. I am still sad, but the sadness is not the deep ache I experienced when I initially discovered what was happening. I now have hope where before all I could see was loss. In the end, I'm grateful it happened when it did and not later, as I am unsure how well I would have been able to recover. To know that I was pregnant is enough for me, to know that it could happen, to know that it is possible... to know that I would be and will be inexplicably happy finding it to be true. To me, that above all else is what keeps me going. I know there are brighter days ahead. I just have to wade through some really tough and dark times before I can get past the clouds. This year has taught me that through trusting the people around me and finding strength in my partnership with my husband, anything is possible.
When that next blue line appears, I'll be ready. :)