When everything stops
Knowing when to expand your family is a difficult decision to make because you are always weighing the options, risks, and benefits. Financially, physically, emotionally... are you ready? We had finally decided after our daughter turned three that we were as ready as we were going to ever be. So, we tried.
It was a week before the end of DCA season, so I had been up very late the night prior at our final show before Championships, AND I had also just found out that my 99 year old grandmother had passed away. I don't know why I decided to go to work that day after such a late night and the incredibly devastating news, but I did. After enrichment, I got up from my desk to get some papers I had printed in the workroom. As I started walking to the workroom, I started getting a really funny feeling where everything began to feel like I was walking in a dream. When I got to the workroom, I announced to the teacher in there that I just needed to lie down for a second... and then I sprawled out on the floor. I was so lightheaded. Within a minute or two, multiple administrators were in the workroom, and the school nurse was asking me questions, checking my pulse, and throwing Hershey's chocolate bars at me. My principal came around the table in the workroom, and knowing that I had experienced the loss of my grandmother the day before, he told me that I should go home.
I called M to collect me from school because they sure as hell weren't going to let me drive out of there after practically passing out in the hallway. Once I got home, I vegged out on the couch and let myself feel the sadness I had been trying to put away all day. It was that night after getting our daughter into bed that I decided to take a pregnancy test to see. Dizziness was not a usual symptom for me, so I knew something was up. I was still a few days before my cycle was supposed to start, but I thought it didn't hurt to check. I did my business and waited for the indicator lines to darken. Then I saw it... the faintest faint line vertically, making the plus sign to say I was pregnant. I ran down to show M, and he said it was too faint to tell. I knew at that point that I had to be. But, I decided to wait a few more days to be sure.
I tested the morning I was supposed to leave to go to DCA Championships. My cycle was supposed to start that day, so I figured I had as good of a chance as any to get a substantial yes or no. That pregnancy test was super clear - a very strong plus sign, indicating that I was indeed pregnant. The only symptom I'd had so far to let me know was the almost-faint I had experienced earlier that week. For my two previous positives, I'd had other signs up until the first positive result. But, I was in for a special treat over the course of DCA Championships.
The first rehearsal morning, I ate breakfast and felt great, enjoying the egg omelet the hotel had prepared. We drove to our rehearsal site, and the colorguard traipsed off to a spot to get our stretch on. Then, while I was stretching out the colorguard, a super wave of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. It was at that moment I knew I was in for it. I ended up telling the staff that morning because I could not shake the nausea, no matter what I did. They were so awesome, and one of them actually drove out from rehearsal to get me ginger ale and crackers so I could try to keep whatever I ate down. Over the course of the weekend, I struggled every morning with morning sickness. I had to figure out how to prepare enough for me to eat so that I could participate in rehearsal but not so much that I would get the queasies and live the rehearsal block in the bathroom. Usually after lunch, my nausea abated enough to where I could function like a normal human for the remainder of the day. I actually had two of my best shows at DCA Championships, and I am proud of all the hard work I put into the season that resulted in those successful shows. But figuring out what I needed to do so I could keep from feeling green all day was certainly a stress that I was not prepared for.
After getting home from DCA Championships, I told people I worked with about our good news. My nausea was getting the better of me every day, and I wanted to be sure my nearby coworkers were aware so that they could assist if I started waving the white (or green, in this case) flag. I scheduled an appointment with the doctor to have my pregnancy confirmed, and when they confirmed it, I wanted to say "well, DUH." I scheduled my first prenatal appointment complete with ultrasound, and I went on my merry way.
Then, a few days before my ultrasound, I noticed a light brown spotting had entered my space. I'd also had a little discomfort, not like cramps but an achy feeling in my uterus. I tried to shake it, telling myself that I had just done too much the day before, writing choreography and picking up a car seat. When I went to that first appointment, I let the midwife know that I had started a little spotting. She didn't make a big deal out of it, saying that spotting is normal for some women and at this point there wasn't any reason to be concerned. According to my LMP, I was supposed to be 7 weeks 2 days, but the midwife said that based on my ultrasound, I was measuring 5 weeks 5 days. I felt a sense of concern, given that my LMP date and this date were over a week off. But, she again assuaged my concerns, saying that I most likely ovulated later than I thought. The ultrasound showed a gestational sac and yolk, so I felt relief seeing that there was something in the gestational sac. I left the appointment feeling a small sense of concern but overall hopeful after the reassurance she had given me throughout the entire appointment. I went on my merry way, trying to do what I could to help my nausea. Although... I had noticed that I wasn't struggling quite as much as I had been before, but I thought maybe it was just because I was getting better at managing it.
The spotting never stopped, and it kept getting a little heavier, a little darker, a little more concerning each day. I tried to get my mind off of it, but every time I went to the restroom I would worry myself with how things were going today. My midwife hadn't called me to let me know that my hCG levels were a concern, so I was feeling positive about everything. Then, on a Friday morning, I woke up to a big gush. I knew something wasn't right, so I called out of work and immediately got an appointment. They were able to squeeze me in to get an ultrasound, and when I saw the gestational sac I knew something was awry. It looked like nothing had changed from the previous ultrasound. At that point, I should have had another week of growth, but there was no little alien creature in there... just the same sac and what appeared to be the same yolk in there. The ultrasound tech wrote "did not find fetal pole" on my paperwork, and he said that I had a subchorionic bleed. The midwife told me the situation and had me give more blood to check the hCG levels again. She said that my levels had looked great the week before, but based on this most recent ultrasound, she pushed my due date 4 days further away. Because of this, she wanted to check my levels again in 48 hours to see if they were continuing the appropriate upward trend. She told me to be cautiously optimistic. I was still pregnant, at least for now.
I went about my business for the rest of the day, and I came back to school to be at the game for my colorguard students. The next day, we had a busy day because our marching band had a band contest. The staff met early for breakfast, we had a short rehearsal with the kids, and we arrived at the band contest. The band contest went well, but the facility was large so I did quite a bit of walking to get where I needed to be when I was needed. An achiness in my uterus had developed over the day, so I made sure to sit when I could when all the warming-up and performing were over. M and I left the contest, and since we had driven in the same car, we had a great conversation about many different things, ranging from our daughter to nerddom to our classes. I had to drop him off at my school to pick up his car. After leaving my school, I started feeling a little more than an ache in my lower abdomen. I tried to shake the feeling, but by the time I got home, it felt like a period cramp. I had a sense of foreboding about what was happening, so I decided to take a Tylenol and get ready for bed.
M had arrived home shortly after me, but I had already gotten my pajamas on and was laying in bed by the time he came upstairs. I was really struggling with the cramps at this point, so I was grimacing and breathing trying to relax myself out of the pain. He went into our bathroom to get ready for bed, and as he was getting ready, I was really starting to get very uncomfortable. Once he finished brushing his teeth, he came back into our room. He took one look at me in the bed and immediately asked if I was okay. I told him truthfully that I didn't know. The cramps kept getting more and more intense, and as I reflected on what was happening, I realized that the pain was coming in waves. They started in my lower back, near my sacrum, and would then wrap their way around to the front of my lower abdomen. I was really starting to get anxious at this point, and that's when I said, "This feels like labor." I knew a major event was tipping off at this point. I made sure to get myself a sanitary napkin because I just felt that I was about to experience an intense amount of bleeding.
At this point, I was trying to find a position that would help the pains feel anything less than overpowering. I had forgotten how intense labor pains were... no matter what position I was in, I could not find something to make it feel any better. On all fours, no change. On my back, definitely worse. Standing up, barely an improvement. It was after a few waves where I couldn't hold back tears that I decided to check to see if I was bleeding yet. A little peek and all I saw was red. I knew at that point that I needed to call my OB to determine what to do next.
I called the after-hours doctor line of my OB, and when I reached someone, they talked me through my symptoms. I asked her if I needed to go to the ER because of the fact that I was bleeding, and she said that if I start bleeding enough where I have to change out of the sanitary napkin twice within the hour, then yes. Otherwise, just let nature take its course, and come in to see the practice on Monday. Throughout the entire phone conversation, I was trying to roll around on the bed, looking for a position that would help my pain be even just a little bit less than it was. I could not find anything that helped it feel any better than complete misery. Immediately upon hanging up, I looked at M and said, "There's no way that I'm NOT going to hit that bleeding... I've already soaked through this one."
Within minutes, we were both fully dressed and in the car on the way to the hospital. It was strange because on the one hand, I felt sad about what was happening, but on the other hand, I was logically talking myself through my "labor pains," finding breathing strategies and positions to help me feel less pain. When we arrived at the hospital, I opted to sway back and forth while M filled out all the paperwork. While waiting to be triaged, I had to go to the restroom. While in there, I passed something that looked very different than what I had seen before. Awkwardly, I called out to M through the bathroom door to ask him to bring a nurse over to take a look. It was such a strange scene... me holding that piece of toilet paper with something I had never seen before, and the nurse excitedly holding a basin under my hands and examining it with me. She told me to place the paper in the basin, and it would come with me to wherever I was headed next. I felt really weird about carrying around of piece of toilet paper with who-knows-what tissue on it, but she said, "Clearly, I live for this kind of work, so don't worry about being embarrassed!" It made me feel less uncomfortable about the whole situation, so we carried that basin until we left.
After getting seen by the nurse in triage, we headed back to a room to wait for the doctor. I could not sit down due to the amount of pain I was in. Sitting made everything feel 1000 times worse, so I just left myself awkwardly stand there while the attendant asked me questions and took vitals. Based on my previous experience in the hospital while pregnant and bleeding, I knew I would have tons of blood taken to get many tests run, and I knew ultrasound would come to see what was going on in my uterus. I had been so embarrassed the last time about bleeding all over everything, but this time I really just wanted to know how it looked, if I was going to bleed out, and to get something to help my pain be anything less than overwhelming. Every time I would get the wave of pain, it would be followed by a gush from down below, and immediately I'd start to panic. I opted to saying "Gross!" every time I felt a gush... I am a little ashamed about my choice of words, but honestly I had never felt that much tissue exit my body at one time ever before, and I literally had no idea how to react. In my mind, I was bleeding too much, and I was really worried.
After the nurse asked me all the questions and got all the details she needed, she told me to change into a gown and get on the bed to prepare for ultrasound. She asked me about what I would prefer to wear underneath given the amount of bleeding I was experiencing. I opted to save one sliver of dignity I knew I would have left after everything was said and done... I chose NOT wear the adult diapers and instead wore the massive sanitary napkin with mesh undergarments instead. At this point, the undergarments I had worn with the sanitary napkin I had changed right before leaving were completely soaked and totally pointless. My undergarments waved the white (or in this case, red) flag and exhausted their ability to protect the outside world from what was happening inside my body. I was told to remove them before getting on the bed. The nurse came back in right before I sat down on the bed to give me a pain reliever to help with the labor pains.
Once I got the gown on and took the medication, I sat down on the bed. They had prepared it with multiple pads of absorbent paper. The crinkle it made under my legs was weirdly reassuring, as if having something to catch everything that came out of me somehow made it better. As I sat there, I had multiple waves of pain and multiple gushes. I bled everywhere... and I mean, everywhere. At this point, the ultrasound technician came in with her equipment, and she tsked tsked the fact that I hadn't been given appropriate undergarments yet. My legs were covered. Thinking back on it now, it was a shameful experience, sitting there, bleeding all over the bed and being unable to prevent it from getting all over my legs, but at the time I was more focused on wanting to know if I was going to hemorrhage to death or not. She gave me a container of wet wipes to help clean myself up in preparation for the ultrasound. I was grateful for a moment of dignity in an otherwise very humbling situation.
She began the exam, checking my kidneys to see how they looked. It actually kind of tickled, having the ultrasound gel being pushed around by the wand near my ribcage. I laughed out loud (I am stupidly ticklish), but unfortunately that encourage yet another gush to exit my body. Once she finished looking at my kidneys, she prepared for a transvaginal ultrasound. I have had plenty of these in my life by now, but nothing really ever prepares you for the initial entrance of the ultrasound wand. It's a weird mixture of trying to relax while someone pokes you in an incredibly uncomfortable way. She took tons of pictures, checking my ovaries, Fallopian tubes, and of course the star of the show, my uterus. The screen was positioned in such a way that while I was laying back having the ultrasound performed, I was unable to view what was going on. I mean, I already knew what was happening, so it didn't really matter.
Upon completing the exam, she withdrew the wand and told me the gestational sac was hanging out in my cervix. In my cervix?! That's not where that's supposed to be! Just a few days before, I had looked at images of that same gestational sac attached to the fundal location in my uterus. Upon letting the reality of what she said sink in, I began to be aware of a deep sadness that was building in my heart. I was grateful to know that what I had already guessed was happening was officially confirmed, but my heart began dropping into the realms of devastation. She cleaned the ultrasound and wheeled out. The nurse had come back during the ultrasound to bring me my undergarments, so I put all those on, again needing to use wet wipes to clean blood that was dripping down my leg. I felt ashamed.
At this point, the pain medication I had taken before the ultrasound began kicking in. I looked over at M, and he asked me how I was feeling. I answered honestly... "I feel weird." He suggested I lay back to wait. So, I did. I wavered in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so, realizing that as I fell deeper into the cloud of tranquility my pain was also abating. M also struggled to stay away sitting in the chair next to the bed. We talked about things for a bit but lost our battle against the clock and took a few cat naps here and there. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor came in to talk to me about the entire situation. Since the gestational sac was no longer attached to my uterus but not fully excised, she diagnosed me with an incomplete miscarriage. She told me that the amount of blood/tissue wasn't a concern given that this miscarriage was happening in a large event. But, I did need to keep my eye on how much I continued to bleed. If I started to feel faint, feverish, and/or sick to my stomach, I needed to come back in immediately. I nodded to indicate that understood, but truthfully I was flying high on a cloud somewhere in the stratosphere, so I understood bits and pieces of what she told me. She said she would have the nurses draw up the discharge paperwork, and I would be out of there within the hour.
When she left the room, I looked at M. It was the first time I really allowed myself to feel the sadness building within my heart. I felt tears falling down my face, but I didn't let myself disappear inside that feeling. I wanted to wait until I got home before I let those feelings completely engulf me. I told him about the sadness I was feeling and how I wanted it to all go away. I cried for a little bit, and then I found a way to pull myself back together. I had dabbed the last tear from my face when the nurse walked back in with the paperwork. She went through everything with us, again indicating the signs that I needed to return, and she named a doctor I should follow-up with. Luckily, she named the practice I was already going to and, in a weird coincidence, even the doctor I was supposed to see at the appointment I had scheduled in a few days. Once she finished explaining everything, I signed the paperwork. She recommended that M pull the car around since it was clear I would not be driving any time soon. They got me into a wheelchair and wheeled me out the front door. She was so pleasant and really made a truly devastating situation better by her sweet demeanor and reassuring words. Nurses truly have some of the hardest jobs in the world, and I am so grateful for all of their personal sacrifices to ensure that patients are cared for and heard.
The drive home was uneventful, and both M and I were exhausted from the 3-hour trip to the ER. We were ready to get back and into bed. Once we pulled into our garage, I let him know that I had to go to the bathroom. He helped me out of the car, and as I stood up, I felt a big gush. I knew I was going to need another sanitary napkin as soon as I could get one. I slowly made my way inside and into the bathroom. It was a weird walk because I felt weak from the labor I had experienced in addition to the medicated fog I was walking in. As I sat down, I looked to see how soaked my sanitary napkin was to confirm it needed replacing... and that's when I saw it. M had run upstairs to get me another pad as I knew I would need one. I called out for him and sat there, staring at what was sitting in front of my face. The gestational sac had dislodged itself from my cervix, and it had exiting along with a huge amount of tissue. I couldn't believe I was looking at it. It was a clear bubble with some tissue on the side which I assume is how it had been connected to my body. The bloody tissue that came with it must have been my endometrial lining that it had been attached to. The sac was not quite 2 inches long. I stared at it for a minute, alternately devastated and fascinated at the same time. Then, the reality of what I was looking at hit me. M walked in, and I told him that I was looking at the sac. The moment his eyes met mine, I completely fell apart. He grabbed the trash can and held it in front of me so I could dispose of it all. I sat there on the toilet, sobbing and unable to get myself to pull off the sanitary napkin and place it in the bin. The deep sadness I had felt earlier was right there, confronting me with its misery and its complexity. The gestational sac that was supposed to be harboring a new life was sitting outside my body, its task interrupted. The baby that was supposed to be was no more. I was completely devastated.
I lived in that place for a minute or two, and then I allowed myself to resurface and breathe. It was then that I took it all and carefully placed it into the trashcan. There was nothing else besides the tissues I had carried with me home from the hospital and the sanitary napkin containing what would have been my baby in the trashcan. M took the bag out of the bin and carefully tied it, taking it outside to the larger trash receptacle. He came back and hugged me, helping me clean up and get out of the bathroom. I told him I did not want to sleep upstairs in our bedroom that night. I did not want to be in the place where the night had started. I wanted to stay downstairs on the couch so I could turn on Bob Ross to help me relax. He went upstairs to get all our things, and I snuggled up on the couch. A numbness began to wash over me, starting in my toes and ending in my head. I tried to let myself get lost in Bob Ross, but I couldn't. I tried closing my eyes, but I found they wouldn't stay closed. My mind was racing about everything that had just transpired, and I could not find a way to quiet it. I decided to send a message to my mother and sister to let them know. I kept checking my phone to see if they had responded yet. Somehow, through everything, I was able to finally drift off to sleep after my mom responded at 4:23am, saying she was catching a connecting flight but that she was so very sorry and that she loved me very much. I think having that moment of reassurance from the one person who I needed helped me to relax enough to let myself go to sleep.
I woke up a few hours later when the sun had already started to rise. I did not want to greet the day, so I rolled over and tried to let myself drift off. I could not. I thought back to the evening before, and all the feelings and sadness welled up and exploded out of me. I wept and wept on the couch, and I was so absorbed by my own sadness that I didn't even notice or try to stop my cat Feivel from licking the tears off my face. Somehow, I started to cry less, and at some point, the tears stopped falling. I realized that I had fallen down a deep, dark well and the sunny sky at the top was unreachable.
For the next two days, I was unable to leave the couch. My daughter came home the day after I miscarried (she had been off at the grandparents' house, thank goodness), and even when I saw her, I couldn't lift myself out of the well of sadness. Her hugs and sweetness, though, did make the place I was in a little more bearable, but I struggled to find the joy in anything I did. A dear friend came with her two boys to see me on Sunday, and her company and empathy in hearing my story was what I needed. Her boys bounced around our house, and my daughter was so excited to have someone new to play with. It was good to prevent myself from falling into the raw depths of my devastation that day. I was so grateful for our friendship in that moment.
On Monday, my daughter came home with M carrying a little stuffed cat pillow. The second they opened the door to come in, she bounded right for the couch I was laying on, gave me my soft cat pillow, and laid down on the couch with me. She put her hand on my face and said, "I love you, Mommy." She looked down at my stomach and asked, "The baby is gone?" I nodded and told her the baby was gone. Tears welled up in my eyes. She turned to look back at me and said, "It's okay, Mommy. I love you." I realized at that moment that she was my lifeline in the sea of loss. I held onto her very tight, and she chose to stay on the couch with me for a very long time, longer than I expected a 3-year-old just coming home from school to want to sit still. Her presence and innocence about it all helped.
It was a little later that evening that I told M I needed to get out of the house. We agreed to go have dinner at Zoe's. The whole trip, I lived in this space of confusion and loss. I couldn't make myself smile at the cashier after I ordered, I couldn't feel the joy in what I was eating... I just was lost and numb to anything and everything that was happening around me. But, even though I spent that meal in that lost place, it was what I needed to help me begin to climb out of the well. After that, I started to feel better each day.
Here I am, 15 days after experiencing the loss of what would have been our baby. I know that there were reasons outside of my control that were responsible for the miscarriage. I know it was nothing I did either before or throughout the duration of my pregnancy that made the miscarriage happen. I know there was most likely something very wrong with the embryo, and my body knew it shouldn't continue to carry the defective embryo. But, it still doesn't make the feeling of having what should be one of the most joyful moments of your life ripped from you unexpectedly better. I am still sad. I am still bleeding. I still get positive pregnancy tests because I still have an elevated level of hCG. In a cruel sense of irony, I still have bouts of morning sickness. My breasts are still sometimes tender. Every time I go to the bathroom, I look down and wonder when I will ever be normal again. Everything I do reminds me of being pregnant and what should have been.
Seeing pregnant women makes me sad. Seeing babies makes me sad. Seeing parents with their sweet children makes me sad. Having people ask me how I'm doing makes me aware that I am definitely still sad. I have moments where I return to feeling like I did before, happy and enjoying the things around me, and then all of a sudden I am triggered by something, and I fall into a depression. Sometimes, I can pull myself out with a happy thought or a cute picture of my daughter, but sometimes... I stay in that valley for the rest of the day. I know this will dissipate and lessen with time, but when you are sliding downward, it can be hard to remember.
I think also what is so hard about this is that it's not an easily shareable type of grief. With the loss of a living family member, you can say, "I lost my grandmother," and people instantly understand and empathize. When you say, "I lost my baby. I miscarried," people don't know how to react and can't empathize. Not to say there aren't those who have experienced this and share in the sadness with you, but many times, people have not. Also, this loss happened before many people knew I was pregnant. It is hard to explain to people that I am sad about something that they didn't even know existed. And then, the hardest part, people unknowingly being insensitive to my pain.
"At least you know you can get pregnant!"
"At least you've had a child already."
"Well, it's good that it happened now and not when you were further along."
"So, when is baby #2 going to be on the way?"
The loss I have experienced is very real. The pain I feel is real pain. I am grieving because I lost something that was very important to me. Even though I know I had nothing to do with it, I feel responsible. I wonder if I will ever be able to have a baby again because I feel like I am broken. I wonder when I will stop bleeding and when will I stop being tortured with pregnancy symptoms for a non-existent baby. I wonder when I will feel like myself again, when I will appreciate myself again... when I will let myself feel beautiful and loved.
"Even through the darkest night, the sun will rise."
I am waiting for the night to end and the sun to rise. When the dawn does come, I'll be ready.