To say I had baby fever would be a gross understatement … I wanted a baby, it was all I could think about. Then it happened I was pregnant, I just knew I was even though I hadn’t seen those two pink lines, I just had this feeling. It was my birthday weekend and my mom and stepdad were in town to celebrate at my Quarter of a Century party. A few friends noticed I wasn’t drinking and I let them in on my suspicions. Now I just had to wait for a positive test …
Over the next week or so I probably peed a million of those little sticks hoping to get a glimpse of those two pink lines I so desperately wanted to see. There was no way I wasn’t pregnant, my boobs hurt, I was nauseous all day, my period was nonexistent … I was starting to worry that I may be having some sort of psychotic episode. Then one sunny day on my lunch break I got them, those two beautiful pink lines, I cried. I call E and in true E fashion he responded with something like “oh good, you’re not crazy after all.” Still I knew he was happy. Then I called my mom, she cried. We decided to wait until Mother’s Day to tell Eric’s mom and we were going to wait the traditional 12 weeks to make a big announcement.
Mother’s Day came and I was bursting at the seems, we told E’s mom that we were combining her Mother’s Day and Christmas gifts and we could tell her what she was getting, but it wouldn’t be ready until Christmas time (my due date was December 25th). She guessed that I was pregnant, but I think she was maybe a little shocked that actually was.
Already I loved the little baby growing inside of me. I was amazed that I would be growing a tiny human. E and I talked about baby names and I dreamed about what our baby would look like. I was so excited I just knew this would be the best Christmas ever. I was on cloud nine, everything was rainbows and puppies and roses, but then one fateful day there it was to rain on my parade, blood … Not a ton, but enough to freak me out. I called my midwife, my next prenatal appointment wasn’t for a couple weeks, but they wanted to see me and do some blood work to be safe. They scheduled me to see one of the OB/GYNs in the practice. His bed side manner was lacking to say the least and it did nothing to calm my fears. I had spent the night googling terms like “blood first trimester.” Most of what I found wasn’t very promising. They did some blood work and told me to come every 48 hours to make sure my hCG levels were rising.
My first test showed that my levels were up from the test I had at my first prenatal appointment, but after googling “hCG Levels in early pregnancy,” I feared they weren’t as high as they should be. I took my next test on a Thursday and they assured me I would get my test results before the weekend. I woke that Friday with a bad feeling, I felt nervous and sick to my stomach. At lunch time I still had not heard from the doctor so I called the office, they said the doctor was still reading the results … I felt more sick to my stomach. An hour later I called, same answer, then an hour later, and an hour later … the nurse politely told me to stop calling and the doctor would call me when the results were read. Then it was 5:00 PM and I knew the office was closed and I started to feel a little hope, surely if something was wrong they would have called me. E got home and I filled him in and for about an hour we were back to our happy baby day dreams and planning. I laughed at myself for being so silly and calling the office so many times.
Then a little after 6:00 PM my phone rang, it was a restricted number … I answered, it was a doctor from my OB/GYN practice that I had never met. She apologized for getting back to me so late, but she had just finished with her last patient and she wanted to call me herself to let me know my results. My hCG levels had dropped since my last test and I was having a miscarriage. She asked me if I wanted to schedule a DNC or let nature take its course and I decided for the latter. I tried to stay strong on the call my voice started breaking only at the very end. E had been standing next to me the whole call, when I hung up I didn’t even need to say anything, he knew … Finally I cried, and cried, and then cried some more … I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.
I didn’t have to wait long for nature to take its course, the following Monday the cramping started followed by a lot of blood. It is was an early miscarriage so it was more like a really heavy period. If I wouldn’t have known I was pregnant, I probably wouldn’t have even known what was happening to me, but I did know. I knew that everything coming out of me was my body’s way of flushing out the little baby that was growing inside of me, the baby that I already loved. I went home and slept, hoping that I would wake up and it would all be a bad dream, but of course it wasn’t.
We had a follow up appointment and were told that early miscarriages are common, usually there is no known cause and when we felt ready we could try again. I wondered why if they are so common did everyone ignore them, why did I feel like I was all alone? Why do women feel they have to suffer in silence? At the time out of all of the women I knew, I only knew three that had experienced a pregnancy loss. Since then, after becoming vocal about our struggles I have discovered that number is far higher. Here are the facts:
- About 15-20% of pregnancies end miscarriage
- 75% of miscarriages end in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy
So it would seem that miscarriages are a pretty common occurrence. We are told however, that it is not something you talk about, you can try again, or for early miscarriages it was barely a baby anyways, but that isn’t true … Because from the moment you get those two little pink lines it is a baby and you are in love and you form an attachment to it. You don’t have to ignore the loss that you experienced, you don’t have to feel alone. Support groups are available check out resolve.org or myangelbaby.org for more information.
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