The unexpected journey

Getting pregnant with Dylan was easy. It had no thought to the process. We were one week pregnant with her when we got married. It was an easy pregnancy. Everything that came after that was hard. This is a story that is not deserving of a medal or pity. It is not a story where we have gone to the ends of the earth to find out why. It is quite the typical story as I have been meeting more and more women with my woes. It is just our story. We had gotten pregnant again when Dylan was 9 months old. We were scared shitless. OMG, 18 months apart. How could we handle two under two? Double the diapers, double the craziness. We had already made some decisions from Dylan's pregnancy and birth that we were going to be gun hoe about this time around. We are going to not find out the gender and have a homebirth. We furiously looked at homebirth midwives and found one we really liked. On our 10 week appointment, our midwife called to tell us that she is at a birth and needed to reschedule. I had found blood about the same time she had called. We called her back to tell her what I had found and she suggested to visit the ER. So we miscarried. I spare you the gory details because they are on another post that I had written at the time. I look back on it now and realize that I did not know how bad a miscarriage could get and I got off easy. I had friends who helped me through it. Thank you again if you are one of many who would read this. I had great support from my family. I had my little girl that I was so thankful to be her mama. I had a wonderful husband that took days off just to be with me. It was a hard at the time but easy in retrospect. Also, I could rationalize it because everyone has at least one miscarriage. Boy was I wrong. December 2011, we found out that we were pregnant again. We were overjoyed but nervous. I called my midwife to tell her that I was pregnant again. She gave me the option of either blind faith wait until the 10 week check up or go for a 6 week ultrasound. We picked the ultrasound. I was not going to lose this baby. Counted the 6 weeks then when in for the check. The baby came in about a week later then it should have been which was a tiny red flag but not a full blown one. Our midwife was out of the country so we started seeing her partner. She was wonderful by the way. Had some blood test that were coming back in red flag mode then did another ultrasound that was Full Red Flag Mode. The baby had a very weak heartbeat and was nowhere near where it should have been development wise. Then the last ultrasound confirmed that we had miscarried another baby. Brokenhearted! The due date was my 29th birthday which I was born on my dad's 29th birthday. We were ready for that baby. So ready! Those questions that everyone woman has were coming back in full swing. Since, we had such a peaceful and natural miscarriage with the first one that we wanted the same thing for this one. I did not want a D&C if I did not have to have it. OMG, Hindsight is so 20/20. The miscarriage officially started on my sister's birthday. It did not stop for 6 weeks. We ended up in the ER after very painful cramping two nights in a row. It was bad. I was begging for a D&C at the ER. I thought that was it but it kept going until I saw a miracle OB. After 6 weeks of bleeding and poor care from my midwife, I was given a recommendation for a wonderful godness of an OB. She was a full service woman. We did blood test, another ultrasound (5 so far!) and was in for a D&C by that friday. My sister dropped everything to be with Dylan that morning. I was so thankful to be done with all that bleeding that I really didn't care that I was going to be having a D&C the very thing, I did not want to begin with. She also recommend that I saw one of her therapist on staff. I was so tired and beat up by that point that I could only recover by seeing someone. She helped me out so much that I was always be thankful. This was one of those life changing moments in a marriage and in life that we are different people now. We took this challenge and it made us so much stronger. I will always be thankful for the help of my husband, family and friends. It had taken me a long time to heal. I could not be happy for all the people who announce pregnancies around the same time, mine was suppose to be born. I liked their post but I was heartbroken. How could they be on their 2nd or 3rd child when I haven't even had mine yet. I had Dylan and was super happy that at least we were able to have one baby. I know most people struggle to even just have the one. I am grateful for her every day. So we were starting to think that we were going to be a one child family. Our MO was always, "let's not try to try". We threw that theory out of the window this past summer. We did try. We failed. We were heartbroken all summer long. Why oh why, now that we are wanting to try for another baby, we were failing at trying to get pregnant. All the other times, we got pregnant without a second thought. But somehow, the plan for us wasn't willing to give up so soon. But that's a story for another day. (note: I am turning the comments off again. This was my personal story that needed to be told. Also, I am not going back to edit it. I want it to be pure.)

can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky were shooting stars...

I really could use a wish right now, wish right now--B.o.B with Hayley William of Paramore

Warning: This post is a little TMI and not really checked for grammar errors nor spelling mistakes.

I have thought of a million different ways to start this post. I have thought of a funny little story of "this one time I went to Prentice". I thought about sad openings of "so umm...really worst day ever because..." I said, oh shit, I must back track my post because now I sent out this exciting news and now I will have to announce the not so exciting news.

But here the truth or the heart beat not heard around the emergency room that day on May 20th 2010. Two weeks ago, my life was forever changed the same way it was forever changed when we heard the news that we were pregnant again. We discovered that we were not pregnant any longer. I rushed up to Chicago for Dylan's wiggleworms class with her in my pikiolo and ran to the restroom because I had to use it so bad. I saw some spotting.

I couldn't worry about that right then and there because we were late for class. My midwife called to reschedule our appointment to hear the baby's heartbeat. I told her what I discover and she told me to head to the ER. We did not have a heartbeat establish yet and they will be able to establish it. Nick came over to lincoln square leaving work to meet me at Bad Dog Traven.

We made our way to Northwestern Hospital to discover that there was no heartbeat. I was 10 weeks pregnant but the baby stop developing at 6 weeks. So that was not good. The crying started for sure that night.

It's funny that we had a lot of weight of our shoulders taken off right away. First thoughts were: Wow, They won't be so close now; We can actually enjoy our vacations; Moving will be 10 times easier; Not being force to buy a new car... We felt relived that we were not pregnant anymore. We did not have to worry about another life or another huge bill. We could have our home birth in Oregon where the treatment of midwives is much better then Illinois.


But overall, we were just sad. We just lost our little baby. We had started to get ready for this little baby. We brought the new baby bundle from g diapers. I brought a lot of sale maternity clothes. We had brought and research new clothes for the baby since it was going be born in the winter instead of the summer.

Crap.

Why did we buy all that stuff so soon? Why did we tell people so soon? What did we do to deserve this? Was is my fault because of my genetic history, my crazy work style, not taking prenatals? Was it my fault?

Our hearts were broken :(

Nick stayed home the following day and we were a family for 4 days straight. I called work and got that taken care of for now. I called my midwife. She told me, my options were naturally letting it pass or a D&C. I sat on that information all weekend. I seeked out my mommy friends to see who had a miscarriage. Not as many as I thought but enough information to know what to do.

We let it pass naturally. I had the time off work to let it happen. It came in spots/chucks for days until following thursday.

Blood clots so big that it would scared the shit out of you big time. Cramps that were unpleasant. Soaking though a pad every half hour to an hour. Curled up on the bed, rocking back and forth. Honestly, really bad times. I fell asleep and 3 hours later woke up drenched in blood all over myself, my bed and everything. We got up to clean it all. I was so lightheaded that we made a mad dash to the Edwards ER with Lee watching Dylan at home.

More annoying hospital crap, a catheter with fluids being pushed into my bladder (THAT HURT SO BAD) with another ultrasound to find no traces of a pregnancy left. So it was all done right!?!?!? Nope, more spotting for another week. Not nearly as bad as the past week but annoying none the less.


More questions rushed through my head: Why would women have more then one of these? Or have 3 or more? One was more then enough. Why was this taking so long to heal? Would I be able to carry another child to full term? Just because I did that once doesn't mean I can do it again. Would I be able to have sex again? What does losing this child mean to our overall childbearing years? What was the bigger picture? When will actually talking about this out loud not make me want to cry shortly afterwards? I want to cry about it now.



Yesterday, I receive information about SHARE, a program at Edwards for miscarriages and baby loss. It was a support group for women. What about men? But I realize that I do not need to go to that support group. It was not for me. What I need to do is taking about it hear? I need to write it all down and share it with the world. I do not know who reads my blog if it just family and friends or people out in the world but I need to do this for me regardless of my readers.

I need to start healing my heart and my head. I need to let it go out there in the world. I need someone to stumble on to my post and relate somehow but I am not writing for them. I am writing this for me. Hence, I really do not care if this does not sound grammatically correct or not but I do have my husband sitting here watch the blackhawks game randomly helping me with spelling. I need to move on.


I decided to start reading "Taking Charge of Your Fertility". Also, we went out for dinner two nights after we find out that we miscarried. We ate very good sushi and I got buzzed. We honor baby meiborg #2 in style.



I am turning off comments on this post. Also, please do not e-mail me. Like I said before, I am writing this post for me. This is my support group.