Losing the One I Carried

My heart is broken.  My heart hurts probably more than it ever has, even in everything I’ve faced in life.  But I should preface this by saying how happy my heart was and how happy it will be again.  But for now…for now I must grieve.

September 23rd, it was a typical Wednesday morning upon waking but something had been different lately and finally that morning I discovered why.  I was pregnant.  Between the faintness I was experiencing and the in awe moment, I was quite thrilled.  I ran downstairs to wake my husband at the lovely 5:30 in the morning telling him the news.  I can’t help by laugh at his response: “you couldn’t wait till we were both awake and upstairs??!!”

I called my family that day. Yes I should have waited, but I couldn’t keep that news quiet.  I knew they’d be overwhelmed with joy and I needed their support.  I made the call to the doctor and scheduled my appointment.  One month.  I had to wait a whole month for it! Talk about practicing some patience.

Then October 26th finally rolled around and off we went to our appointment.  Our little peanut measured 9 weeks 4 days.  The more I stared at the ultrasound pictures, the more tears I had in my eyes.  We were in awe.  We scheduled our next appointment for November 23rd, 4 weeks later and the waiting began again.

November 23rd, that’s tomorrow.  Our peanut didn’t make it.  Last week, I began having some bleeding to which I called my doctor on Wednesday and they got me in for an emergency visit.  The tech completed the ultrasound and said she needed to grab the doctor for a second pair of eyes because she wasn’t seeing something she should be.  I knew right there something was wrong.  The doctor came in and took a look and showed me the screen.  Our baby didn’t have a heartbeat.  It had stopped growing at 9 weeks.  So literally within maybe minutes to a couple days after our first ultrasound, the baby died and my body had finally caught on.  I was supposed to be almost 13 weeks at that point and thinking everything had been fine up until then made it that much harder to digest.  The doctor sat me in the office and let me cry.  She explained how she hoped my body would naturally miscarry but she wasn’t sure when so she set up a follow up appointment on Friday with my actual doctor since she was a fill in and off to home I went.

Thursday, November 19th, I miscarried.  I woke up with contractions/cramps from about 3 in the morning onward.  And come almost 8 am, I was in such severe pain that I couldn’t take it anymore. I called Shane to come home from work and in the meantime, I called friend who came stay with me until he made it home and I’m so thankful for her. Shane definitely made it home in record timing but that was a long ride to the hospital.

I spent the day in the ER where I managed to push out most everything.  I was hooked up to an IV and had a couple rounds of pain meds to help.  They had to try digging out some blood clots in the end and sent me down for another ultrasound to check for anything remaining to which I did have some left.  They gave me some medicine to take overnight to help and had me follow up with the doc the next day.  At that appointment, she prescribed me a couple more rounds of medicine to help further the process and set up an appointment for after the holidays.

Sometimes, words simply do not portray the feelings of the heart.  We reach a point in life where we are completely broken and words fail.  We hurt.  We cry.  We break down from time to time.  The key is to not stay that way.  The key is to face the broken-ness and move past it, no matter how difficult it may be.  To look at the positive and the future.  To not give up hope.  To keep pressing onward.  That is how the strong survive.

There’s a favorite quote of mine that always hits home:  “Sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain. Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.”

Yes.  I do believe that is true.  No matter if we may lose sight of that along the way.