February 17, 2011: What I THOUGHT was the worst day of my life….

So my last post was all about where we started, and many of you may be thinking that I will be able to sum up my story in just a few short posts. I really wish you were right. I do want to brace you, however, for what may be a series of too much information and heartbreaking confessions. All are a part of my healing process and what I am hoping will eventually help someone else.

If I’m being completely honest, Harper wasn’t even a day old before I felt the itch to endure another pregnancy, more labor pains, an increasingly difficult delivery, and the joy that comes with meeting your child face to face. I WANTED ANOTHER BABY! Call me crazy; Mike did! However, I knew the moment I laid eyes on our beautiful creation that I was hooked….hooked on being a mommy! It was like a drug to me…I wanted more! I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I had a whole houseful of children!

Mike and I had never really discussed how many or in what duration we would have children. Our first one, while a blessing, was a complete surprise to us! We had a plan…a very good plan, we thought, to wait about five years after we were married to have a baby. We wanted to experience things: each other, life, being married. We wanted to have all that down pat before we brought someone else into it. Boy, did God know better!

We were honeymooning all over again with a new baby in the house! I just knew this was what I was put on this earth to do and I was doing everything in my power to make sure I was the BEST!

Harper celebrated her 1^st birthday in style on May 13, 2010. It was bittersweet for me. My baby wasn’t a baby anymore…but growing up and becoming this AMAZING little person! At precisely 8:48 P.M. that night, I felt that ever present itch even more.

Mike and I started discussing the idea of more children shortly after Harper’s first birthday. I was pushing for more immediately and he was the practical one (always is!).  We decided to wait.

I think now is as good of time as ever to tell you that Mike and I had set forth a very specific plan for our family, and one that to this day, I hold very sacred:  we never wanted to TRY for our children. We wanted God to give them to us when He knew we were ready.

So, you will imagine my surprise when, in early February 2011, I was faced yet again with two defining pink lines (just to be sure, I took four tests! I know, a little excessive…). We were ELATED! Even though our plan was to wait a little while longer, it didn’t matter! We were going to have another baby and couldn’t imagine any other feeling in the world than sheer gratitude to a God that has a plan for us. This baby MUST have a part of His plan for us…and we couldn’t wait.

Now, I have never been a person who liked surprises, except for these special bundle-of-joy surprises, and couldn’t EVER keep a secret (just ask anyone who knows me) so we started announcing pretty much as soon as we had a due date. Why not?! We had a picture perfect pregnancy the first time so this, we assumed, would be no different.

Well…to put it politely…we were wrong. I found out we were expecting on Thursday, February 10, 2011. I immediately called my family doctor who ordered a blood test. Now, I should have heard it in the nurse’s voice when she called me the day following my lab work. However, I am and always will be an eternal optimist so….I was told that my hcG levels were low and that they wanted to order more lab work for me in a few days and maybe a few days after that to make sure they were increasing correctly. I wasn’t too concerned because the nurse told me that my levels were JUST below normal and that could mean that I ovulated late and detected my pregnancy early….no big deal, right?! I tested again two days later and two days after that. Both times my levels were JUST below normal.

February 17, 2011 will go down forever in infamy in my life. I had a perfectly normal day at work and had really experienced no complications involving my newest endeavor (i.e. baby#2) so I wasn’t at all prepared for the long night I would have this fateful day…

I remember well the events that transpired….It was the end of the school day, 3:00, and I had released my students to their waiting busses and parents with a smile on my face when I realized something wasn’t right. I called my friend who had been through four pregnancies and had four BEAUTIFUL children to show for it, to ask her if my light spotting and mild cramps were anything to worry about. I didn’t really have time to hear what she said because, as I was speaking to her, I felt a gush (I warned you about the amount of information I was going to be sharing). Nothing SUPER heavy but enough to make me instantly call my husband and request that he SPEED on his way home.

We made the necessary phone calls to make sure Harper was picked up from daycare and taken care of, and made our way to Covenant Hospital. Now, mind you, I wasn’t at all prepared to be here this soon! I assumed the next time I would be walking through their double doors would be a crisp, fall day in October, when 

I was about to give birth to our 2^nd miracle. I had called my doctor ahead of time and she told me to go to Emergency and make sure they processed me right away.

Umm…ok, doc….have you ever been in an Emergency waiting room?!

I sat there for FIVE hours before I was even admitted and taken to a room. I sat in an Emergency waiting room, terrified, with my equally terrified husband, all the while I was bleeding and cramping and losing my baby. Brace yourself…what I am about to tell you may shock you… While I was spending the five longest hours of my life in the waiting room, I knew the exact moment I lost our precious gift. I had tried explaining to the intake nurse that I was not some crazy person who was pregnant and THINKING she was miscarrying; nor was I a first time mom who was afraid of any little spot; but that I had been through a dream pregnancy and detected this one early and I KNEW what was happening to my body. None of that, as you can imagine, mattered much in my being taken to a room.

I will spare you all of the gory details that go along with how and when I lost our baby, but will tell you that when I was eventually taken back, I was apparently important because the nurse made sure that all of my labs and tests were taken care of STAT.

Hi, lady, where were you FIVE hours ago?! How come no one else could make me feel as though I was being heard and taken care of?! (Now, I’m not trying to say that my emergency was any more important than someone else’s; however, I am just trying to provide you with the full effect of my situation and how I was feeling.)

When push came to shove, all of my tests showed that I had in fact miscarried. The exact time could not be measured by hospital personnel, but I can tell you: it was 6:53 P.M., February 17, 2011. Scary, right?! You have NO idea! After my diagnosis, I wasn’t able to leave because I still had to have a bunch of labs run….SERIOUSLY?!

After being poked what seemed like a million times and having been given the worst news of my life to date, I sat in my little room waiting for a RhoGAM shot. I was assured that I wouldn’t have to wait much longer and I would be able to receive my shot and be on my way…an hour and a half later I finally told my husband to tell the nurses I would get a shot the following morning at my doctor’s office and I was leaving NOW! I had spent the last few hours sobbing and I was ready to go home…my shot came five minutes later.

We left the hospital crying and holding each other. It was well past midnight at this point and I had strict instructions to get a few prescriptions filled on our way home…

Well...do you know any pharmacies open past midnight? Yeah, that was a scavenger hunt we weren't ready to go on! (I filled my prescriptions the next day.)

Needless to say, we went home and fell into bed. I did much more crying than sleeping that night…how could I have possibly lost a baby? (By the way, the term “lost” a baby is totally unnecessary. I didn’t LOSE a baby…my baby didn’t live to be born…I don’t really know how else to say that other than to put it bluntly.)

I spent the better part of the weekend fighting a losing battle within myself. There is no handbook on this subject and, I found, people don’t really know how to talk to someone about this situation. I was taboo….that was not a fulfilling feeling. I learned, eventually and VERY slowly, how to handle my grief and pain.

Stay tuned…..my next entry will discuss just that! Thank you for reading!