If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever

Ryan and I had been trying for a third baby for 9 months before we finally got our positive pregnancy test. Our story is a sad one.

On May 16, 2015, the test finally had two pink lines. Very faint ones, but they were there. I was hopeful, still not totally convinced the "test" line wasn't an evaporation line. It seemed that the endless months of negatives had given me a more cynical outlook. Despite having very early symptoms, not the usual ones, but weird dreams and a heightened sense of smell at barely 3 weeks, it was a complete shock. I couldn't believe it. I would take 3 more tests over the next 5 days just to be sure. They were all positive. It started to sink in, we had finally done it! We were finally going to have another baby! The joy and hope for the new life growing inside of me began to blossom. Would it be another boy? A girl this time? Born early or late? I was due January 25th 2016. We had names picked out for either gender. We were READY! We immediately told our family, I knew the risks, but I thought we were safe. I had had two perfectly healthy pregnancies before, this one wouldn't be any different. And in the off chance it was, I thought, at least I'd have a support group. Plenty of shoulders to cry on if the devastating day came.

It came.

Monday, May 25th 2015, just 10 days after the first positive test, I started spotting. I woke up to use the bathroom at 2am. My immediate panic soon subsided as I read online that it can be perfectly normal to spot in the 5th week of pregnancy. We had been intimate the night before and that can cause harmless spotting at any point in pregnancy. At 7am when I woke up for the day, there was still spotting but it didn't appear to have gotten worse. I called in to my OB's office and left a message with the on-call Dr.. It was Memorial Day after all and no one would be in until Tuesday. My sister was in town visiting and she kept trying to get us out of the house. Things to do and all that. I couldn't leave and miss the call back from the Dr., but I couldn't tell her that. I couldn't find the words. How do you tell someone that you might be losing a baby? It was all I could do to whisper it to Ryan at 7am when I saw that I was still bleeding. Sarah and I had gone to Target the day before and she bought me a package of newborn diapers and surprised me with a gift card for the baby. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't do this to anyone else, couldn't give anyone else my pain.

As the hours ticked by with no call back from the Dr., I began losing hope. The bleeding intensified. The cramping started. All I could think about was that I was pregnant yesterday. Yesterday everything was perfect. Today my world was crashing down around my feet. I never got the call. My sister went back home. We went to dinner at Maria's house. I wasn't myself. Everyone kept asking if I was ok. I wasn't, but I couldn't tell them. I had to soften the blow somehow, I couldn't let anyone else be as blindsided as Ryan and I were. I told them I was cramping. That I would call the Dr. tomorrow. By the time we got home that night, I knew. There was too much blood. It couldn't have survived.

Hope found it's way into my heart. I began to hope beyond anything that my pregnancy had been twins. That somehow, one baby had found a way to survive. That it wasn't a complete loss. Tuesday morning I called the Dr. back and finally talked to someone. It was possible but unlikely my story would end well they said. I was sent for blood work. They would take blood 48 hours apart and compare the levels of HCG. Wednesday they called back with results from the first test. There wasn't a point to getting another one tomorrow. My levels were too low to sustain pregnancy. Just like that. I was no longer pregnant. My body had betrayed me. My precious baby was lost forever. And we had wanted it so badly. The next morning I took the last pregnancy test I had, still hopeful that somehow the blood work had been wrong. The digital test flashed "Not Pregnant" at me. I began to sob. I had to accept it. There was no miracle for me. My womb was empty.

Then came the next hardest thing. Telling our family. Knowing the questions that would come and knowing I wasn't ready to talk about it. It was too fresh, too hard. I still didn't have the words. I emailed, sharing only the fundamental basics and asking for space and time to be alone. My support circle had turned out to be the opposite. Not because they did anything wrong, but because I couldn't ask them for support. They were now a suffocating circle of people that I had to relive my pain for. That I had to tell of my failure. Only two in my circle had experienced what I did and I found those were the only two people I could actually talk to, I imagined the looks of pity on everyone else's face as I told them. I didn't want pity. I couldn't handle pity. I never gave them the chance to prove me wrong.

So now I sit here, 11 weeks later, trying to find the closure I so desperately need. Trying to heal from this. I hope sharing the whole story will help. I've also ordered a necklace to wear that says "forever in my heart". I have found that silence has made me feel alone in this. It has made me feel as though I made it up. As though the baby never was. I need to make it real. I need to acknowledge the life that was lost. My baby that will never be born. I will never know if it was a boy or girl. I will never hold it. Never see it smile or grow on this earth. My world will never be the same. I will never be the same. It is still so hard to say the words out loud. I can't do it without breaking down, but I can write through my tears. I can end my silence this way. I lost my baby. One day I was due in January and the next I wasn't. Just like that. It is sad. It is hard. It isn't fair.

I am terrified of getting pregnant again. Terrified of losing another baby. The what ifs are too much. As much as I don't want to end on such a sad experience, I don't have any guarantee that if we did get pregnant again, it wouldn't end the same way. How do people do this? How do you swallow the fear enough to try again? I tell myself we're still trying but in truth, I know we're not. I can't bring myself to really try. I'm as much afraid of trying as not trying, of never having another baby. Can I really give up just like that? Can I end with the feelings of guilt and failure and shame and terrible sadness that I feel now?

I have an 85% chance of carrying the next pregnancy normally. The odds are in my favor, but that 15% is an awfully big number.

10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. I know I'm not truly alone, but it's something we don't talk about. It is an alienating experience. Only those who have been through it completely understand.

Update

Just a quick update before I take a much needed nap! Colonoscopy results were 100% normal! I don't even have diverticuli (the infection of these colon wall "pockets" is know as diverticulitis) so they don't know exactly what caused my pain on Oct 31st but unless it returns, I can carry on as usual. Nothing to indicate cancer, no cause for special diets that exclude my favorite things (popcorn, poppyseed salad dressing, strawberries, etc..). Thank you all for your prayers and support! To bed I go!! 😃

Superstitious

Today (in about 4 hours actually) I have my first colonoscopy.  We'll leave it at, it is thus far unpleasant. If you find yourself in my shoes and have any questions I can answer, ask away. Until then, hold on to your innocence. Hahaha. But seriously, the prep is what everyone always says is the worst, I believe that. The good news is, after about 12 hours of not eating, you do eventually stop feeling hungry. The bad news for me is, I plan to have a lot of these. Why? I'm very superstitious.

 What most of you probably don't know is that I lost my father to colon cancer. One week ago today marks the 10 year anniversary of his death. It's too coincidental for me that I should be having my first colonoscopy right now. Originally the Dr tried to schedule it for Dec 16 but that was too much. So, starting at age 40 I will begin having these lovely procedures every ten years, religiously, in the hopes that if I do inherit my father's disease, I will have a fighting chance to beat it. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men and women combined in the U.S., it's scary stuff. Luckily, if caught early (stage I or II), the 5 year survival rate is 90%. With a first-degree colorectal cancer relative, my chances of getting it go up from 5% to 10-15%. So, as unpleasant as this may be, it could always be worse. If these tiny blips of discomfort and unpleasantnes over the course of my life result in early diagnosis and treatment of a deadly disease, then why wouldn't I get screened? I'd do it every 5 years if the Dr thought it was necessary. My life is worth it. And that's what's at stake. 

Colonoscopy: go out and get yours today! ;-)

I would like to note, I am getting this as a result of my diverticulitis diagnosis, even though the Dr came back and said he doesn't think it's really diverticulitis, not because of my family history with cancer. I just have a hard time not believing they'll somehow be related, because as I said, I'm very superstitious. 

My husband assures me that I'm going a bit crazy with all my superstitious stuff these days and he insists I'll be fine and they won't find anything resembling cancer today. I know he's probably right. 

Blessings

I didn't realize this post didn't publish immediately so the dates are all sorts of off...sorry! It was written the week of November 18th sometime. 

I realize for some of you, I've left you hanging for a while. So sorry! Monday was the big day, I had my hysteroscopy in the office and my Dr was able to see what was going on. The IUD had indeed perforated (it looked to have done so on insertion in May 2012) my uterus. Everything looked normal and uncomplicated so he went ahead and tried to pull it out using the scope. He couldn't quite get it so he removed the scope and then just tried pulling it out "blind". I was told to let him know if it became too painful and he would stop. About the time it was too painful and I told him to stop, he held up the stupid little thing. Just like that, it was over. He checked with the scope to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally and that nothing looked out of place and then actually asked if I wanted him to put in another one. I told him thanks, but no thanks. The pill would be good enough from now on, so he gave me a prescription and sent me on my way with some ibuprofen. It's been 5 days and everything is going great. I have no complications and no more pain. No surgery, and he said this wouldn't have any bearing on my ability to have more kids in the future. Next stop, gastroenterologist on Wednesday. 

I also went on Thursday and had my labs redone to make sure everything was back to normal with the diverticulitis and everything they found on that fun trip. They came back fine. Overall it's looking up and I'm praying it keeps going that way! I have learned a lot about counting my blessings this month. It's only fitting that it's November! Here's a fun little picture of what Halloween looked like for me (minus the 1:20 appointment that I blew off for obvious reasons!)

Finally some good news

Well, I got the call from my Dr this evening. My insurance company will cover an in office hysteroscopy (apparently I've been spelling that wrong. My bad.). Yay!! So I go in Monday afternoon and it should take about 30-45 minutes. My understanding is he will only perform the procure if I will be able to walk out of the office on my own. If he finds something to complicate it, he'll stop and just put me under anesthesia on Friday (11/22) as planned and remove it then. I'm really praying for an uncomplicated, easy to recover from, event. For now, that's all I've got. I'll update again Monday 😊

Well that was unexpected

***Some of you might find this to be too intimate for your liking. Especially if we don't know each other well***

I went in for my pre-op appointment this evening expecting a run down of how the surgery would go and a chance to ask some of my many questions. Instead it went more like this: Dr comes in and says, the notes from JT (the PA I saw last who ordered an ultrasound when she couldn't find my IUD strings) were a little confusing, she said the strings were too long. I say, that's not at all what she told me, she said she couldn't find them. Dr then asks if he can do an examination to check for himself. I agree and low and behold he finds my IUD strings, right where they should be. He even has the nurse look to verify that he's not seeing things. Sure enough, strings! But, the CT still shows my IUD is not exactly where it should be. So now where do we go from here? At this point I don't even know. Dr is calling my insurance company tomorrow to see if he can get authorization to perform an in-office histeroscopy to actually visualize if the IUD has moved or if somehow the CT was wrong. If he can't get authorization I will most likely go in for surgery on Friday as planned and he will perform the histeroscopy before he does anything else. He says it's great news and greatly improves the chances of being able to remove the IUD (if it is indeed perforated) without having to make any incisions. So, I left my pre-op with even more unanswered questions but also some hope. Thanks for the prayers!! I'll keep

updating as I get more info. 

When it rains it pours

On the good news front, I'm feeling immensely better this week than I was over the weekend. Antibiotics are awesome. :-). Yesterday I got a call from my OB/GYN, I'm his first patient ever (in 20 years of practice) to have a perforated IUD. Cool...or not. Here's to being a first though, right?! In a nutshell, I'm scheduled for surgery on November 22nd to remove the IUD. Happy Thanksgiving!! He won't know what kind of damage there is or how severe it may or may not be until the surgery so prayers are greatly appreciated. He did assure me the procedure is disgustingly safe for me, so there is that. Today I got a call from the gastroenterologist, he wants to see me sooner rather than later for a consult. I'm trying not to read anything in to that. I greatly appreciate all the prayers on my behalf lately, it looks like I could use just a few more.