Fair warning: this was THE hardest blog I've ever written. At first I just wrote it for me- but decided to be brave and share it with hopes of helping someone in a similar situation someday. Here goes nothing. Grab some tissues.
When I married the love of my life close to six years ago I
never thought starting a family would be an issue. It wasn’t until we were
finally ‘ready’ that I started noticing loved ones around us who were
struggling to get pregnant. I have a few brave women in my life that shared
their stories with me and helped me with questions about not being able to get
pregnant after 12 months of trying.
After a few visits to a doctor and specialist I found out I
have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Basically my ovaries have issues. After
a few sad days of research and spiraling down bunny holes of what if's, we can’t
afford these treatments and what if we never have a baby- I decided I was going
to hand it all over to God. I also decided a little help couldn’t hurt so I
went on one round of meds to get my ovaries to kick into gear.
At the same time I prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed in my
whole life. I prayed with expectation, boldness and urgency. One night when I
was in deep prayer I heard God say, “The time is now” and “twins.” I couldn’t
shake this. We had our pastor pray for us at church on my birthday. (Sidebar: this
pastor was a miracle himself- he wasn’t suppose to be born- and has a gift of
praying for couples who can’t conceive and most have gone on to have families.) We
promised God then and there we would give testimony to his goodness for
fulfilling our prayers.
That night I went home and my daily verse on my phone was
Romans 8:22-29 (MSG).
I could feel God speaking to me, telling me that the time was now:
22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult
times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only
around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also
feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning
for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than
waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of
course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we
become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s
Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to
pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out
of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know
ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.
That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is
worked into something good.
Two weeks later, I felt nauseas and excited. I was afraid to
take the pregnancy test after all of the disappointment of the others- but I
prayed and took it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Positive. It was really
happening. Our miracle was happening. I could hardly wait to tell Joel.
We spent the next few weeks telling our immediate families
and a few of our closest friends. We
decided to wait until 12 weeks to tell the world. Our first ultrasound at six
weeks went great. We saw the little bean of a baby and its fluttering heart.
Things became more real and we became more excited.
Fast forward three months to week 11 (last week) we had
decided on what room would be the nursery, had a list of names and planned how
we would announce our miracle to the world on Thanksgiving. Just one last doctor’s
appointment to make sure everything was ok first.
Everything was going great until the doctor was having
issues finding the heart beat with the Doppler machine. She said ‘don’t worry-
it’s like finding a needle in haystack, sometimes you can’t with this machine
so we will get a ultrasound.’ She pushed a red button on the wall and a nurse brought
the ultrasound. She got it fired up and started pressing on my belly with the wand.
She looked puzzled. I could tell something wasn’t right but tried not to panic.
After a few minutes she said she needed to go get another doctor to see what she
thought. This is when I went into shock I think.
I joked with Joel that the baby must be hiding. I felt like
it was a bad dream staring down at my Chuck Taylors. When both the doctors
returned they did an internal ultrasound and turned the screen towards them.
This is when I knew it wasn’t good at all. All I could do was watch their faces
as they pointed to things on the screen and shook their heads no. The only way
I can describe it was: surreal.
After what seemed like eternity the second doctor shook her
head and left the room. My doctor asked me to sit up and started talking about
how it was nothing I did or didn’t do- but the baby didn’t make it. She kept
talking and staring at me and I sat there in shock staring back at her long
eyelashes and broken smile. I was in complete shock. I felt like the room was
closing in on me and I couldn’t say a thing.
The doctor asked if we had any questions I said I didn’t
even know where to begin. She asked if we needed a minute. I somehow squeaked
out yes. She left. We hugged. He cried. I held it all in like I always do. See
I hate crying in front of people. It’s something I’ve done for years. I
remember saying something like, ‘this doesn’t even seem real’ as a floated off
the exam table.
She came back in and told me that one in every five
pregnancies end early and other stats and went over my options. She thought it
happened a week or two ago but since my body wasn’t showing any signs bleeding,
cramping, etc she didn’t know how long it would take to miscarry naturally. I
also had the option of a pill that would make my uterus contract and remove the
baby that way. This option came with lots of bleeding and pain and the question
of how long it would take. The third option was a D & C surgery to go in
and surgically remove the baby.
With Thanksgiving coming up in two days my options for
surgery were the next day or wait until Monday. Somehow Joel managed to drive
us home crying without crashing my car. I sat there numb. I didn’t know what to
do besides put on sweatpants, take off my Tiffany’s and crawl into bed. We
cried and hugged for what seemed like years. There was nothing we could say or
do but cry. I have never seen him so broken like this before…it broke my heart
even more.
I kept thinking God gave us this miracle so he would take
care of us and he had to have a plan. The doctor told us miscarriages are a
sign your body can get pregnant and most women go on to have healthy babies. I
had faith God would provide for us. We had so badly wanted this baby for so
long. There has to be a reason for this. God would use this for his good. Maybe
I was supposed to have twins? A million questions ran through my head. The first being- what should I do about this
unborn child inside of me?
The hardest part came in verbally telling people what had
happened. We called our parents first. Through sobbing and blubbering they
somehow understood us and comforted us. My mom, who is a nurse, helped me
process what I should do next. We decided the surgery was more controlled for
the bleeding and the thought of waiting days with the pill for it to happen was
tortuous to me.
So the next morning I called the doctor and they squeezed me
in for surgery at 5:30pm. I had to go all day without eating or drinking so I
decided I would hibernate the day away to not think about being hungry or
thirsty after 20 some hours without anything. I spent the day in bed crying,
praying and sleeping. I felt God telling me to stop blaming myself and
questioning everything. I tried to be at peace but my heart was broken.
That night I got checked in at the hospital, gowned up, IV
in then they started paperwork. All expected until we got to the parental
rights to the remains form. This hadn’t even crossed my mind. We have to choose
what to do with the remains? It felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. I just
stared at the form. The sweet nurse said we didn’t have to decide then- so we didn’t.
Joel prayed for me before they rolled me into surgery. The
sweetest hardest prayer to pray but he did so with grace. A few hours later and
I was on my way home with a fake rose and a booklet about loosing a child.
The next few days are a blur of body aches, cramping,
crying, hugs, flowers, cards, food and encouraging words from those we love. We
spent Thanksgiving together at home in sweatpants. My sister in law brought us
over the best darn gladware Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings and four
kinds of pie. Our families kept us well fed and taken care of over the weekend.
When I started sharing what had happened with the few friends
we had told the more I heard that this had happened to them. I was shocked that
so many of them had gone through not one- but multiple miscarriages and I had
never known. I felt so bad as a friend that I didn’t know. Then I felt sad as a
woman that this statistically happens to most women who have children- but
people don’t talk about it. I’m pretty sure they don’t because it hurts. It
really hurts to talk about. But the more I talk about it- it gets a little bit
easier. The silver lining, all of them that had similar situations now have
healthy children.
I lay in bed a few nights not able to sleep, going over the
story in my head. Then it hit me- you need to quit narrating this sad story
over and over again in your head and put it out there. I know it hurts- but I
hope this encourages someone someday going through the same raw pain of a loss
of something so small but feels larger than life.
What I have learned through all of this is:
- I’m not good at being sad. I much prefer being
the happy, optimistic girl. Crying takes too much energy and makes my face feel
dry from all the salt. I'm not good at being the one being taken
care of. I like to take care of other people when they are down. I like to be
the one to comfort but learned that I have a lot of people who love me and I
have to be ok with them taking care of me from time to time. Plus it’s nice to
get a lot of premade meals and cookies. (Thank you guys!)
- I have THE best husband in the world. I have
fallen even more in love with him thought this horrible experience then I ever
thought was possible. He is so caring and sweet. His heart is bigger than his
body. When there aren’t words there is love.
- Sometimes miracles only last 11 weeks. I was
lucky to get one in the first place and I promised God I would tell everyone of
His miracle- so I will no matter how hard it is. I just pray next time our
miracle will live a long healthy life to be very old and very wrinkly.
The picture above is my phones daily verse from Tuesday. I still hear ya loud and clear God. :)
Ok, you can stop crying now. You know I hate crying and it stresses me out. So next time you see me- just smile and wink at me or something.
###
(for now)
I headed straight to the Red Cross Shelter at Aurora Central High School to lend my assistance. I arrived right after two city buses had just dropped off residents that were evacuated from the shooter’s apartment complex after their utilities were cut so authorities could disarm the bombs in his apartment.
their neighbor had bombs in his apartment. Trained Red Cross Mental Health Volunteers offered families support and made sure they were taken care of emotionally.
People stayed well after the vigil was over and so did I. I joined hands with two young smiling faces and stood in a circle with hundreds as we prayed for peace and healing. After about 15 minutes someone yelled “group hug” and we ran to the middle and embraced each other with tears in our eyes.
