October 15 was Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Day. Millions of women everywhere, every day suffer the loss of a pregnancy through miscarriage.
In fact 40% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.
I didn’t know that, until it happened to me. I also didn’t know how many friends around me had suffered a similar fate, until it happened to me. It’s not something people openly talk about. I don’t think they deliberately hide it, but it’s not something that comes up in conversation either.
The miracle of life, the fertilisation of an egg by a sperm is the most natural thing in the world and it happens all over the world every day. For that miracle to occur, so many things have to be exactly perfect. You don’t need a biology lesson from me to get the idea.
Getting pregnant is NOT always easy, staying pregnant can be even harder for some….. for others, they breed like rabbits and pop babies out like nothing and have lots. For them it’s easy.
That wasn’t the case for me. I started thinking about it around 28 yo but circumstances prohibited any action until I was 30. Once we decided, well I decided, because the King decided he didn’t really want to do it again, but if I did, he was happy to continue on and let me handle it 🙂 There were lots of decisions going on back then!
A little background
I have been a sufferer of endometriosis for 32 years, from the start I had menstrual troubles, haemorraging at 13, spending a week in hospital. Over the years I had a few other scares but managed to handle it. By age 28 I had pre-cancerous cell removed from my cervix and endometriosis was diagnosed at the same time via laparoscopy and burned off.
After that the doctors tried all sorts of hormone treatments to control the pain and heavy periods. They put me into medical menopause…. THAT was a glimpse into the future… stripping off because of hot flushes at 28 is pretty weird, and funny. Many of those treatments gave me debilitating migraines. It was a tough time. It turned out I have low progesterone and that caused a whole slew of issues.
Knowing all of this, when it was time to try and get knocked up, and it didn’t happen after about 6 months, I went to a Chinese herbalist. He gave me the most disgusting concoction to boil up and drink that you can ever imagine. I was clearly committed to the task for drinking that shit, I swear!
Circles on the Chart
We got into a cycle, the doctor wanted me to take my temp each day and circle the chart when we had sex, to plot my cycle and check for ovulation. It became fun for the King to get those circles on that chart. So this went on for about a year and then we went to another herbalist, who was known in Australia as the baby maker. She was so booked up, there was no way I could see her but I was able to see her husband and he treated me the same way. Within 2 months I was late for my period, one week, two weeks then three. Every week I’d do a pregnancy test, nothing. I couldn’t work out why I was late and NOT pregnant.
Then on day 21, I got up and did a test and there they were, 2 pink lines. We were up the duff! Now what? Well pretty quickly we were in the swing of it and I was sick. Morning sickness is a bitch as we all know. And I was not spared.
Now what? Well, The King did what all self respecting partners do at the this time….. he figured we’d better get legal and proposed. You can read that story here.
So we were pregnant and getting married.
We got the wedding squared away and set off on our honeymoon.
After we returned I started to not feel right, and then I started spotting so I went to the doctor to check it out. She sent me for an immediate ultrasound and I can still remember everything. The sonographer asked questions and checked my dates, the more she asked, the more knew something was wrong. You can tell when it’s not right, they avoid your questions, they take on a differnet demeanor, it’s not their fault, they know but can’t say.
She left to room to confer with a colleague, who came back in the room and started asking all the same questions about dates and how I was feeling and symptoms etc. It was then I saw the screen, there was my little baby with little arm buds and leg buds, looking like a teddy bear floating in my uterus, 9 weeks 3 days, the problem was, I was 12 weeks.
I had my suspicions confirmed, but only after I opened the film and report I was supposed to transport straight back to my doctor. When I got back to the doctor she told me I would need to go to the hospital the next morning to have my baby removed.
So we did that, with all the usual physical and emotional pain experienced with a loss like that. This is not that story.
Three months later and we were pregnant again. This time with all the same symptoms but with the added fear of loss, every single day along the way.
Through the Grace of God, we managed to go along this time and 12 months to the day of the miscarriage, I went into labour with our beautiful baby boy. He was born in the early hours of the next morning. A very healthy 8lb 7oz, who turns twelve in 2 weeks.
He completed us………but then we wanted more 🙂 Well I wanted more. I hated the idea of an only child. The Princess was an only child up until Grand Master D was born and that hadn’t been going so well. I come for a large family and wanted more than one child.
I won out, as I always do 🙂 (don’t tell the King) and we started planning for #2. Again it took some time, but I didn’t take any shit tasting Chinese herbs this time. Then that morning came after I was 21 days late and had already wasted 2 pregnancy tests. Damn that low progesterone.
This time I was very sick, I mean really sick, sicker than I ever imagined a foreign object growing in your body could possibly make you. We went to the doctor for confirmation and to try to alleviate my malaise. Of course I was a little panicky, knowing that I only had a 50% strike rate on pregnancies. I took it easy, well, as easy as you can take it with a 2 year old.
Not in the plan
Things were going along but then I got sicker and sicker, the morning sickness was out of control. So I went to the doctor, who decided I should go and have a scan to be safe. The details of this one are a little fuzzy but the outcome was the same as the first time, this little soul was 11 weeks along.
I knew the drill, take the scans back to the doctor, who told me to report to the hospital in the morning. This time however, there were complications. It was what they call a molar pregnancy . Mine was a partial molar, but it was what caused me to be so sick.
Once it was removed, I needed to be monitored every week to make sure the hormones went back to normal, so every week off I went for a blood test. Things took longer than they should to get back to normal. But get back to normal they did.
The loss was harder to take second time around.
Finally, well it felt like that long, things got back to normal and low and behold the King managed to knock me up again! He’s a stud 🙂 This time I was a total mess. It was completely obvious to me that I didn’t do this very well. Actually I was in pretty deep into that Egyptian river for a while and couldn’t understand why I felt so sick. I did the test, which of course came back negative so I just assumed I had something else.
It’ll Be OK
After this went on for a while the King said you need to go to the doctor. I was so sick I couldn’t drive myself there so he took me. We got into the doctors office and the King explained for me as I was feeling queasy. She made me pee in a jar and she did the test right there, nope nothing, so she took blood …….
It came back the positive, which filled me with immediate panic. Every day was so very tough, what if I lost it again? When would this sickness go away?
Thankfully, I was able to hang onto this precious heart and but she made me sick every. single. day. until. delivery. 🙂
She was born, 10lbs, exactly 12 months to the day of the second miscarriage. She had some initial complications but within 24 hours she was a healthy newborn the size of a toddler!
It had happened again…. Leading me to my theory, that in my case, it takes a couple of goes to make a good one 🙂 But I think they’re great ones!
We’ve retired the baby factory, you can read that story here and settled in to life knowing that little souls waiting for us someday.
Comments 8
Oh man. I’m sorry you went through that. I lost a baby, but I was only about 6 weeks along, so it didn’t involve as much trauma as you. But it was so incredibly sad. It happened on the 2nd day of a new job, too. Talk about bad luck. You can read my story here: http://wp.me/p2KIJm-kk
The ultrasound technicians really do a bad job of hiding things, don’t they. When I was having my ultrasound, the woman kept saying, “how far along”, “did you even have a positive pregnancy test?” But then when I asked if she was unable to see anything, she said, “oh, I can’t tell you anything”. I wanted to hit her.
But someone once told me that sometimes you have to experience some sadness in life to appreciate what you have. And I agree with that.
So glad it all worked out for you!
xo
Ah, I don’t know what to say. I’m sad for you, that you lost two babies; but I’m happy that you have two great ones. Thank you for sharing. It’s good to remember that becoming a parent is not easy for everyone.
(I had an over 10lb-er, too.)
I’m glad you achieved your two, beautiful children even through a tough journey. You’re a strong woman. They’re lucky to have you. I also think it’s great that you’re sharing your story so openly. I have several friends who are going through fertility issues right now and I can see how hard it is when I look at them.
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Yeah they’re pretty awesome kids. It was a hard road but I’m a realist and understand they weren’t meant for this life.
It’s amazing how many of us have gone through this. I was 8 weeks before The Kid, and then one more before the twins. It was agonizing both times.
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Yeah it’s horrid but I try to look at it like those little souls were to special for this world. And your body knows when something’s not right.
Thanks for sharing this story, I could feel how scared you were! I also suffered terribly from endometriosis, surgery…medical menopause twice (ten years apart) because I did not want surgery again. We couldn’t get pregnant, not even with help. According to the Dr it was most likely the husband’s fault 🙂 However we did have a baby boy through the miracle of adoption. However you get there! However our stories are similar, as we had failed adoptions first that felt like losing a baby. You connect, you dream, you are sure….then they are gone. But it’s all water under the bridge now, because the baby that was supposed to be ours from the beginning is our perfect little 7-year-old boy now!