There was no cute or clever way I shared the news of my first positive pregnancy test with my husband; he's pretty unimpressed by things like that, and I lack creativity. If memory serves, I just informed him one morning that the strip I peed on seemed to have the faintest of faint lines, and I'd test again tomorrow. The next morning, the line on the test strip was a little darker, so I felt pretty confident that it was a true positive. I showed my husband the test; he seemed somewhat excited and told me congratulations. I felt like in his eyes, the success of a positive pregnancy test was a victory just for me, even though it was obviously a win for the both of us. But it was me who had been peeing on ovulation strips and pregnancy tests and tracking cycles and symptoms for weeks and weeks, so I suppose I understood that perspective. I had hoped he would be more excited overall, but again, he's a pretty laid back guy who doesn't go overboard with exhibiting emotions. You know the type.
The very next night, we had my sister's birthday dinner to attend, followed by drinks out at the bars. Obviously, I would not be able to imbibe in the booze, but how in the hell was I going to abstain without my family noticing? I am not ashamed to say that I'm a drinker. I love alcohol. Even if I was the DD, which was hardly ever (up until that point anyway), I'd still have a few drinks throughout the night, so that excuse was weak. I'm not a dieter (and everyone knows this), so I couldn't say I was watching my caloric intake. I was not on any medication that would prevent me from drinking, and even if I was, I'd probably have a beer anyway. I had no legit reason why I wouldn't be drinking, so I just had to wing it and hope it wouldn't be overly interesting to anyone else. I sat next to my mom at dinner, who immediately asked me why I wasn't drinking when I told the server that water was fine. I made up some lame excuse about how I was reserving all my stomach space for the food and assured her I would start drinking after dinner when we went to the bars. Her response: "Oh, I was hoping you were going to tell me you're pregnant." See, I told you I love alcohol, so much so that even my mom automatically assumed the only reason for me not consuming it was because of pregnancy. I gave a weak, unconvincing laugh and brushed off her comment while simultaneously feeling annoyed that she had hit the nail right on the head, even if she didn't know it.
After dinner, the plan was to go to a nearby bar. My husband and I offered to go early while the rest of the peeps finished their drinks and settled their tabs, claiming we needed to secure a table for our sizeable party. In reality, I was feeling so anxious about people noticing I wasn't drinking that I wanted to get to the bar before anyone else so I could order a fake drink and have it in front of me so as to not raise any suspicions from others. When the others arrived, someone asked me what I was drinking; I had a glass with clear liquid (water) and a lime. I told them it was a gin and tonic, and I was good for the rest of the night. (I just had to make sure I wasn't drinking it super fast, you know, the way you drink water. Or maybe gin, too.)
I continued to hide my pregnancy by fake drinking at get-togethers; that is, I bought recloseable aluminum beer bottles, and after my husband drank the beer, I refilled them with water and/or ginger ale. It was way less stressful for me to pretend I was drinking rather than coming up with believable reasons for not drinking at all.
In hindsight, I'm not sure why I was so anxious about people finding out I was pregnant. Perhaps it was because of that bullshit about not telling anyone until you're out of the first trimester, lest you miscarry early on. At the time, I just took this traditional practice at face value and went along with it. Now, while I can understand why people wait to share their pregnancy news, I've discovered how damaging this can ultimately be, especially if the pregnancy ends prematurely. More on that later.
I scheduled and had an ultrasound at 8 weeks pregnant. I got to see my tiny baby onscreen and take home sonogram pics to show my husband. I got an estimated due date of October 30th. (Halloween baby!) It became very real at that point, and my excitement started to build. I started researching cloth diapering and baby carriers and strollers. I read blogs online to learn about how to prepare for the baby and what products were the best. I started thinking about the baby bump I would have and whether or not my belly button would eventually pop out. I tried to come up with fun, creative ideas of how to tell our families about the pregnancy when the time came to do so. (again, I'm so not creative.)
About a week after my ultrasound, I started spotting brownish blood. Initially, I wasn't overly concerned; I had read that some spotting in early pregnancy can be perfectly normal for a lot of women. I recalled that a few days prior to the spotting, my husband and I had some moderately vigorous sex, though everything I'd read stated that sex would not harm the baby at all. I also thought about that hike I took the dog on the previous weekend, and though the level of physical exertion was moderate, surely this was not the cause of anything bad since it was exercise. Because I didn't have any other symptoms and was in no pain, I was able to reassure myself that everything was fine for the first day or two of spotting.
I can be a pretty paranoid person. Not so paranoid that I can't function in my day to day life, but paranoid enough that when the spotting hadn't gone away after a couple of days, and after scheduling an appointment with my OBGYN (this being my first pregnancy, I wanted to play it safe), I turned to Google to see if I could figure out what was causing the spotting. When the concept of miscarriage presented in one of the search results, my brain sort of froze. That possibility was so difficult to wrap my head around, and seeing that word pop up on the screen filled me with a dread that I'd never experienced before. Miscarriage hadn't even occurred to me at all. In fact, up to that point in my life, I only knew one person who had experienced miscarriage, so I never fathomed that could be an explanation for the spotting. Later, I was talking to my husband and hesitantly mentioned miscarriage and shared what I had read online. As the words came out of my mouth, I started to cry because I was officially terrified. My husband, ever the optimist, reassured me that it wasn't a miscarriage and everything was most likely fine. We hugged and I said I hoped so, but deep down I was very skeptical and unable to shake the feeling that bad news was on the way.
(I remember also talking to a friend about the spotting and asking if she had experienced this in her pregnancy, and she, like my husband, also seemed certain that everything was fine and I probably had nothing to worry about. Later, when I found out I had miscarried, I remember feeling really angry at her for what I perceived was her cavalier attitude toward my concern. Deep down, I knew she was just trying to be positive so I wouldn't worry, and she certainly meant no harm. But in the immediate aftermath of finding out I lost the baby, I was pissed that she had given me a false hope. I kind of felt the same towards my husband, as well, though perhaps not as severely since my loss was his loss, too.)
At the doctor's office, they did a quick pelvic exam and then tried to hear the baby's heartbeat with the fetal doppler. The nurse practitioner was very nice and tried to be upbeat, but when she had trouble finding the heartbeat and excused herself to go find my doctor and set up an ultrasound for me, I started to prepare myself for bad news but also simultaneously held onto a little bit of hope that the ultrasound would show me that everything was ok. When she returned and no longer appeared as cheerful, I silently started to panic. On the table, the ultrasound tech was mostly quiet as she performed a transvaginal ultrasound. I'm no expert, so everything I was seeing on the screen was of no use to my untrained eye. Her silence should've clued me in right off the bat, but it wasn't until she actually said there was no heartbeat that everything came crashing down. I quietly acknowledged her statement and tried to come to grips with what she had just told me. I was surprisingly calm when she apologized, instructed me to go get dressed and said she was going to get my doctor to come in and talk with me, probably because I was still trying to comprehend what had just been revealed to me. I had no idea how to react to it.
The NP who had initially tried to find the heartbeat came in and apologized for my loss. She reassured me that the sex I'd had prior to the spotting had absolutely not caused the miscarriage. Then my doctor came in and also expressed her condolences. She talked with me about how sometimes miscarriages occur and no one knows why. She discussed my next steps with me: do nothing and wait for my body to expel the fetus naturally, take medication that would cause my body to expel the fetus within a number of hours or have the fetus removed with a D&C. She explained the risks of each option and informed me that if I wanted the D&C, she could schedule the surgery for the next day. I asked my doc what she would do if she were in my position. She said she couldn't tell me what to do, but after I asked her to picture herself in my shoes and given the risks/pros/cons of each option, she indicated she'd probably do the D&C, which was what I was leaning towards anyway. The idea of passing the fetus at home on my own and having to literally come face to face with my baby's remains was way more than I could handle. I mean, what was appropriate to do once my body expelled the fetus? Flush it? Throw it away? Would I really have to see my baby in the bottom of the toilet? I was not at all equipped to face that. So I went with the option that I felt was the least traumatizing for me, which was the D&C. I got my information packet about the surgery and left the office, numb and still coming to terms with the fact that my world had just imploded.
I didn't want to tell my husband over the phone; it seemed weird and impersonal to do so. But I needed to find out if he could take off work to drive me to and from the surgery the next day, so I had to call him on my way home while he was still at the office. He asked me how my appointment went, and having to tell him that the baby had died was heartbreaking. I don't remember exactly what he said in response, but I do remember thinking he seemed more sad for me than for himself. He told me he was going to leave work right away to come home and be with me. When I got home, I finally felt like it was ok to let it all out and sob and cry, so I did. When my husband got home, he held me and said he was sorry for what happened. I didn't want to be petty at the time, but I remember thinking to myself "See, I told you so."
Later that night, I had plans to meet a friend for drinks; he was one of only a few close friends who knew I was pregnant, so I didn't have to worry about not drinking in front of him. And as of that morning, I no longer had that problem anyway. Most people probably would've cancelled, but I thought what else am I going to do? Stay at home and cry? I'd been doing that all afternoon. So I met him at the bar and tried to find a little humor in his reaction upon seeing me drinking a beer when he arrived. We talked about the miscarriage briefly, but I didn't really want to wallow in it all night. It was what it was, and there wasn't anything to be done at that point but have the D&C the next day. Turns out, I would wallow in my grief for a long time after.
The next morning, my husband drove me to the surgery center for the D&C. The office and nursing staff were all wonderful and kind and made me feel as comfortable as possible, considering the circumstances of why I was there. The nurse who prepped me for the procedure talked with me about her own experiences with miscarriage and then subsequent healthy pregnancies. I appreciated this conversation; it made me feel like I wasn't so alone in all this. When I woke up after the D&C, I immediately started to cry. I was groggy and cloudy as I was taken back to the recovery room to be with my husband. I was conscious enough to hear my doctor talking to my husband about after care when we went home, and I heard her tell him to encourage me to take the next day off work. (Prior to surgery, I had planned to return to work the next day, in an attempt to "get back to normal." Ha, yeah right.) As the anesthesia wore off, I remember wishing it wouldn't; I wanted so badly to float back down to oblivion where I didn't have to think about the baby I had lost. After a couple of hours, we checked out of the surgery center. Since I was starving, having not been able to eat before the surgery, we went to Hot Box and got a pizza to take home. (Isn't it funny the small, insignificant details you remember when something major happens?)
We didn't tell our parents and family about the miscarriage until after the D&C; I don't really know why. I guess I figured there was no rush to tell them since they hadn't even known I was pregnant. As expected, everyone was supportive and sorry for our loss. As we shared with others the story of our pregnancy and miscarriage, I learned that a few of my friends had suffered miscarriages as well during the course of their efforts to become moms. I was shocked, mostly because I had never heard their story. I actually felt like a really awful friend because I didn't know about them. I was also confused--why didn't I know? Why don't people share their stories of pregnancy loss? Do miscarried babies not count as real babies because they were never born, and thus people don't talk about them? This was all new territory for me, and I was surprised at the silence behind miscarriage.
The thing about miscarriage that was the most difficult for me was the feeling of utter loneliness and isolation, like you're the only one who gets to bear the burden of the pain and grief. No one else, no matter how supportive or caring, could possibly understand what I was feeling, except perhaps for the other women who had had miscarriages as well. But even their ability to relate to what I was going through didn't bring me a lot of comfort, at least not immediately after it happened. My husband seemed to get past the miscarriage faster than I thought was appropriate; he is not a bad person, he just internalizes his feelings and is not too outwardly emotional about anything really. Again, though, this only added to my feelings of isolation. I had never felt so alone in my life.
The only positive thing about this horrible thing was that the baby died in the first trimester. Since it had to happen, I guess it was best that it happened in that "danger zone" time frame, before I had bought anything for the baby or seen the baby more formed and developed on ultrasound. It was easier to think of the baby as a fetus that early on, if that makes sense.
I spent the next few months trying to focus on my cycle returning to normal and tracking all that stuff again. Anything to feel like I was moving on from the miscarriage. In reality, I was mentally and emotionally stuck in the quicksand of pain. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night or in the morning clutching my belly with both hands, grasping for the baby that had been growing inside me and feeling crushed all over again once I realized the baby was gone. I thought about attending a support group at the hospital where I had my D&C, but I never followed through on it. I also considered talking to a therapist or counselor, but again, I didn't follow through.
I eventually just turned to group forums discussing miscarriage and trying to conceive after miscarriage on my pregnancy app, and I found a community of women who could absolutely relate to what I was going through and had the same thoughts and feelings I did. I was astounded at the amount of women who had also suffered miscarriages (many had multiple miscarriages) and were struggling to conceive. Again, my naive brain had just figured getting knocked up was a piece of cake, but these stories from other women indicated otherwise. And they helped me feel like I wasn't alone; like I wasn't the only one carrying this pain around, and that helped me so much in getting through and past my grief.
Time and support from others helped me get through this loss. I so appreciated the friends and family who actively reached out to me just to ask how I was doing and listened when I needed to talk about my feelings. And I felt very motivated to talk about it because I hoped that being vocal about my miscarriage might encourage others to talk about this thing that was so hidden and taboo. The last thing a grieving mother needs is to feel like she has to keep all that inside.
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