A Membership to an exclusive club that I never wanted to join

I am planning on writing down all of the details of my 2nd pregnancy today. I feel the need to write this down because there is alot I have forgotten about the 1st. I guess maybe I should take it as a good sign that I don't remember the exact date of my 1st D&C, I could look it up, I remember it was on a Wednesday and I threw my friend a wedding shower that Saturday night. I still have the invitation saved on my computer so I could go look it up but I just can't bring myself to do it. I already have so many sad dates running through my head that I don't want to have another to add to the list. I already remember I found out I was pregnant on February 14, 2004 with an expected due date of September 22, just one day after my mother's birthday. That would have been a great birthday present to give her but unfortunately God had other plans for that gift. I think I shut myself off a little bit after that 1st miscarriage, the pain was too much to deal with so I didn't talk about it very often, I just dived head first into life and didn't dwell on it. I thought it was just a fluke thing that happened. The pregnancy gods say that 1 in 5 end in miscarriage. I grew up on the same street as 4 other girls, all the same age, we were friends throughout childhood. Out of the 5, I am the one that had the miscarriage, I figured I took one for the team and that next time everything would be okay because nobody miscarries twice right?

So wrong!!! It is August 31st, 2007, and I go to my annual check up. I had decided to change doctor's because I had decided my old doctor wasn't listening properly to my compliants regarding my screwy cycle. Her advice was always to go back on the Pill, which I explained earlier is an enemy of mine. I wanted her to investigate the problems, not mask them with the Pill so I switched doctors. One of my best friends had recently been diagnosed with cancer at age 28, this news shook me to my core and after many discussions with T, we (okay, me) had decided we might start trying to have a baby in the next year because my friends diagnosis made me realize how life can change in an instant and maybe I shouldn't keep putting off having a baby, afterall my 30th birthday is fast approaching and I always thought I would have kids before 30. So I switch doctors. The first visit to my new ob/gyn, the nurse is reading my chart and asks me if i realize my period is late. I say I know it is a couple of days late but my cycle has been really odd lately so I am not surprised. Well, apparently this triggered them to run a pregnancy test on me. As I am complaining to my new doc about my erratic periods, the nurse comes running in to tell me that i am pregnant. I seriously thought I might fall off the exam table at that news. Once again, I feel like the idiot who doesn't know she is pregnant. The first word out of my mouth is "Oh, crap!". That's right, those are the oh-so-excited words that came to my mind when I heard the news. For anyone who has never had a miscarriage, you might think how awful of me to say that, but to those who have been unfortunate enough to have a miscarriage understand. The fear that I had when I heard the word pregnant more than outweighed the excitement. Since I now had a history of miscarriage on my record, that means I was now going to be closely monitored until a viability ultrasound could be performed. This means constant bloodwork. My progesterone was great and my HCG was doubling just like it should. I still had few symptoms but my hormones were doing what they were supposed to. But the prior miscarriage has robbed me of all joy of this early pregnancy, I life in a constant state of terror, constantly checking for bleeding and worrying about symptoms. I am no longer naive and innocent when it comes to pregnancy, i am completely jaded because I have had the worst fears confirmed by going in to a u/s and hearing that my baby has died. I am constantly thinking of the 1st miscarriage and am so scared of it happening again. The few people that know I am pregnant keep telling me to relax, that everything is going to be okay, so I pretend that I think everything is okay while inside I am a basket case.

T. tells everyone he knows that we are going to be parents on May 5th, same day as one of my nieces birthday. I have told very few people, I don't even tell my family because a part of me still doesn't believe it will happen and I don't want to have make the phone call I did last time. Our viability ultrasound is scheduled for 7 weeks. We go to the ultrasound, I am cautiously expecting good news because I have read the stats. The stats say you only have a 5 - 10% chance of having 2 miscarriages in a row. I feel confident I am not that unlucky but I want that u/s as reassurance that everything is okay. As soon as the u/s tech finds the baby, I ask if there is a heartbeat and she replies yes. At this, I let out a huge sigh of a relief and start to get excited. she says the heartbeat is 88 which is low so now I have to go back and meet with the doctor. I have no idea what low heartbeat means, I am confused but feel so much better that there is heartbeat since we didn't get this far last time. Of course, my doctor is in surgery so we meet with a nurse, the nurse says hopefully it is just that the heart has just started beating so that is why it is low and we need to come back next week to have another u/s to make sure the heartbeat increases. This should have been warning siren but I believe the nurse and decide to not worry about the low heartbeat so we leave and immediately go tell my family. They are all ecstatic.

Since I am a google addict, I go home and google heartbeat of 88 at 7 weeks and that's when my world starts to crumble. 80% miscarriage rate. Oh holy hell, it's going to happen again. The doctor personally calls me the next morning and asks if I have any questions about the ultrasound, I ask her about the increased miscarriage rate and she confirms there is an increased risk and tells me to stay off google because it will just scare me. I know I should follow her advice but I can't, I keep looking for hope with a low heartbeat and I don't find it. We go back the next week, I am bracing for the worst, but hoping for the best, the baby has apparently stopped developing at 6 weeks and the heartbeat is now 77. We are told the baby will die, there is no hope. I am crushed, we have to go back and sit in the waiting room to talk to the doctor to discuss options. It is at this moment that I become hyper-aware of all of the pregnant people in the waiting room. Tons of them and there is a lot of happy looking couples in there that have also just received the new pregnancy packet that we received last week. I want to crawl into a hole and die so I don't have to sit here and be surrounded by pregnant people. T trys to console me by telling me everyone is wrong and our baby just has a low heartbeat b/c it is obviously an athlete. Bless his heart, he was trying but seriously, anyone who has met me or my family knows the chances of me giving birth to the next super athlete are slim.

The hospital where my ob/gyn is located is catholic, so we are informed that we cannot do anything about the pregnancy until I start to miscarry on my own or the heartbeat stops. Great, more waiting. We go back a week later, the heartbeat has gone back up to 88, yet the baby has still not grown since 6 weeks. I am now pissed, the anger is more than the pain at this point. That night, I am driving home after having dinner with my parents when I am hit with pain I have never experienced before. I feel like my abdomen is being ripped in 2. Tears come to my eyes and I seriously consider pulling over and calling T to come pick me up. The horrendous pain begins to subside so I call T crying, I am almost home so I continue driving and the pain just stops. I have no bleeding so I don't call the doctor, we are supposed to go back next week for yet another ultrasound to see if the heartbeat is gone so we can schedule the D&C. The next night, i am out with some friends when the bleeding begins. At this stage of the game, I am absolutely relieved that this ordeal will have some closure soon, I am thankful to see the bleeding, unfortunately the pain comes back as well. The horrible cramping begins again but goes away, nothing as severe as the night before. I go back into the doctor the next day and the heartbeat has finally stopped. I am so thankful to schedule the D&C and to have this traumatic pregnancy finally come to an end. 3 weeks of being in limbo was too much and I am now officially traumatized by anything involving pregnancy.

I have now had 2 miscarriages and for a while I considered myself a freak. Friends and family after a miscarriage are an odd thing. You find support from people you never expect, while those that you think you can rely on fail you. You learn to be careful about who you talk about miscarriage to b/c people unintentionally say very hurtful things. You realize they have good intentions and are really trying to be helpful, but in fact it just hurts. If I hear one more time "At least you know you can get pregnant" I will absolutely scream. It is not comforting to know I can get pregnant since I cannot stay pregnant. The only people I can handle hearing that sentence from is people I know that are struggling to get pregnant, I realize from their perspective, just getting pregnant would be a miracle. Or another personal favorite is when people ask if I miscarried because I didn't take my PNV's like i should. Wow, thanks for making me feel like I caused the miscarriage, that was extremely helpful. I begin searching for other freaks like me and I find them on the internet of all places. I stumble upon a message board that is full of other girls that have had miscarriages, most have only had one but there are numerous girls that have had multiple miscarriages and they are trying again. I am inspired. I have never been someone that talks on message boards but I begin lurking and reading these posts make me realize I am not a freak and that my thoughts and feelings after this traumatic event are normal. I am so thankful to realize I am not alone. These girls have inspired me to start this blog after reading theirs. Their posts have helped me so much that I hope one day this blog can help others going through this process too. Everyday gets easier, and I know now that I will get through this and soon there will be days where I don't sit here and think, I should have a 3 1/2 year old and be 25 weeks pregnant. I just have to give it time and heal on my own time table. Before I was trying to make myself feel bad for not being over it, but now I realize it's okay that I am not over it. This pain will take months to heal and it is normal. I just need to realize that I will have good days and bad days and that as long as the good days continue to outweigh the bad, then I am doing okay.

Wow, if I had realized blogging was free therapy I would have done this months ago.