76 days. I carried my little one for only 76 days. On day 60, God decided he was just far too perfect for this world and 16 days later I was left with a void in my heart that not only reigned emotional pain, but physical too. That kind of physical, heart-break pain that makes it near impossible for you to even form words, makes your limbs feel heavy, and creates a pressure in your chest as if it is going to cave in at any point. You don't want to eat. You can hardly sleep, yet your bed is the one place you can't seem to break away from. You want to lay there with the covers curled up over your head like when you were a kid, hoping that it creates the same sense of security and relief it did when you were little and afraid. The feeling as if those covers would shelter you from the outside world and the fearful reality that is you losing your child.
Pregnancy loss is a reality I deal with daily in my career. Mothers of all types come in and out of my office, some with malformations, some with diseases and some who, no matter how many tests and exams are being run, they just can't seem to find out why they keep miscarrying. I've watched babies pass early on and I've watched them make it all the way to delivery when God decides its their time. I've cried for patients and I've cried with them.
"But this stuff isn't supposed to happen to us. Not to our own."
Those were the words from my doctor, the one who reassured me over and over again that regardless of all the bad stuff that I see on a daily basis, I need not worry for my own pregnancy. Yes, my OB wants me to runs labs every other day for the next few weeks and, yes, I know exactly what that means for me. I know they only do this for the babies they think will not make it. But I need not worry. I'm young and I'm healthy. I hung on to that blip of hope with every ounce of my being. I hoped that my prayers would out-weigh the statistics that were jumping out at me like a giant red-flag.
In reality, though, I knew it was coming. I tried to suppress that fear by focusing on nursery designs, baby names, and gender reveal ideas. Yet, I still knew on that specific day that something was wrong. I had this constant feeling just nagging at me - telling me, "You know why those labs came back how they did. Do the ultrasound." I guess that's one benefit of working in an OB office. It's easy access to the necessary tools when all you're hoping for is peace of mind - but then you also know the cycles.
My ultrasound was short that day and it's because I knew what was happening as soon as my little blip popped up on the screen. There was no flickering. There was no heartbeat. And I tried. I tried with all my might to keep that straight face and emotional detachment that you develop over the years from dealing with moms who just found out their babies have passed, but still, I broke. Immediately, everything just hit me like a brick wall. All of the physical and emotional pain. Here I am, standing in my own office, my own expertise, and I am my own patient. I am THAT patient. I am so broken that I can't even form together enough words to tell my mother and sister that I wouldn't be making it to dinner that night.
I should have been finding out the gender of my baby that weekend. I should have been planning the big reveal and looking forward to officially deciding what we were going to name our child. But instead, I'm sitting on a bed with both my mother and sister holding me as I break down listening to the empty airwaves that are playing on the ultrasound machine at my OB office as they confirm the thing I already knew. The sonographer was kind enough to ask me if I wanted the TV turned off, but I still knew those empty airwaves like the back of my hand. My baby's heartbeat belonged there. I got to hear that precious rhythm just a small handful of times, but not during this visit.
All the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens tear my soul to pieces. I was terrified when my pregnancy test came back positive, but, above all else, I felt hope. I never imagined myself having a baby. I was with a negative person for so long that I feared bringing an innocent being into a such a toxic environment. But with where my life stands now, I can imagine that family, that growth. If anything, my pregnancy gave me value. When I was feeling stuck in my career and my studies, it gave me the ambition to become the sort of person my child could say they were proud of. Maybe that's why God brought me to this point. Maybe that's what He needed me to realize.
In reality, I'll never actually get to know for sure. I'll always be stuck running through an endless loop trying to figure out why this has happened to me. Was it my eating habits? Was it the caffeine? The stress? I changed the cat litter once, and pregnant moms can develop a toxoplasmic infection from doing so. That could lead to miscarriage. Loop after loop after loop. My hemoglobin was normal, so no diabetes. I have a family history of thyroid disorders, but my TSH, T3, T4, TSI and TPO antibodies are all normal. I'm not RH negative. There were no antibodies in my system. Like a hamster on a wheel, I just keep running and running, but never actually getting anywhere. My cholesterol is normal. My cardiac work-up was fine. My miscarriage kit came back normal for a healthy baby boy, all chromosomes fully in tact and appropriately distributed. Not even the smallest fracture in my baby boy's genetic make up. He was healthy. I am healthy. Yet I still cannot know why God chose to take him from me.
"It's nature" they all say. And I understand that, but could someone please tell me why it makes sense for all the IV heroine users and non-compliant patients in my office get to have happy, healthy babies... but I don't? I feel like I'm in a screaming match with God, but I'm not being heard.
"You can always have another." The one sentence that makes me want to bash my head into a wall. It's not about trying again. I watched someone ruin their reputation over that sentence. It's never about moving on to the next one. I can get pregnant as many times as I want, I understand that - but that will never take away from the fact that I wanted this baby. I feel like people often forget that babies aren't like pets. You can't always get a new one to replace the one that died. Moving on from this sort of pain just doesn't work like that. Not to mention the fact that with every miscarriage, your chances of experiencing another are greater. I don't think it fully registers in those people's minds the never-ending fear that sits in a woman's heart after something like this.
"I'm sorry this happened to you. I was so excited." Please, do not make my pain your own. I understand you only want to make me feel comforted. But in a way, I don't think you really understand what this feels like unless you've been through it yourself. You'll say you're sorry, give me a one-armed hug, and go on with your life. We'll talk again in another few years, that's perfectly fine. But the only solace I've really been able to find is in my family, who has unfortunately had to watch this struggle many times before, and the friends who know exactly what I'm feeling because they've been there themselves.
I guess I'm not entirely sure why I'm even writing this. It's sort of therapeutic in a way. I'm not doing this to gain sympathy or call out the people who's insensitive remarks only made things worse. I guess I'm doing it for two reason:
1. If I continue to bottle it all up, I think I just might explode. All of these emotions and thoughts are far to heavy for my heart to carry all at once. I don't know how to explain some of them, and I can't even put into words why I feel or act the way that I do. The best I can do is just tell people that everything comes in waves, and I'm just trying my best to paddle my way back to shore.
2. Talking about it makes it real.
Even after I knew my baby had passed away, there was a huge piece of me that did what I could to just be able to hold on to him a little longer. My OB gave me until over the weekend to pass him naturally, otherwise a D&C would be in order. When Tuesday came and my body still had not made the necessary changes to move on, I opted out of the D&C and chose to take the cytotec instead. I thought that since my body was not capable of carrying this pregnancy, I could at least be woman enough to try and pass it on my own without needing the surgery. I wanted to try and be strong enough to do at least that much for my baby.
Unfortunately, nature had, once again, chosen differently for me. Taking the cytotec led to some of the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. I'm talking curled up on the bathroom floor, unconscious, dripping in sweat, vomiting every 20 minutes, not even being able to form words kind of pain. I don't remember going to the hospital until I was physically there. The nurse explained that the cytotec was inducing labor in order to pass the fetus. I was in literal labor, just with the worst outcome. As if the physical and emotional pain weren't enough, 14 hours later I ended up having to have the baby extracted from my body anyways. I could not pass it on my own. My body wouldn't let me.
Not only could I not experience a healthy pregnancy, nor could I experience a natural miscarriage on my own, but the closest to being able to see and hold my baby was when it was placed inside of a specimen cup for me to take to my work later that day to send to the lab. Once again, I am my own patient. I am having to deal with the absolute worst part of my job and I'm doing it for myself.
I'm sitting there, looking at the outline of the specimen cup sitting inside the white packaging and my heart is shattering a million times over again. I will not get to hold this baby. I will not get to kiss his face or dry his tears. He will never know how my voice sounds and I'll never hear the ringing of his laugh. He'll never get to meet his brothers. He will never get to have play dates with his cousin. His uncle won't be able to tell him embarrassing stories about when his mother was a teenage brat. He won't be able to hear the "Bear and the Rabbit" jokes from his grandpa or taste his nana's peach cobbler. What kills me the most is I'll never get to know who he could have been. Would he have been tall or short? Would his eyes be blueish-green like mine? Would he be a toe-head like I was? What would have been his favorite color? His favorite song? Could he have been a doctor or a lawyer? An author even?
Not knowing who he could have been makes it seem as if he was never real to me and that's the thing I want to avoid. That's the purpose that I hope talking about this serves. 76 days was all I had with my baby boy. But in those days, I was at least blessed enough to have three ultrasounds at my OB, two opportunities to hear the heart beat, and lots of pictures of my sweet, little gummy bear. I want it to be known that my pregnancy was real, and he was real. That vacancy in my heart exists, but that's only because he existed too.