Miscarriage Mayhem

“Our Story” by Kate

Our story begins fall of 2006.  My husband Nate and I found ourselves sitting in a doctor’s office completely baffled and speechless.  “Looks like you miscarried…here are your options”.  I remember thinking, “there is no heartbeat now, so when will we hear it?  Tomorrow?  The next day?  Next week?  I stared down at my husband’s hand holding mine as the doctor who we barely knew delivered the news we never thought we would hear.  I cried then, the tears flowing freely.  I found myself having a hard time trusting this doctor, and after expressing this to Nate after leaving her office, I found he was feeling the same. A few days later we met another obstetrician who confirmed what the first doctor had so poorly discussed with us.  Words cannot describe how devastated we felt. Hearing another doctor telling us the news of the miscarriage felt like we were reliving it all over again.  The first thought that came to my head many mornings after our loss was that I was no longer pregnant.  The baby was gone and we would never see him or her on this side of heaven.   We grieved our first pregnancy loss with heavy hearts and a million tears, but were thankful for my new doctor with an excellent bedside manner.  He held my hand as I laid on the operating table before the anesthetic took over.  I underwent a d&c and we slowly moved on with our lives.  However, we had no idea the roller coaster ride awaiting us.

January of 2007 started out as a new year with fresh hopes in having a baby.  I became pregnant early that year, but we once again found ourselves in the same boat as before.  February of that year I had another miscarriage.  I remember lying on the “bed” beside the ultrasound machine staring at my empty uterus.  I did not have a d&c this time, as my body had naturally rid itself of the unhealthy fetus; our baby.  I was actually a lot more calm then I had been my first miscarriage, until later on that week when Nate and I were at a friend’s house for a get together.  Someone with a newborn was there.  She was holding her baby but had to go do something, and the closest person to her was me.  Guess who she gave her beautiful, healthy, yummy-smelling baby to?  I was so overcome with sadness I cried the whole way home. 

My doctor assured us there was nothing wrong with me and that we should keep on trying to have a baby.  He said it was very common for a woman to miscarry twice in a row, and I trusted his word.  He chocked it up to bad luck.  My husband and I felt we needed to wait at least until the summer to try and get pregnant again.  April of 2008 came a big surprise!  I remember being a few days late, taking a pregnancy test, and the feeling I got when I saw the “plus” sign was bittersweet.  Four weeks later my incredibly nervous and sweaty self had an ultrasound.  There was a heartbeat!  My baby’s heart rate was normal!  Nate and I were ecstatic!  My due date was January 19, 2008.  As I drove home that night I had Chris Tomlin’s song “How Can I Keep from Singing Your Praise” blasting in my car.  It was the happiest day of my life.  We got home and called our parents right away.  I was nauseous all of my pregnancy, but I didn’t complain about it (okay, maybe I did a littleJ).  Feeling my baby kick for the first time was indescribable!  Every time I felt my baby move I was thankful and became more eager for January to get here.

Fast-forward to December 12, 2007.  I am at work with contractions I thought were Braxton hicks.  My pregnancy thus far had been going smooth health-wise.  We found out in September we were going to have a healthy boy, much to Nate’s delight.  I kept a running tab on how long my contractions lasted and how far apart they were on a Post-It.  The next day I decide to call my doctor’s office.  The contractions did not subside; if anything they were getting more intense and frequent.  The nurse gave me strict orders to come to the office right away.  I was dilated to two and my baby had dropped.  That was 2:30 p.m.  I gave birth to my baby boy at 10:23 that night, six weeks early.  Our peaches-and-cream-colored son came into this world weighing a whopping 4 pounds 10 ounces and was 17 ¾ inches long.  Although a preemie, he was flawless.  After eight days we got to take him home.  Motherhood had officially begun.  I wish I could say my pregnancy drama ends after his birth.  It would take four-and-a-half years before I realize how much of a miracle our son is.  My doctor did not know why our son was early.  My placenta was never tested, and had I known then what I know now, I would have insisted on having that done.

Our son thrived from the beginning.  While at the NICU, he never once had to have oxygen.  He did everything that was expected of him, even though he had a few quirks that are characteristic of preemies, such as grunting during sleep.  Needless to say Nate and I did not catch a whole lot of shut eye those first few months, but our son began sleeping through the night at thirteen weeks.  He was about eight months old when he caught up to his age group on the charts.  Life was great!  We enjoyed every moment we spent as a family. 

Here is a journal entry written when our son was just five months old:

“He is more beautiful than words could ever quite perfectly express.  He looks so different than he did just a few weeks ago-and whenever I think he couldn’t get any more gorgeous he surprises me.  He is certainly a gift from God.  Anyone who doesn’t believe in Him needs to take a long hard look at a child and they will know and believe that God is real…”

I became pregnant again October of 2009.  I was eight weeks along when I went in for my first ultrasound.  I remember feeling nervous to look at the screen, but when I did, I was overjoyed at what I saw: a healthy heartbeat.  My doctor said the chances of seeing a healthy heartbeat grow significantly higher as the pregnancy progresses, and ensured me this pregnancy was going to thrive.  As we were walking out of the office, my doctor began talking about the labor and delivery of my baby.  I was to come back for another ultrasound in two weeks.  Two weeks later, I was back.  Back on that bed/table and back in the same boat.  Back in the same nightmare I thought we woke up from.  It happened again.  No heartbeat.  Much to my doctor’s dismay, I had blood work done as well as genetic testing.  Both tests revealed nothing.  At this point I had had two miscarriages, one healthy pregnancy, and one more miscarriage. I thought I was done having miscarriages after our son was born!  How incredibly defeated I felt, and thought for some reason his birth meant the promise of more babies to come!  Well, I was wrong.   

 Miscarriage number four occurred in May of 2010, seven months after my third loss.  This miscarriage was another shocker, much like the third, because I had gone in for an ultrasound at eight weeks, baby had a strong heartbeat, then went back two weeks later and found no heartbeat.  Here is a journal entry from May 21, 2010:

“I have a headache that won’t go away.  Stress probably.  Lord, WHY?  I just don’t understand.  Two weeks ago I was SO happy and relieved.  Now this.  Again.  The hardest thing is having to relive the moment I knew I had lost yet another child.  Not seeing the ultrasound waves.  Looking at a still baby.  Seeing the faces of the nurses and listening to them and the doctor telling me it’s not my fault.  There is nothing I did to cause this.  Then I have to prepare myself and show restraint when people say all the dumb unnecessary things that unfortunately are inevitable to nonetheless irritating.  If only I could drown out the stupid comments…I’m not even sure how to pray anymore.  I’ve been cheated.  A precious life was ripped from us.  Please give me hope, God”.

What caught me by surprise literally the moment I found out I miscarried was the comment one of the nurses made.  She looked at my son, sitting in his stroller, and said, “Look at what you DO have”.  I could have clobbered her right then and there.  That insensitive comment has always stuck with me.  A few days after my d&c, I began looking to have more testing done.  My doctor still believed I was just having bad luck.  I believe he thought this because I had had a healthy pregnancy.  I wanted to do everything I could to ensure Nate and I would not have another pregnancy loss.  I cannot explain the depth of sadness I felt the day I called my doctor’s office and talked to the nurse about getting a referral.  She told me that seeing a specialist really would not do me much good and that my doctor thinks the testing is a bunch of “hocus pocus”.  I sobbed as hard as I possibly had the strength for.  I began to get more protective of our son (as if I hadn’t been overly protective before).  About two weeks after this miscarriage our son was standing next to our inflatable pool touching the side of it.  I freaked out and told him, “If you drown I will never see you again”, then ran into my house and cried.  Many times throughout my pregnancy losses I felt so alone.  I would get so upset when I felt like I could not talk about it.  I was waiting for people to give me the permission to cry.  I felt like if they did not bring it up, they must not want to talk about it and I need to just keep it inside.  Nate was a great support and always stayed positive.  I knew I could come to him and talk about it, but men do not experience miscarriage the way women do.  The moment I found out I was pregnant, every time I took the tests that revealed my status, I loved.  I yearned.  I wanted.  My best friend was also a huge support for me.  She was living in Minnesota at the time the fourth miscarriage occurred, and had invited my son and me to her house for a few days for an escape from my nightmare.  She highlighted my hair and let me take the most relaxing bubble bath in her Jacuzzi tub.  For a short time after this miscarriage I had started to doubt that God would give us more children.  I still felt the longing of having another child however, and I knew that if He did not want us to, he would take that desire away.  Well he had not taken it away.  I felt like I had a choice to make:  walk away from God and try and do things on my own, or trust him and press on, hoping that if I persevered we will come out of this craziness victorious.  I chose the latter.

Over the summer of 2010 I began seeing a specialist and underwent so much blood work I felt like a human pincushion.  Here is a journal entry, written July 28, 2010:

“Going to Dr.’s today to talk about my test results.  Looks like I have a folic acid deficiency.  Hopefully he can shed some light on things.  Apparently I have a gene that affects the way I handle this vitamin.”

Little did I know back then, but my folic acid deficiency did not cause me to miscarry four times.  Again, had I known then what I know now, I would have high tailed it out of the doctor’s office never to be seen by him again. 

Early October of 2010 I found out I was pregnant again.  I had been taking folic acid since the summer and had high hopes this time around.  I took a pregnancy test, and when it came back positive I called my specialist, a reproductive endocrinologist. (At this point I had stopped seeing my regular OB). I was to go to the lab and have my h.c.g. levels taken.  In a normal, healthy pregnancy, these levels must double every 48 hours.    After less than 24 hours after finding out I was pregnant, I got a call from the doctor’s office.  My levels had barely increased.  They wanted me to come back again to have my levels tested.  I happened to be at a women’s event the day I got the call from a nurse.  She said, “I do not know how to tell you this, honey, but it does not look good”.  My levels had barely increased once again.  I had another miscarriage; doctors call this a “chemical pregnancy”.  This baby’s life inside it’s mother was pretty much over with before it had begun, and a d&c was not necessary.  Because I was at this women’s event, I remained my naturally happy-go-lucky self but inside I was dying.  No one who I was with even remotely knew the news that had been delivered to me.  Even under the specialist I had miscarried!  So much for folic acid!  He didn’t feel the need to run anymore tests but he could not explain why.  A couple weeks later I began attending a support group through a local hospital.  Here is a journal entry written on the 13^th of October, 2010:

“Went to a support group for the very first time in my life last night.  It was worthwhile and felt freeing to be able to cry and share my story, especially to complete strangers.  I honestly believe I’d be in a much better way mentally if I’d only been through miscarriage once or twice.  But to have repeatedly gone through it again and again, 5 times, it feels like God doesn’t care.  I am struggling with praying…”

During this time I had a good friend who was pregnant.  I prayed her baby would stay safe in her belly, but during the course of her pregnancy I kept my distance.  I felt bad for that afterwards, but I could not allow myself to truly, genuinely share in her joy when I felt like I had no joy to share.  I still had that desire though, so did Nate.  We were not going to give up.  I knew God did not want us to either.  I wrote “Looking forward to the future” in my journal that winter. 

 In February of 2011 I took another test.  It was positive! At this point I am still under the care of the same specialist.  An early ultrasound revealed a heartbeat, but a weak one at that.  We stayed positive and prayed for this child, hoping his or her heartbeat would get stronger as the baby grew.  The day after the ultrasound I saw red.  I was bleeding.  I had another ultrasound and another miscarriage.  Number six.  I underwent a d&c and once again my doctor, the “specialist” had no explanation.  I was so mad I never wanted to see him again.  I knew ultimately he was not responsible for my miscarriage, but there had to have been something wrong, something he had not checked.  Something that would explain why this kept happening to me, a seemingly healthy, young woman. 

During this time, I had a friend who was seeing a specialist, another reproductive endocrinologist, who had her doctor a snippet of what Nate and I had been experiencing.  She told my friend, “Have her come and see me”.  So I did.  I immediately liked her.  I wanted her to help us.  I trusted her.  I told her our whole story.  She matter-of-factly explained our options to us.  She definitely wanted me to have blood work done, and referred me to a hematologist, who I got to see about a month later.  I was under the care of two specialists now and feeling more confident with every passing day.  We had been praying for an answer, and explanation for our losses, and by God’s grace our prayer was answered.

Summer of 2011 we found out I had a blood clot disorder which effects women who become pregnant.  I “inherited” this disorder from either my father or my mother, and although not curable, a blood thinner was my answer.  I was to inject myself everyday from the time of ovulation to 24 hours prior to delivery.  Both doctors also wanted me to take extra folic acid for good measure.  That summer I was put on Estradiol (estrogen) for one month after an ultrasound revealed a thin uterine wall, which was probably due in part of the last (and final!) d&c that I had had.  The estrogen thickened the wall up nicely, according to my doc.

We began trying for another child fall of 2011.  I bought an ovulation kit, and when it revealed I was ovulating, I marched right in to see my hematologist, who taught me how to inject my belly with Lovenox, the blood thinner prescribed for my clot disorder.  We know, because we are a Christian family, that whatever we ask God for, assuming we have the right intentions, he will grant us.  And we also know that God hears prayers of little ones. So one night, before we began to eat dinner, we told our son he should pray for a brother or a sister.  He began praying every night to be a big brother!   Early September we found out we were expecting!  I had an ultrasound early on, at six weeks, and my doc assured me (several times, probably more) that my baby was thriving.  I went back for ultrasounds week eight, ten, and twelve, and baby was growing just as normal as can be.  Feelings of miscarriage flooded my brain quite often that first trimester.   At week twelve, I had bled.  I had an ultrasound scheduled two days later.  I prayed for the health of my baby and asked Jesus to keep him or her safe inside of me.  Two days later my ultrasound revealed Jesus did in fact answer my prayer.  Doc said the bleeding was a side effect of the progesterone I was taking.  Ironically, I no longer needed to take that anymore because I had kissed my first trimester goodbye.  Because our son was a preemie, my doc wanted to do everything to ensure this baby would be full-term.  At week sixteen, I began getting shots of progesterone in my hip every week until week thirty-six of my pregnancy.  Everything was going smooth as can be expected.  At week nineteen we found out we were having a girl, much to my shock.  Our son “knew” he was having a sister, so he was not surprised when we revealed the baby’s gender.  Looking back, my daughter’s pregnancy was pretty boring.  I remember being extremely anxious throughout my pregnancy despite the boringness of it.  When I prayed for my daughter, I prayed with boldness, but honestly, I had negative thoughts constantly in the back of my mind.  I was pretty anxious.  I contracted at 31 weeks, and was given Betamethizone, a steroid, in case she came early. I also had to take Niphedipine to keep my contractions at bay.  I was put on limited activity which was lifted about five weeks later.

Fast-forward to Mother’s Day, May 13, 2012.  I wake up from a deep sleep in a puddle of water.  My bag had broken!  I was excited and a little panicked at the same time.  That was at 10:30pm.  Twelve hours ( and lots of screaming without an epidural-that’s a different blog post) later, our sweet baby girl was born!  She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces and was 21 ½ inches long.  She was here! This long-awaited child who we had prayed for for years was breathtaking and cooing in my arms.  The nurses said “make sure you hold her a lot because she’s a little cool, and needs to have skin-to-skin contact with Mommy”.  Well, she did not have to tell me that twice! 

Our son was my third pregnancy.  I didn’t know yet of my blood clot disorder until four years after he was born.  By all accounts, he really should not be alive.  He is a miracle.  A beautiful, smart, creative (and any other adjective that describes how crazy in love with my son I am) miracle.  I am constantly telling him how special he is.  My pregnancy with our son was a complete surprise.  He was the only pregnancy that was not planned.  On the contrary, my pregnancy with our daughter was 100% planned.  The most planned pregnancy I had was her’s.  Miscarriage number four happened on May 13, 2010, and for some reason, I had the hardest time with that miscarriage more so than the others I had gone through.  The d&c I had following that miscarriage had taken place the next day, on May 14^th.  It took me a few hours after our daughter was born to realize that she was born exactly two years to the day from that d&c.  She is a high-spirited, smart, precious, (and any other adjective that describes how crazy in love with my daughter I am) miracle.  And she has blonde hair! (very odd considering my husband and I both have brown).  My blood clot disorder was diagnosed and treated prior to becoming pregnant with our daughter, my eighth pregnancy.  To think I would not have her had it been treated earlier, say during any of my other pregnancies, is very hard to wrap my head around.  It is hard to imagine what our lives would be like if she was not here. Our son will be turning six soon, and our daughter is almost eighteen months.  Our children give us such overwhelming joy.  Our family is complete and I am at perfect peace (we’ve told our son repeatedly he can stop praying for a brother or a sister!).  God has blessed us beyond measure, and He continues to do so all of the time. 

I only had one pregnancy out of my eight in which I didn’t feel sick.  What was always hard for me was experiencing all of the pregnancy symptoms- weight gain, fatigue, nausea, cravings- then miscarrying and having nothing to show for it but empty arms and a poor body image.  Every fall I feel an extra weight of sadness.  I am pretty sure I may be subconsciously grieving (if that even is such a thing) the many losses we have experienced.  All but one of my miscarriages occurred in the fall/winter.  It is now the fall and I do not feel sad.  Perhaps I am emotionally healing from our losses, but not a day goes by that I do not think of the children we have lost.  We have six babies waiting for us in heaven and I am comforted in knowing this.  I have had “our story” in my head for a very long time, but I was not sure how to go about sharing what we have been through or who to tell.  Yes, it may be a drastic move to blog this for the world to see, but I feel since I am over this nightmare, I want God to use me to reach out to those who may still be going through their own pregnancy losses.  Satan wants us to keep quiet; his business is about our ultimate destruction.  Genesis 50:20 says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

I hope our story gives anyone who has gone through (or is currently going through) pregnancy loss encouragement to never give up, seek other opinions from medical professionals, become your own advocate, join a support group, and have family and friends that you can trust will pray for you and believe, and for goodness sake, CRY.  It is okay to cry over miscarried children.  Lost children deserve every tear (plus more) shed for their sake.  John 10:10 says, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.  My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”  God does have a purpose and a plan for everyone’s life, including the brief lives of our little ones, who never had a chance to grow and thrive.  I know that God is holding all of them in his infinitely huge arms.