There it hangs, oh so innocently, catching my eye and sending my heart spiraling into my stomach. As I go through Riley's closet and pack away her summer clothes, thinking vainly that I will save them for a future child, and make room for her new fall ones. There it hangs in the back of the closet. I had forgotten about it. A t-shirt that says, "I'm the big sister". The t-shirt that my sister found by accident and knew I was pregnant before I even told her. The t-shirt Riley wore under a jacket until we took the jacket off and waited for Jason's parents to notice and surprise them with our news. The t-shirt that meant we were having another baby and Riley would soon be a big sister.
These reminders are everywhere, sneaking up on me when I least expect them to. Like the bracelet that I got Riley that says "big sister", like the maternity jeans I thought I had packed away but find under a pile of clothes, like the gift still wrapped up from Christmas last year that contains new decorations for Riley's big girl room we would need to move her into to make room in the nursery for the baby. I came home from the hospital and yanked it from under the tree and threw it in a closet hoping to never see it again. But it too snuck up on me one day. Like the intersection of 143rd and Black Bob Road. I try to avoid it, but every now and then I forget and I accidentally drive by the funeral home where I sat in an office waiting for them to bring me the remains of my baby. I avoided that place like the plague until the day we received the sad news that Jason's grandma had passed away and her visitation was to be held at the same funeral home. I couldn't not be there for my husband for that. So I went. And as I stood there amongst the mourners, I was very newly pregnant. I didn't even know it yet. And it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. We were going to name that one Elinor if it had been a girl...after Grandma.
How do I live in a world full of reminders? Maybe I try to see them all as proof. Proof that little lives once existed. Proof that these babies were real and loved. The initial reaction is always the same, my heart drops and I feel sad, longing for what could have been. But then I tell myself that these reminders make them real. And then I move forward, packing away little summer clothes and little t-shirts that announce to the world a baby is on the way and I save them, along with all my hopes and dreams and prayers...just in case.
I love you always and forever and no matter what.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Rainbows
Finally sitting down after a long day of doctors appointments, errands, laundry, cleaning, chasing, feeding, bathing a two year old and two trips back into her room to sing "tinkle tinkle star" one more time. And I have a confession to make...after my first post last week I completely panicked. Did I seriously just tell the whole world (OK, maybe just my little corner of it, but still!) about the most personal and painful thing that has ever happened to me??!! I actually regretted it for days afterwards. But so many of you sent me the kindest words of support and encouragement. To all of you who commented or sent me a message, thank you! One sweet friend even brought me Starbucks! Jason kept telling me how brave he thought it was and how he thinks this will be very healing for me. And someone else very dear to me, who suffered a miscarriage recently, told me she feels that no one really understands what she is going through, that it is awkward to talk about and that I should keep writing so people do know. And so, armed with all your supportive words and a husband and friend cheering me on, I write again.
I met with Dr. G today for my customary "I just had another miscarriage. What now?" appt. I got poked in the arm for the fourth time in one week as they monitored my hormone levels go up last week indicating I was pregnant and the pregnancy was progressing and now today to follow them back down to ensure my miscarriage is complete. Dr. G and I talked for about 30 minutes and again he told me he really has no idea why this keeps happening. It is just a mystery. He wants to take some time to review my records more closely and make sure he has not missed anything and then he said he will call me next week with his recommendation on how we should proceed. We discussed IVF and PGD and he gave me some more info on that. He then said that I have not been tested for any immune disorders, which can be a cause of recurrent miscarriage. I totally thought I had been tested for that, but apparently not. He said the research on it is not great, the testing is expensive and the treatment involves blood transfusions to suppress my immune response to the pregnancy. He said there are some risks...um yeah....we would be putting another person's blood in my body! But that is why he wants to review my history before he suggests that route. He told me he has had patients who have miscarried as much as me and they have gone on to have healthy babies. I point blank asked him if I was his wife what would he want me to do. He said, " I treat all my patients that way, and that is why I want to take some time to review your file and really make sure we haven't missed anything before we move on" and that is why I love Dr. G!
Rainbows. These beautiful multi colored creations hold a special place in my heart and here is why. I remember vividly the day I miscarried my first child. It was a Sunday, so I had to go to the ER rather than my regular obgyn (who I have sense left). I was told by the ER doc to follow up with my obgyn the next day. So that following Monday I had an appt with her where she told me in a very matter of fact tone that she had reviewed my records from the ER and she was sorry but my pregnancy was "no longer viable". Yeah, I think we figured that out when it was confirmed that our baby no longer had a beating heart. She then proceeded to perform a pelvic exam on me in which she used some rather barbaric tactics in my opinion to help my miscarriage along. I laid on the exam table, all by myself, with no pain medication, knuckles white from gripping the table, silent tears streaming down my face and my breath held in so I would not cry out. I left her office feeling completely drained, both physically and emotionally. On the drive home, there is was, a rainbow in the sky. Again, I had the feeling it was put there just for me. And I have never so clearly heard the voice of God say, "Just trust Me". And for a moment I did. And I knew it would all be OK somehow. I wish I could say that I kept that trust in Him throughout this whole ordeal and therefore the sadness wasn't so bad but grief doesn't work that way. But I did think about that rainbow a lot. And in the really dark moments I clung to His words to trust. And then August 10th came. That was the morning I woke up and took a pregnancy test and it was positive. The morning I sat in my bathroom alone and cried tears of joy, thanking God over and over for breathing life into me once again. The morning I felt both terrified and hopeful. Paralyzed by the fear of losing another one, but also with this gut feeling that it was going to work this time, that I really would be holding my baby in nine months. I crawled in bed next to my sleeping husband and whispered in his ear, "I'm pregnant". It was one of the happiest moments of my life. And later that day, driving to the hospital to see my best friend's baby who had just been born (weird huh??!!) there it was....a rainbow. I had not seen one since the awful drive home after my miscarriage. Pregnancy with Riley was nine months of anxiety, fear that I would lose her too, several panicked trips to the ER because I hadn't felt her move. And when I felt like that, I thought of the rainbow, His command to trust and it made me feel better. So that is why I love rainbows. God sent one to comfort me in my darkest hour and He sent one to celebrate with me in one of my brightest.
I have seen a few rainbows since then, most recently just a few months ago right in front of my house. Oddly that was the day I found out I didn't get pregnant from a cycle where we had tried a new drug recommended by Dr. G and were feeling pretty hopeful only to be disappointed. And it has happened on occasion that I take a pregnancy test, it is positive and I go stand outside my house looking up to the sky for one...not joking. I have actually done that. But I have never seen one again like I did that day. But like the picture above states, "When the world says give up, hope whispers try one more time". This world has given me every reason to give up, six reasons to be exact. I am probably crazy to still be trying. But that's the crazy thing about hope, about God...when everything else tells you to give up, a rainbow appears and whispers, "Trust Me. And try one more time".
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:26
I love you always and forever and no matter what.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Basking in the Light
I have never had the desire to be a blogger but lately I have felt the need to share. To put it all out there. For many years I have been enduring a secret trial. Some of my friends and family are aware of our struggle. But many know of it only on the surface. The deep, personal, gory details have been kept behind lock and key. But I am tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of smiling to the outside world while on the inside I am barely hanging on. We are private people, but today we are breaking the silence on an all too familiar struggle for many couples and the deep and profound pain and grief that comes with it. This is the truth. It is raw and it is honest and it is graphic. So consider yourself warned. And if talk of sex, making babies and pregnancy offends you, you may want to stop now. Here is our story.
I wouldn't call our struggle "infertility" per se. My husband and I are actually quite fertile, becoming pregnant by practically just looking at each other. Our problem is the ability to keep the pregnancy. It has been a problem that has defined our young, tender marriage. The general population has a 40% chance of getting divorced. If you suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth your chances increase to 60%. Imagine if you have several miscarriages, the strain it puts on a marriage and this started for us on our first wedding anniversary. We found out November 10th 2008 that we were expecting our first child. We were full of joy, excitement, anticipation and fear at this news. But these feelings were short lived, when exactly 12 weeks into my pregnancy I began bleeding heavily. No light spotting to gently tip me off that something might be wrong. But a sudden, harsh, heavy bleeding to terrify me and slap me in the face with the reality that I was having a miscarriage. It was January 3rd 2009. A trip to the emergency room and an ultrasound confirmed our tiny baby no longer had a heart beat. The baby measured between 8 and 9 weeks meaning my body carried the pregnancy another 3 weeks with no sign that anything had gone wrong. It was a devastating time to say the least, but my doctor assured me that miscarriages are very common and everything would be fine next time. And so in April that year, three months after my first loss, while on vacation in Hawaii, we found out I was pregnant again. But just one week later I miscarried again. I was just 5 weeks. Most doctors will wait until you have three consecutive miscarriages before doing any testing to determine a cause, but I am more proactive than that and this was far too painful for me to endure again, so I sought the help of a reproductive specialist. Dr. Dan Gehlbach, or Dr. G as he will be referred to from now on :). Dr. G ran every test imaginable on my husband and I both and we checked out completely normal. 50% of couples who experience recurrent pregnancy loss will have no identifiable reason....and therefore no real treatment. And so we tried a third time and in July 2009, our sweet miracle was conceived. 9 months later on April 7, 2010 Riley Grace was born healthy and perfect. She has been the joy of my life and the source of my hope. I thank God for her every single day.
We then had one blissful year of happiness, watching our little baby girl grow that first year was one of the happiest times of my entire life. And when she turned one we started thinking about having another baby. I saw Dr. G again and in August 2011 we found out we were expecting baby number four. Baby number four, the one that forever changed everything, the one that brought "miscarriage" to a whole new meaning. I carried that sweet one for exactly 16 weeks and on December 2, 2011 our baby died. This was unlike my previous two losses that were early enough I could miscarry naturally. For this one I was admitted to the hospital and labor was induced. But my body was as reluctant to let go of that little one as my heart was and after two full days in the hospital of induction attempts I finally had to have a surgical procedure called a D&E to remove my baby from me, the horror of which haunts me to this day. After the surgery the doctor said he felt the loss was due to a problem with my baby's umbilical cord which was twisted and kinked and "just a mess" as he put it. My obgyn assures me that cord accidents are random, one time occurrences and it is highly unlikely to happen again....we will see. After my surgery the doctor went to inform my mom and husband in the waiting room of how it went and he handed my husband a piece of paper. On the paper are our baby's foot prints, two teeny tiny perfectly formed feet with ten toes. They are the size of my fingernail.
When I was in the hospital those four days with baby number four, I was in a weird state that I cannot explain. I was fine. I scarcely cried. The nurses kept commenting on how well I was handling things and the grief counselor who came to see me every day was amazed by how well I was doing. But as they wheeled me down to the main entrance to discharge me, I waited for my husband to go get the car and come pick me up, I sat beside another new mother in a wheelchair waiting for her husband to come pick her up. Except she was holding her sweet, sleeping, healthy baby in her arms and mine were empty. And it was then that the darkness, the heaviness began to settle in upon me. I felt it come over me and intensify on the drive home. And it has been my constant companion ever since. Three more babies have joined their siblings in heaven since my little 16-weeker was lost. One at 4 weeks in March of this year, another at 4 weeks in April and as I sit writing this I am miscarrying baby number 7 at just 5 weeks. Miracle baby number 7...did you know you can get pregnant when you aren't even trying and your husband is out of town???!!! Yup, one determined little guy hung around from his goodbye send off and patiently waited several days for me to ovulate...like I said, no problems GETTING pregnant. Sweet baby number 7, thank you for making us believe that perhaps God still had a few miracles up his sleeve for us yet.
And so that brings us to today. I look at the last 9 months of my life and they have been marked by pain, grief, sleep deprivation, anxiety, racing heart beats, a messy home, a wife and mother that has been such a mess that two days ago when Jason was playing with Riley, she looked at him and said, "mommy sick. mommy cry". The darkness has been so thick that light could not permeate it, not even His light. Until Wednesday morning this week. That was the day I woke up to find I was miscarrying again. And the oddest thing happened...I felt relief. I don't know why, but I was relieved. The thing I have wanted most of all through all this is to find peace with God about it. My soul has felt so tormented and I can't understand why He keeps letting this happen. I don't know if I'm just becoming desensitized to the losses or if it's a defense mechanism or what but I just felt relieved. Glad it was over. Glad that a non viable pregnancy did not progress, allowing a baby to grow and develop, but a baby that would eventually die none the less. My babies have made it past the milestones before. They got a heart beat which is supposed to mean the chance of miscarriage is low, they got past the first trimester which is supposed to lower the risk even more. But they still die eventually. I am glad I don't have to face that again. I took Riley to the park/ lake that day and she cuddled in my arms by the water, laying her head on my chest and just cuddling with me. There was a nice breeze and the sun seemed to be shining down just for us, warming a heart and soul that has been cold for so long. She laughed and played for an hour, throwing rocks in the water. And I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for my miracle daughter, for simple things like playing, sunshine and the feeling of a little two year old snuggled against my heart, knowing that she feels safer no where else on earth but on my lap with my arms wrapped around her and my voice singing in her ear. His light finally broke through the darkness. I feel new resolve. Maybe it is naive and stupid, but I feel that one day, some way, some how we will know the blessing of another healthy baby. It may not happen this year, or even the next, but our day is coming. I hope I am not wrong, but as the sun came down on us Wednesday, I just felt so sure it will happen again one day.
Our predicament now is how to proceed. We will definitely be taking a break for a few months to recoup and heal. Like a "use-contraceptive-every-time" break! We learned our lesson with that! But after that, do we just keep trying and hope another one sticks. Or do we take the biggest gamble of our lives and pursue the only treatment plan our doctor says might help (MIGHT being the operative word) and do IVF combined with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and have our embryos tested before implantation to make sure all the chromosomes are normal, therefore reducing the risk of miscarriage? Our insurance will cover none of this and it is not cheap to say the least. I have thought this over a lot. I have prayed about it. There are pros and cons to both but I just don't know. And that is where we are at...contemplating what to do next. Maybe I will fall apart tomorrow. Maybe I will battle the heavy darkness again tomorrow, but for now I am basking in the light He shown down on me and my miracle baby this week.
That's enough for today. I promise all my posts won't be this long (OK, maybe I can't promise that but I will try really hard!). Next time I will tell you the reason behind the title of my blog, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Until then, welcome to our journey. You will probably find out more about Jason and I than you ever wanted to know! And to my Little Ones, I love you always and forever and no matter what.
14 Weeks with baby number 4. Tiny baby bump popping out.
Baby number 4 - 10 Weeks, my last ultrasound until the one we had to confirm there was no heart beat.
Baby's foot prints given to Jason after my surgery.
I wouldn't call our struggle "infertility" per se. My husband and I are actually quite fertile, becoming pregnant by practically just looking at each other. Our problem is the ability to keep the pregnancy. It has been a problem that has defined our young, tender marriage. The general population has a 40% chance of getting divorced. If you suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth your chances increase to 60%. Imagine if you have several miscarriages, the strain it puts on a marriage and this started for us on our first wedding anniversary. We found out November 10th 2008 that we were expecting our first child. We were full of joy, excitement, anticipation and fear at this news. But these feelings were short lived, when exactly 12 weeks into my pregnancy I began bleeding heavily. No light spotting to gently tip me off that something might be wrong. But a sudden, harsh, heavy bleeding to terrify me and slap me in the face with the reality that I was having a miscarriage. It was January 3rd 2009. A trip to the emergency room and an ultrasound confirmed our tiny baby no longer had a heart beat. The baby measured between 8 and 9 weeks meaning my body carried the pregnancy another 3 weeks with no sign that anything had gone wrong. It was a devastating time to say the least, but my doctor assured me that miscarriages are very common and everything would be fine next time. And so in April that year, three months after my first loss, while on vacation in Hawaii, we found out I was pregnant again. But just one week later I miscarried again. I was just 5 weeks. Most doctors will wait until you have three consecutive miscarriages before doing any testing to determine a cause, but I am more proactive than that and this was far too painful for me to endure again, so I sought the help of a reproductive specialist. Dr. Dan Gehlbach, or Dr. G as he will be referred to from now on :). Dr. G ran every test imaginable on my husband and I both and we checked out completely normal. 50% of couples who experience recurrent pregnancy loss will have no identifiable reason....and therefore no real treatment. And so we tried a third time and in July 2009, our sweet miracle was conceived. 9 months later on April 7, 2010 Riley Grace was born healthy and perfect. She has been the joy of my life and the source of my hope. I thank God for her every single day.
We then had one blissful year of happiness, watching our little baby girl grow that first year was one of the happiest times of my entire life. And when she turned one we started thinking about having another baby. I saw Dr. G again and in August 2011 we found out we were expecting baby number four. Baby number four, the one that forever changed everything, the one that brought "miscarriage" to a whole new meaning. I carried that sweet one for exactly 16 weeks and on December 2, 2011 our baby died. This was unlike my previous two losses that were early enough I could miscarry naturally. For this one I was admitted to the hospital and labor was induced. But my body was as reluctant to let go of that little one as my heart was and after two full days in the hospital of induction attempts I finally had to have a surgical procedure called a D&E to remove my baby from me, the horror of which haunts me to this day. After the surgery the doctor said he felt the loss was due to a problem with my baby's umbilical cord which was twisted and kinked and "just a mess" as he put it. My obgyn assures me that cord accidents are random, one time occurrences and it is highly unlikely to happen again....we will see. After my surgery the doctor went to inform my mom and husband in the waiting room of how it went and he handed my husband a piece of paper. On the paper are our baby's foot prints, two teeny tiny perfectly formed feet with ten toes. They are the size of my fingernail.
When I was in the hospital those four days with baby number four, I was in a weird state that I cannot explain. I was fine. I scarcely cried. The nurses kept commenting on how well I was handling things and the grief counselor who came to see me every day was amazed by how well I was doing. But as they wheeled me down to the main entrance to discharge me, I waited for my husband to go get the car and come pick me up, I sat beside another new mother in a wheelchair waiting for her husband to come pick her up. Except she was holding her sweet, sleeping, healthy baby in her arms and mine were empty. And it was then that the darkness, the heaviness began to settle in upon me. I felt it come over me and intensify on the drive home. And it has been my constant companion ever since. Three more babies have joined their siblings in heaven since my little 16-weeker was lost. One at 4 weeks in March of this year, another at 4 weeks in April and as I sit writing this I am miscarrying baby number 7 at just 5 weeks. Miracle baby number 7...did you know you can get pregnant when you aren't even trying and your husband is out of town???!!! Yup, one determined little guy hung around from his goodbye send off and patiently waited several days for me to ovulate...like I said, no problems GETTING pregnant. Sweet baby number 7, thank you for making us believe that perhaps God still had a few miracles up his sleeve for us yet.
And so that brings us to today. I look at the last 9 months of my life and they have been marked by pain, grief, sleep deprivation, anxiety, racing heart beats, a messy home, a wife and mother that has been such a mess that two days ago when Jason was playing with Riley, she looked at him and said, "mommy sick. mommy cry". The darkness has been so thick that light could not permeate it, not even His light. Until Wednesday morning this week. That was the day I woke up to find I was miscarrying again. And the oddest thing happened...I felt relief. I don't know why, but I was relieved. The thing I have wanted most of all through all this is to find peace with God about it. My soul has felt so tormented and I can't understand why He keeps letting this happen. I don't know if I'm just becoming desensitized to the losses or if it's a defense mechanism or what but I just felt relieved. Glad it was over. Glad that a non viable pregnancy did not progress, allowing a baby to grow and develop, but a baby that would eventually die none the less. My babies have made it past the milestones before. They got a heart beat which is supposed to mean the chance of miscarriage is low, they got past the first trimester which is supposed to lower the risk even more. But they still die eventually. I am glad I don't have to face that again. I took Riley to the park/ lake that day and she cuddled in my arms by the water, laying her head on my chest and just cuddling with me. There was a nice breeze and the sun seemed to be shining down just for us, warming a heart and soul that has been cold for so long. She laughed and played for an hour, throwing rocks in the water. And I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for my miracle daughter, for simple things like playing, sunshine and the feeling of a little two year old snuggled against my heart, knowing that she feels safer no where else on earth but on my lap with my arms wrapped around her and my voice singing in her ear. His light finally broke through the darkness. I feel new resolve. Maybe it is naive and stupid, but I feel that one day, some way, some how we will know the blessing of another healthy baby. It may not happen this year, or even the next, but our day is coming. I hope I am not wrong, but as the sun came down on us Wednesday, I just felt so sure it will happen again one day.
Our predicament now is how to proceed. We will definitely be taking a break for a few months to recoup and heal. Like a "use-contraceptive-every-time" break! We learned our lesson with that! But after that, do we just keep trying and hope another one sticks. Or do we take the biggest gamble of our lives and pursue the only treatment plan our doctor says might help (MIGHT being the operative word) and do IVF combined with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and have our embryos tested before implantation to make sure all the chromosomes are normal, therefore reducing the risk of miscarriage? Our insurance will cover none of this and it is not cheap to say the least. I have thought this over a lot. I have prayed about it. There are pros and cons to both but I just don't know. And that is where we are at...contemplating what to do next. Maybe I will fall apart tomorrow. Maybe I will battle the heavy darkness again tomorrow, but for now I am basking in the light He shown down on me and my miracle baby this week.
That's enough for today. I promise all my posts won't be this long (OK, maybe I can't promise that but I will try really hard!). Next time I will tell you the reason behind the title of my blog, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Until then, welcome to our journey. You will probably find out more about Jason and I than you ever wanted to know! And to my Little Ones, I love you always and forever and no matter what.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)