Getting pregnant after a loss is both exciting and terrifying. After a loss, ignorance no longer protects you from fear. The only think helping me was the constant reminders from others that miscarriage is common and often just "bad luck." "It won't happen again." I convinced myself that once I get to a certain point in my pregnancy, I could relax.
I was almost 11 weeks for my first ultrasound. I felt great. No bleeding. No cramping. I was really looking forward to seeing our baby. I walked in and made small talk with everyone. I watched the screen so closely waiting for my doctor to show us that amazing little heart beat. I remember clearly seeing my smiling doctor's face change as she said, "I am sorry......." There was no heart beat. She turned off the screen and told us that our baby only measured about 8 weeks and was no longer alive. She told me to get dressed and meet her in her office so we could discuss what we do next.
My world began spinning all over again. What? Why? How? I was so confused and in instant denial. I didn't understand how I could have lost another baby when everything seemed fine. "It's called a missed miscarriage," she explained. She said my body was still acting as if I were pregnant. My uterus was still growing, but the baby had passed.
We began discussing different tests she could run. She also told us she was referring us to a fertility specialist. She said some doctors make you wait till you have had 3 losses, but she feels as though we should try to figure out what is going on after 2 losses. I will always remember how she quickly switched out of her professional doctor role and cried for us. She even got angry with us. She said she doesn't understand why this happens to parents who care so much when there are parents out there who couldn't care less for their children. She hugged me tight and said she would do her best to find out what went wrong, but sometimes there are not answers.
We went home and discussed weather to have a surgery or to wait it out and let it happen naturally. I wasn't convinced that our baby had passed. It seemed like she only had the ultrasound on for a few minutes. I wanted to wait. I only lasted a few weeks before the idea of carrying around a dead baby overtook my thoughts.
I insisted on one more ultrasound, so I could be sure the baby was really gone. My doctor had no problem with my request. She took her time and showed me that there was still no growth and no heart beat. We scheduled the surgery. One additional benefit of a surgery is that they can do more testing to try to find some answers we so desperately desired.
Waking up from the surgery was awful. Physically I was fine, well mostly. I was shaking uncontrollably. They finally gave me something to make that stop, but nothing could stop the feeling of loss. The tests they did came back normal. We had discussed if we wanted to know the sex of the baby. We hadn't decided yet, but when we got that call, she said, "normal female kareotype." I am glad now to know she was a girl, but at that moment, it made the loss feel so much worse. I began picturing all the things we would not have from frilly dresses to watching our daughter get married. It made it seem so much more real.
I quickly decided to stop making it real. I wanted to just skip over the grieving pain and get back to work. I remembered how much better I felt after the first loss once I got back to normal activities, so I decided that I would just jump back into life and move on. That was a really bad idea. I am still having to process this loss. A child is not something I could just forget.
Our next step was to meet with the fertility specialist and hopefully get some answers. I quickly learned that with every answer, there are more questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment