Miscarriage

Some of you have been asking and wondering how I am, so I thought this would be an opportunity for a post. More for me, than you, since I've a feeling it will be a long post. And who wants to read a long post? Not you, I'm sure.

I think it is important for our experiences in life, whether positive or negative, to be remembered and not forgotten.

I lost the baby, or what was becoming the baby.

I was about seven and a half weeks pregnant when I saw that tiny bit of pink spotting. I was in Seattle (or Lynnwood, to be exact) visiting my parents with the girls last week. It was a Thursday night. I spoke with the doctor and he reassured me that it was normal to spot and that I should come into the office when I get back in town for an ultrasound.

But I didn't feel very certain. Hindsight is so crystal clear, isn't it? This pregnancy had been different from my first two. I wasn't experiencing, except for one incident, any morning sickness. I was tired, and that comforted me. I wrote the lack of nausea down to "perhaps it is a boy this time?". Also, I had been warm --especially my feet-- even before I knew I was pregnant. But then a week or so into it, my feet were cold again. In the back of my mind I kept reassuring myself that everything was probably okay and that it was only a few weeks until the ultrasound. I was anxious for the ultrasound.

On Friday I continued spotting on and off.

On Saturday evening it was heavier. The spotting was thick. I tried to be calm as I put the girls down for bed. I asked Annalise, who was saying the prayer, to bless the baby. After I said goodnight to the girls, I called the on-call physician to tell him about the change in the bleeding. I heard once more that it could be just fine.

My parents had just left for the hospital an hour previous (my dad being sick was my reason for being up there, so this wasn't a huge shock) and so I decided to take a bath to be calm. When I got out of the bath I started spotting heavy again. I dried off and when I looked at the pad there it was: the sac of fluid with a little baby inside. The sac was about the size of a small lime; the baby inside was about the size of a jelly belly, maybe smaller.

It was final.

It wasn't "normal" spotting. I lost the baby.

There wasn't pain, except for some mild cramping. I called Geoff. Then my mom called and asked if I would call my siblings to ask them to pray for Dad, that the IV would go in quickly (sometimes it takes them four hours to get an IV in). I did. I also told them about the baby. I hadn't cried at all until my brother asked if I was okay, I told him I was, he told me I wasn't. But I pulled it together because it wasn't time for me to cry.

That night in my dreams, all I saw was that sac. Over and over again. I am grateful for dreams that allow us to process difficult information in a passive way. I think that is how I made it through.

Until I got home, if I felt my eyes start to water I would force them to stop. It wasn't that I wanted to deny myself the opportunity to mourn this loss, it was that I still had to get my girls and me on two planes to get home, and I didn't have the option to be a wreck. So I told that sad place inside me that I could cry when I got home.

The next morning I went to church in the ward I used to go to before we moved to Idaho. Later I told Geoff it was what heaven would be like, seeing faces that you love to see every time you turn your head. Old and dear friends, whom I will always love.

My cramping in my lower back and in front was uncomfortable at church. I got through it, but as I looked at all the adorable babies surrounding me, even being able to hold and squeeze and smell one of my good friend's little babe, my womb that had just been full felt so very empty.

That night I called one of my midwives. I talked to her about the sac to confirm that I wasn't crazy (well...) and the sac was in fact, a sac. She gave me pain medication advise (800 mg ibuprofen every six hours) and told me to come in the next afternoon when I was back in Idaho.

I woke the next morning and my mom drove us to the airport. The flights were smooth and the girls behaved wonderfully. My cramping was painful again in my pelvis and lower back. You would be proud of me: nobody knew I was in pain. Well, Anna did. She was sitting across the isle from me and would look over, see my eyes watering and me taking breaths slowly through the mouth very quietly. She would reach across and caress my arm. I reassured her that I was fine; I didn't want her worrying.

When I saw Geoff I didn't want to let go. It had been a difficult week, seeing my dad so weak, so old, so colorless, so distant, so miserable, in so much pain. And then that we had lost the baby. I feel I can go through anything with Geoff by my side. And I did go through all those things with Geoff by my side, he just was in a different state. It felt so nice to be physically in his arms.

When we were in the car I remembered that I could have taken my pain medication hours before. I kind of felt like kicking myself for not taking it sooner, which would have made my flights easier...but why hurt yourself for not taking care of your pain!

We got home and I went downstairs to look for a surprise that Geoff gave me for Mother's Day (a television for my sewing room! spoiled!) and I felt something come out of me. I went to the bathroom and found the placenta had fallen out. Well..."fallen"...all that cramping earlier was for a purpose.

I lounged on the couch still cramping and said my only lament to Geoff (to anybody): "all this cramping with no baby to show for it."

Geoff went back to work, I took a bath and shower, got dressed, did my hair and make up and relaxed on the bed for two minutes until Geoff came home to pick me up. We dropped the girls off at a friend's home and headed for the midwife's office.

The ultrasound was such a blessing. It was nice to see, actually see, that my body had done what it was supposed to do. The midwife was so nurturing, educated and thorough and reassured me of my body's abilities.

A few days home now, I still haven't broken down. I don't know if I will. I get teary, I have during the writing of this post.

I thought I would be filled with emotion, emptiness, loss.

Instead I have been filled with warmth; I have been filled with inspiration for the reasons and blessings that will come from this experience; I have been blessed with reasoning, the whole idea that a woman's body has instincts in growing strong babies or eliminating embryos that aren't developing and doing it early on in pregnancy; I have been filled with the knowledge that I have a Father in Heaven who knows me, who knows my family, who knows what is best and will bless our family accordingly.

If I mourn, I mourn for women, wonderful women, who haven't been able to become pregnant. I mourn for women who haven't been able to complete a pregnancy with a healthy baby as the outcome.

Yet motherhood isn't the effects of a successful pregnancy. "Mother" is what you do and what you become, when you care, nurture, and have love for another.