Before reading this post, make sure you have first read Part One! This writing is an excerpt from my online journal that I wrote in May of 2018 during my time of miscarrying our first baby. The below was written on May 25, 2018.
It’s quite odd how I grapple with wanting this “experience” (for the lack of a better term) to pass quickly some days and yet other days my heart still lingers in the past as if it would bring me closer to my baby. Sometimes it feels as though I am abandoning him/her when I try to “move on” by praying the sadness away or having hope for the future.
In April I was told that my body would naturally pass the baby within 30 days. It was Friday, May 11th and our baby had been gone for approximately a month with no sign of it naturally passing yet. I talked with the midwife, Carla, to get the details on getting a medication to basically be induced. I called her while at work to ask if I could get the prescription for it. Honestly, as much as I missed our baby I was also ready to move forward. Waking up every day wondering if this would be the day he/she would pass was agonizing. I was scared I would start bleeding at school in the last week with my students and I didn’t want that to happen.
It was also on this day, Friday, that Nick and I visited my friend Brittany in the hospital. She is battling Stage IV cancer. I told her that losing a baby seemed trivial compared to the pain she’s been enduring with cancer. She assured me it wasn’t. She was one of the very first people I told I was pregnant. As I sat on her bed she held my hands and cried with me for the loss of our baby. Reflecting on this moment helps me realize that we don’t have to tell ourselves that someone else has it worse to try and minimize our pain. We can feel sadness and our mourning is warranted even if it’s not as bad as it could be.
I picked up the medication after my niece and nephew’s birthday party on Saturday the 12th. It’s a lonely feeling when you have something so awful happening in your life and everyone around you thinks that you’re okay. When I stopped at Walgreens the worker in the drive-through asked me if I was pregnant. I’m sure that was just protocol because the medication I was prescribed was one that could terminate a pregnancy. I remember answering “no” in tears.
I got mentally prepared, had some snacks nearby, put on a good show, and I took the medication at 2:45PM. I laid down on the couch, waiting for the contraction-like cramping to start. I slept for a little bit. My discomfort woke me up an hour later, about 10 minutes before Nick got off work. He got the heating pad turned on for me and we watched Parks and Rec and waited. I began to get really uncomfortable pains but I had already had all the Tylenol and Advil I could take until 9PM.
Nick left to go to the store to get chocolate milk, fruit, and Powerade.
I started to get really uncomfortable around 8:30PM and moved into the bedroom. I began having painful contractions around 8:45 and took more Advil. It was similar to labor, I’d imagine, but with no prize at the end. Tears of sadness and physical pain. My contractions got incredibly painful and closer and closer together. Nick was amazing. He text my family about trying to get more pain meds and my sister was on her way with some Oxycodone from a previous surgery of hers. Right before Jill arrived, around 10:15PM, I felt the “gush” that I was told would happen. The baby was passing, and my physical pain left. I placed my baby in a Tupperware container that I had sitting in the bathroom. I could not make out any features, but it was my baby.
Nick and I were hungry so shortly after Jill left we went to Taco Bell. I remember being worried that I would bleed on the car seat so I brought a towel to sit on. We ate dinner in bed and before going to sleep, Nick left the room and went into his office. I didn’t think much of it, but when he returned he had something in his hand. It was a Mother’s Day gift for me. It was officially Mother’s Day, after midnight on Sunday, and I had just lost my baby. He gifted me the sweetest book, about a grieving mother’s heart, and a necklace that had our baby’s birthstone, a heart with baby feet, and an angel wing. We laid and cried together. It was good for me in that moment to see my husband mourn like I had been mourning every night for nearly a month. There were many times I felt alone in my pain, and I was comforted in this moment knowing he had wanted this baby too. He said it had been hard for him to be strong, and we were both so worn out and worn down from weeks of trying to “be strong”. He also expressed that he finally was crying about not having a baby and letting go of his future (for a little while longer at least) of being a dad.
I remember Sunday being a good day. Just relaxing with Nick since he took off work to spend time together. I remember the next few days at work, however, being really hard. I cried, was easily annoyed, tired, and mad. With it being the last week of school everyone had feelings of excitement and stress, and here I was also having memories of laboring on my weekend and giving birth to my deceased baby. It was a terrible feeling of loss. Not to mention I was bleeding a lot for nearly two weeks and had that as a constant reminder of what my body was still going through- removing the last remnants of my pregnancy.
For weeks I was focused on the fear of passing my baby. Now I face the fear of having another pregnancy. Was this a “fluke” or will I have trouble carrying another baby?
And still… He is good.
Helpful worship songs I’m listening to during this time:
Take Courage – Kristene DiMarco
I Am No Victim – Kristene DiMarco