Part 2 of What I Hope You Never Experience

I knew. I knew as soon as she put the ultrasound wand inside of me that the baby was no longer there. I didn't cry yet. They called in the on-call doctor. I called my husband. That's when I started to break down. 
Trying to stay strong I told Hime 'there is no baby'. The line was bad, hospitals like to block cell phones. I tried texting him. My phone was dying. My mom's didn't have reception. 
He said he was on his way. 
The doctor arrived and he did the vaginal ultrasound and confirmed that the baby wasn't there. Well... More on that later. 
The doctor left to let me get dressed. Thomas arrived soon thereafter. I tell him what happened and the doctor comes back to explain things. 
He said that it was most likely chromosomal. Something wasn't right from the beginning. He essentially said that the baby was destined not to make it from the moment we conceived. He told us that there was nothing that we could have done to prevent it, that there was nothing that we had done to cause it. 
He went on to say that at least "we could get pregnant".... Which I found a bit rude. 
He gave me three options. The first being to not do anything and let the baby come out on its own. I knew I didn't want to do this because it had already been 3 weeks and nothing was happening. 
The second choice was to have a D & C, which means they surgically removed the baby. He didn't recommend this as it can cause damage and is invasive. 
The last and most often chosen option was to use the medication Cytotec. It basically stimulates the uterus to contract and go into labor. 
I chose the last option. 
After speaking to my sister who had once been told her baby had died and then referred to radiology to do a more thorough ultrasound in which they found my niece... I decided to ask to have a radiologist do an ultrasound. It's not that I really thought that I would be told anything different, but I couldn't take the medication without being 100% sure that the baby had died. 
When the doctor did the ultrasound he didn't show me anything. He just said the baby wasn't there. When I went to radiology the next day and they did the ultrasound I was actually able to see where the baby was and it was obvious that the baby had stopped growing. 
At nearly 11 weeks you should be able to see the head, the body... etc. What we saw was basically what we had seen at 6w5d when we saw the heart beat. I saw my OBGYN that day and she told me the baby measured 7w2d. 
So in other words the baby passed a few days after we last were in the office. What I experienced was what is called a Missed Miscarriage (or the less liked name of Missed Abortion). This essentially means that the baby stopped growing but my body did not recognize that and so the hormones stayed and my belly stayed looking pregnant, but the baby was gone. 
With confirmation that are baby was no longer alive... On the afternoon of March 16th 2016 I took the Cytotec to cause labor contractions to start. 
I will have another post explaining that process. 

I Hope You Never Experience This

I was in the midst of writing some posts to share the wonderful news that I was pregnant when I had to stop and hit delete. 
Instead I'm writing this post. A post that may not be for you - the people who may still have me on their feeds, but for the people who search for specific terms to find it. Although there are some similar posts out there, I couldn't find any that were exactly or, in some cases, anywhere close to what I'm going through right now. I want to be able to bring my story to others in case they need it. 
I know I'm being a bit vague, so let me clarify a bit.
On January 23rd after a couple of days of cramping but with Aunt Flo (AF) not showing up I thought I would take a pregnancy test. We had been trying for just over 3 months at that point. The test came back very positive. Two beautiful pink lines (and then blue, then a cross, then a "pregnant") came back. 
I was having very irregular periods right after coming off of birth control. I had a 22 day cycle, followed by 41 days, and on my third cycle I ovulated on day 41. I was surprised that I got a positive test so quickly (although my mom always told me that the women in her line are very fertile!). 
I quickly made a doctor's appointment on the 29th which confirmed I was indeed pregnant but it was very early. A couple of weeks later I went back for a dating ultrasound which placed me at 6w5d and a due date of October 6th. We saw a heart beat at this appointment (although it was too soon to hear). 
We told few people about the pregnancy in fears of having a miscarriage, but it was not something we actually thought would happen. Especially since we saw the heartbeat and the chances of miscarriage at that point are so low. 
By that point I had started to have morning sickness, my smelling abilities increased, and my skin was super oily. My stomach was bloated and I looked pregnant. I didn't gain much weight even though I was eating a lot more than normal. 
However, somewhere around 8 weeks my morning sickness disappeared. I knew that this was perfectly normal, but as the next 2 weeks went on I began to grow anxious. I mentioned to my husband that I didn't feel right. That something was off. I didn't have any symptoms. I even emailed my doctor on the 11th of March with my worries. She wasn't in, but a nurse said that since I hadn't had any cramping or blood/spotting that everything was most likely fine and to keep drinking a lot of water. 
I want to say that I wish I had gone to the doctor, but it's not as though anything could have been done at that point anyway. The end had already happened. 
On March 15th I had a monthly appointment with a midwife to do a physical and listen for the heartbeat I was 10w5d at that point (so exactly 4 weeks after my initial dating ultrasound). My husband said I could let my mom go with me to this appointment since we had been told it was just a physical and no ultrasound would be done 
The midwife took information and then said that it was too early to listen for the heartbeat so that we would do an ultrasound. I was excited because I knew that at this point the baby would look like a baby and not just a peanut. 
The midwife started with an abdominal ultrasound and then said my bladder was too full. Which confused me since I was under the impression that for an abdominal ultrasound you needed a full bladder (you do). That should've sent me me warning signals immediately. But what did I know? Maybe I was wrong. She sent me to empty my bladder and told me we would do a vaginal ultrasound (which I don't find uncomfortable at all). 
I was still excited at this point, in hindsight I see that she knew what she was (or, really, wasn't) going to see but was hiding it. And this is what is really bothering me now. But, alas it makes no difference now. But it did make me not want to deal with midwives in the future - I'll stick to OBGYN's. 
I will continue this.... 

Tell The World!!!

Knowing what I know now I will act differently in any subsequent pregnancies. I will not hide the fact that I’m pregnant like a dirty secret for the first trimester. There is no reason to hide it. They say that it is so that we don’t have to tell everyone if we have a miscarriage. I found that I wanted to tell EVERYONE when it happened. And I did. I started texting people who I had never told I was pregnant in the first place to tell them my grief.

It got me thinking that there is no reason to hide it. Miscarriages are happening all the time to people all around us. 1 in 4 women suffer a miscarriage in their lives. I am one of those 4, but with the amount of people we know, the likelyhood is that many of the people around me have suffered through it as well. I know about a few but as I share my story more and more women are coming to me and telling me their stories.

Most women suffer in silence. They may talk to a few family members and their partner, but they don’t have anyone else to talk to about it. There are forums and Facebook groups that are terribly helpful, but sometimes you just need to be able to vent to someone who knows exactly what you are talking about. I’m lucky that I have a couple of family members who have experienced similar situations and they are willing to let me talk to them and ask them questions. It’s part of the grieving process.

Not everyone is as lucky. I hope that the movements that have been coming up in the last few years (from what I can tell) to get people to be open about their losses keeps progressing.

Of course I’m not saying that you should share it if you don’t want to or are uncomfortable doing so. It is definitely YOUR decision to make. My point is that it is YOUR decision and not just the communities decision that says it’s taboo to do so.

I haven’t experienced this, but I know that there are people who will tell women who announce their pregnancies early on that they are jinxing it. That they will have bad luck. Simply a bunch of negativity. It simply isn’t true.

We shared the news of the pregnancy with our parents, my siblings and nieces and nephew pretty early on. Then the Friday before we found out the baby had stopped growing we told his siblings and grandma. Doing this did NOT cause the miscarriage.

As I mentioned, the miscarriage was destined to happen as soon as sperm met egg. There was something wrong with one or the other or the combination of both. But there was absolutely NOTHING we could have done to know or to cause or to prevent the miscarriage from happening.

As much as I don’t want people to say these things to me, I know they are true. They just don’t make me feel better or change the amount of grief I feel. 

Ramblings About... My Miscarriage

Exactly 1 week ago (fromt the time I write this) I was finding out that my baby had died inside of me. I have always wanted to have a baby and life has made it so that I finally got pregnant on January 13th, 2016. I found out 10 days later and I saw my baby on an ultrasound on February 16th, 2016. 

My husband and I have been married nearly 2 years, together for over 4. It was time to start since I am already in my 30’s (he is 6 months younger than me). 

I was so extatic when I saw the two lines giving me a positive pregnancy test that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to hold it in. I had to yell it out loud. But I played it cool and when my husband walked into the room a few minutes later I shoved the little sitck in his face. I took 3 or 4 tests one right after the other to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. They were all very positive. 

We called and made the appointment to see the doctor and there was no going back. I had a little baby growing inside of me. You may call it a zygote or embryo or whatever, but to me, from the moment I saw those two lines it was MY BABY. Our baby. Something we created. I knew life would change but we were ready for it. We have tons of family support (and even some nudging that it’s time to have kids) from both sides. 

Now, with the baby gone. No heartbeat and the baby not having grown past 7 or so weeks, we have nothing and I feel so completely empty. 

I knew it was coming, too. I don’t know how, because I was the one that kept telling my husband that the probability of miscarriage was low since we had seen the heartbeat. But somewhere around 8 to 9 weeks my symptoms disappeared seemingly overnight. I know that symptoms can go away. I wasn’t worried immediately, but as time went on I just felt like something was wrong. 

I expressed this to my mom and my husband who reassured me that everything was fine. I wasn’t bleeding, I didn’t have cramps. There were no signs that anything was wrong. 

If would we knew. Well, nothing would have changed other than I would have had had to carry my baby, already without life, for 3 weeks and 3 days inside of me. I think that is what is painful. That the poor baby was inside of me without anyone knowing he was dead. 

Who am I kidding, there are so many things that are painful about this (and I’m sorry that this is just a rambling post, but I have to get out what’s in my head in whatever way it comes). 

I though, beforehand, that the worse part would be giving birth to the baby. It was, but not the physical pain. The cramps weren’t worse than I had experience in normal periods. The emortional pain of knowing that my baby was sitting in the toilet and would just be discarded is what really got to me. 

Logically I know all the reasons: it’s better this way, God had other plans, he probably had chromosomal defects that prevented him from growing so that he wouldn’t suffer. Mother nature knows best, my body knew what to do. 

None of that matters. My baby is dead and I will never hold him in my arms. I’ll never know what it is to hold my first child. When people ask me how many kids I have (if I am able to have kids, that’s a whole other post) I’ll have to mention that I lost my first. Which I am not ashamed to do. But I know that people won’t know how to react to my statement. I will make them uncomfortable. 

I am struggling. I push through each day, but I have to hold the tears back. I’m back at work (I can’t take more time off). People here know what happened, but no one approaches me. Almost like I’m this weird thing that they don’t know how to deal with.

Worries and Concerns

Before I get sucked into another book I wanted to post something.

I’ve been reading like crazy lately and instead of blogging between phone calls at work I am reading. I think I’ve read a dozen books in the last 6 months, including the first three Game of Thrones books.

I need to get something off my chest. I’m worried and scared. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m on a couple of different oral medications for the nerve damage that breaking 5 ribs several years ago caused. Unfortunately these medications are not compatible with pregnancy (no, I’m not pregnant) so in order to even start trying to get pregnant I need to be completely off of these medications. Several months ago my doctor and I decided on a plan to reduce my dependency on the medication slowly so that I wouldn’t have withdrawals.

One of the medications I’m on, Gabapentin, I was taking 800mg 3 times a day. I slowly reduced that to 400mg 3 times a day, and then changed the pill (initially it was an 800mg pill so I then cut it in half) to the 300mg capsule. The next step was reducing the times I took it. I started to not take one at night around June. This happened while I was going through a lot of stuff at work as well. I started getting really bad migraines. I was taking Excedrin every day. I even got a prescription medication for the migraines.  I went to see my primary care doctor and during that appointment I realized that the migraines had begun at the same time that I had changed my medication.

Cutting an even longer story short, the reduction in the Gabapentin was causing the migraines. My pain management doctor told me that this medication can also be prescribed to people who suffer from migraines. It wasn’t the reason why I was given the medication, but apparently going off the medicine is giving me that side effect. I had to go back onto it at night and now I’m in a holding pattern until my next appointment with her on October 14^th.

On top of my worries of being off all the pain medication and being in pain while attempting to get pregnant, now I’m worried that I’ll be in daily pain from the migraines. I so badly want to have my own children. Experience pregnancy and labor/birth. I worry what this new situation will mean for me. I’m very antsy for the 14^th to get here so that we can figure out what I can do to not suffer from the migraines.  

I Have to Shake My Head

I had to come out of hiding to comment on the latest news to come out of Target (because they are such a news making organization!).

I know I am late to the commenting on this… but the more I read about it and hear about it the more frustrated I become and the more I laugh out loud about the conservative views on this.

I’m sure you have all read that Target is doing away with gendering toys. No more “girls toys” and “boys toys” - it will just be toys (after all, can’t a woman or man play with them?). I think this is great for them to do. Mostly because I feel it will be easier to find things in different colors. I also think that it isn’t really a big deal!

If you think about it, honostly, when was the last time that you actually looked to see if something said “boy” or “girl” on it? When I visit the toy section (which I do quite often with nieces and a nephew) I look in each aisle. I don’t look at the signs. If I’m looking for a Barbie I look for the overwhelming pink that Mattel packages their dolls in. If I want a Hot Wheel I look for the blue. Lately I’ve been looking for Minecraft toys for both my niece and nephew (those are usually green, by the way).

Here’s the thing… those pinks and blues and greens? Those won’t change! Those companies aren’t changing their packaging (and it’s unlikely that they ever will) so you can still visually find what you are looking for. In fact, it will be easier to find things.

For example, a few years ago I was looking for Legos for a present. I had to go down multiple aisles to locate them. Why? Because the Legos were not all side by side but they had blue ones in one aisle and pink/red ones in another. Why the hell were the Legos not next to each other? Problem solved, according to Target that is how they will be placed now.

I watched Fox & Friends’ report on this and I was cracking up. They made it seem that they have no mind of their own and they needed Target to tell them “Republican: THIS IS A BOY TOY!”. They couldn’t make that decision on their own. For one, I have enough brain cells to make the decision as to which toy to buy for a specific person on my own.

Although I don’t have any of my kids yet, the plan is to start trying next year. I hope that anyone who decides to buy toys or other gifts that may be considered “boy” or “girl” make the decision to get my daughter blue things and my son pink or red things. I don’t think it is necessary to start telling kids blue is for boys and pink is for girls.

That said, I believe that children will intrinsically be attracted to certain things (for example, I prefer blue over pink - most of my clothing vary in the blue color spectrum), but they can make that decision when they are older and have an opinion. If I want to buy a baby doll for my 2 year old son, why the hell shouldn’t I and why should Target (or any other person or company) tell me that, no - that is a girls’ toy?

I know this was a bit jumbled, but I had it rolling around my mind and I wanted to express it.

Nice... Long... Vacation!

I’m relaxed after 10 days away from work. Unfortunately I go back today and I’m not looking forward to it. I haven’t heard back from certain people that I should’ve heard back from and I might have some e-mails waiting for me when I get to work.

So I’m nervous to say the least.

But let’s talk about nice things - the past 10 days!

Thomas has to travel for work several times a year. Several times it is in boring places like Missouri and New Mexico (oops… anyone reading this from those states?) but other times he gets to go to fun places like Baltimore, Maryland - barely an hour away from Washington D.C. I have been to DC before, but it was when I was 10 and on a school field trip so my memories are fuzzy.

I had been hoping he’d be sent to Baltimore for the last year and it finally came through. We headed out there on Friday morning for a week long trip. Thomas only had to work on Monday for a few hours, and then all day on Tuesday and Wednesday which gave us plenty of time to spend some time together and tour the cities.

Because of the time difference we didn’t have much time to do anything on Friday after getting the rental car and checking into the hotel. We were starving and enjoyed dinner at Guy Fieri’s restaurant in the local casino and in the afternoon, while Thomas caught up on sleep, I watched Argentina win a game in the Copa America (which they sadly came in 2nd place this past Saturday).

The weekend was dedicated to DC. I found a walking tour of the city on TripAdvisor who was awesome. It was a free tour that functioned just on tips. The guy is a retired teacher who loves the city. He gave a lot of information and showed us the main sights. We started off by checking out the White House and Washington Memorial - from a far of course. We also saw the Vietnam, World War II, Lincoln, and Korean Memorials.

Saturday was a muggy day with rain in sight. Luckily, though, it held out all throughout our tour (for the most part). As soon as it was over, though, it started pouring. In such a way that my jeans were soaked, my sweatshirt was soaked, and my poor shoes were completely soaked. It made the afternoon uncomfortable, but we were able to enjoy the American History museum. I was cranky most of the time, but Thomas did well to pull me out of my crankiness (he has had to learn!).

We ran out of time on Saturday, so on Sunday we headed to the National Holocaust Museum which took a few hours to go through. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice lunch before braving the DC Metro to get to Arlington National Cemetery and then to the Pentagon.

On Monday we got to enjoy visiting the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and have some fun.

On Tuesday I got to go to Pennsylvania where one of my dad’s cousins’ lives. My dad has never met this cousin and they’ve never been in contact until several years ago when I got in contact with them. This was the first time that anyone had been able to visit him and I was very excited to get the opportunity! This cousin is 94 years old and is still moving around, cooking dinner, and has better printing than most men a third his age. He knew my grandma, whom I never got to meet and has been the family historian. I was glad to get to pick his brain a little bit!

It was an all around great trip and I’m glad I got to go along with Thomas on it. I’m hoping he gets sent to New York City again and also Niagara Falls! In the meantime this will suffice.

Coming home was nice because I still had 3 ½ days left on my break and I also got to celebrate the 4th of July - one of my favorite holidays!

I also got to buy a Chromebook which is where I’m typing this. My MacBook Pro is on its last legs and was not lasting on a battery charge for long and took forever to do anything. So far, after a false start with a Samsung version of the laptop, I am liking this Toshiba version. The laptop is light, portable, and easy to use! Score! Even better, it was only $300!