** Disclaimer: this is a sad post, and some of it is raw and detailed, but I don't want to forget it.**
In July this summer, I read a post by a 24-year old Australian mother, blogger, photographer, writer, artsy creator named Nirrimi Firebrace, who I have been following for many years. Her post was sharing information about the miscarriage she recently had with her second child. (<-- Click the link if you would like to read her story.) Her first child, Alba, is eight years old. She wrote so beautifully about her heart-breaking story, and it made me really surprised how little detail I put into our own story about losing our first child when I was 7 weeks pregnant, who we called Shrimp. So I wrote an extended version here, my director's cut if you will, adding more details that are not in the original post from April 2016 <--. You might want to read that one first. I was going to try to mesh them together, but I don't remember where all the events lined up, even though the main story only takes place within a three week time frame.
THE STORY OF SHRIMP
For a long time Michael and I were not ready to have a baby “yet”. Less than a month into our relationship (back in August 2009), we were walking along the beach and we talked about having kids in the future. I wasn’t even sure I ever wanted to have kids, until we started dating. I have anger issues and didn’t think I would be patient enough to have a kids. We were married for 4 ½ years before I was actually ready to start trying to have a baby. It was during a weekend at the beginning of October 2015 that I spent with my brother, his wife Jacquie, and their daughter, Peyton, who was almost one year old at the time. We were all in Naples staying with our Grandma Belva. On the way home from that trip, I felt it. I was ready. You can read about that weekend --> HERE.
I got home and told Michael that I was ready to have a baby and wanted to start trying soon. I told my mom too and she suggested I stop my birth control when I could since the hormones can take a few months to get out of your system. Of course Michael had to get on board as well. He said at that point he didn’t think we would have a baby at all since it had just been me and him so long without one. I told him that I definitely wanted a baby. Not that I expected him to agree to it that very second, I still cried the next few times we had protected intercourse.
A few weeks later when we were at dinner, I think at the restaurant called Cooper’s Hawk, Michael asked me again if I still wanted to have a baby. It was a fair question since I had changed my mind many times over the years. In April 2012, less than a year after we got married, I had very strong Baby Fever, but it faded dramatically after a few months. Other times I would say in a cranky tone, “I am so glad we do not have a baby right now!” Some reasons were because of us disagreeing and arguing a lot, or because it was easier to go on vacations and have time together by ourselves with no responsibilities, especially with moving across the country to North Hollywood in 2013 and then to Birmingham in 2014, before coming back to Orlando. I still wonder if I would have wanted a baby at that point if Peyton had not been born yet. But that night when Michael asked if me at the restaurant if I still wanted a baby, I said, “Yes.” He still wasn’t ready.
But at Christmas that year in 2015, the last present he gave me was a card that told me how much he loves me, that I am a great wife and that he knows I would be a great mom. At the bottom, the card said, "Let's make a Baby Fett." (A Star Wars pun, with a picture of a young Boba Fett playing in a sandbox.) We started trying that night.
One month later, at the end of January 2016, I went on a cruise with my parents to the Bahamas. A few weeks before we left, my dad was reading about the Zika Virus and said, “You’re not pregnant, are you?” The Zika Virus was (and is still?) spread by mosquitos and is extra dangerous for pregnant women as it causes babies to be born with small, deformed heads. I told him, “Maybe. We have been trying, but I haven’t taken a pregnancy test recently.” We went on the cruise without any issues.
When I found out that I was pregnant with Shrimp on March 13th, 2016, Michael told me that I should listen to the rule of not telling anyone you are pregnant until you’re out of the first trimester. I did listen to it, but once I had the miscarriage, I really wish I hadn’t. I wish I had told all my friends and family the day I found out, even with having to tell them about the miscarriage later. It would have made those three weeks extra fun and exciting. These are the things I think about when I watch time travel movies. I would redo just those three weeks, with the added part of sharing it all with my friends and family who know we had been trying and praying for this baby, even though I would go back in time knowing I wouldn't be able to change the outcome three weeks later.
Maybe that's my advice to anyone who gets pregnant? If you want to tell certain people that you are pregnant the very second you find out because you are super fricken excited, then tell them! Don't worry about "the rules" that doctors or society made up. Because the sad part is always going to be really sad anyway. You might as well make the good part as good as you can, while you can, right? Miscarriages are surprisingly common, a fact I did not know until 2016, but that doesn't mean every single woman is going to have one.
I did tell two people at work because I needed to for work reasons. One being Kim, the girl who was training me in my second month of Teletype. I ended up telling her because I was physically getting sick without previously giving her a reason why. So the second night I got sick (I was on night shift that month), I admitted I was pregnant. She quickly gave me a hug and I really liked that. When another co-worker asked the night before if I was pregnant, I lied because of the 12 week rule. In some ways I am glad I did not have a full pregnancy with Shrimp, only because it would have been such a struggle to have “midnight sickness” all those months while trying to train at work in a new position, knowing I could never go home early when throwing up because I needed to save up my paid time off for maternity leave when Shrimp was born (my due date was November 15th). But, of course, God knew what He was doing and I was extremely lucky to never get sick when I was pregnant with Emma. God also knew I would appreciate an easy-peasy pregnancy with her because of what I did not know was ahead after her birth: 10 ½ months of her living in the NICU, with many medical conditions that would follow her home for the next unknown amount of years. Trach, ventilator, G-tube, developmental delays, an easy-going, independent personality, and super cute yet very rare type of Primordial Dwarfism with backward bending knees.
The second person I told at work was the supervisor, Cheryl. She needed to know and there is a rule that during pregnancy, we are allowed to wear regular, nice work clothes instead of our uniforms that are too tight around the waist. So for probably two weeks I got to wear regular clothes, which most likely included knee-length skirts, but then that was then a tip off to everyone else that I had a reason to not be wearing my uniform.
When I told Michael I was pregnant he immediately wanted to start looking for a house since we were living in a small one-bedroom apartment with stairs. Our living room and kitchen were above the one-car garage we had. Our bedroom and bathroom were above our neighbor’s garage. It was an interesting layout, but absolutely no room for a baby. He got the information of a really nice, friendly realtor named Anita and we started our search for a 3-bedroom house with a fenced in yard between Clermont, Orlando, and Kissimmee. I remember having a bad headache one of the days we were looking at houses, but it wasn’t a realtor day. Any day I wasn’t working, Michael liked us driving around to look at houses for sale. And then one of the days with Anita, I had to use the bathroom at a gas station and noticed some light pink bleeding. Michael told me not to worry about it, but I am a natural worrier.
Fast forwarding to Saturday night a few weeks later (April 2nd) I started having cramps, but I don’t think they were too bad until the next morning. More like menstrual cramps at first. Michael still thought I was making a big deal when everything was okay, so he got upset when I canceled on having Sunday brunch with his friends. He went without me and was gone for a few hours. I sent his friend, Saida, a message apologizing. I was in terrible pain for the next few hours, and later learned that miscarriage contractions can be just as strong as full term labor contractions!! I was able to fall asleep for short amounts of time, but would wake up in terrible pain again. I cried and prayed a lot. I really didn’t want to take any medicine in case it would hurt Shrimp, but ended up taking some Motrin or Ibuprofen because it was sooo bad.
Finally, in the afternoon I woke up and suddenly the pain was gone. At first I took it as a good sign. Michael was home by then and was napping next to me. I went into the bathroom to pee, but when I sat down I felt a small mass fall out of me. I knew what it was before even looking and picked him out of the toilet (I had not used the bathroom yet), placing him gently on folded up toilet paper. It was our baby. There was an actual shape to him. It wasn't just a glop of blood. I could tell where his teensy body was starting to form even though I was only 7 weeks along- a head, neck, back, arms, lower body, and even an eyeball?! Attached to a light pink sac that was possibly the yolk sac, according to an image search. Actually, I'm not sure because the on Google description the yolk sac looked twice as big as the 7 week old fetus.
I cried and called for Michael who quickly ran into the bathroom. He walked me to the couch and we sat there as he held me. I told him that I wanted to call my mom shortly after. She cried too and told me she had a feeling I had been pregnant. While writing this recently in July 2020, I asked her if she remembered why she had that feeling but she doesn't. Maybe because I was texting her less in general since I didn’t want to give away the surprise and normally I text her a lot. I don’t know if it was from my current thought of it probably being because I complained about not being pregnant before that and then suddenly stopped texting her about it on March 13th when I took the test. But I don’t remember complaining about it taking so long to get pregnant until that summer when I was trying to get pregnant with Emma. Those six months felt like a very long time, but I know many couples have to keep trying for years or use IVF or adopt if needed.
I don’t know why, but I have always felt like Shrimp was a boy. I never named him. I always refer to him as Shrimp. Maybe I should give him a middle name: Shrimp Bartholomew Gore. Or Elliott or Emmett or Elijah. Those were the boy names we kind of liked when we weren’t yet sure of Emma’s gender. We like E names I guess. Also Bellamy- and Jeremy Charles was the first name we liked, even before wanting to have a baby. But, my cousin Jessica used that first and middle name five years ago when she had her second boy. Now it doesn’t matter... Oh-- while ready through all my pregnancy posts with Emma, I found that we unofficially named him Christian Bellamy.
It felt so wrong to flush him like a goldfish that has passed, but that’s what Michael did. I couldn’t be in the room. I probably cried while I heard the flush or maybe I asked Michael to wait for me to go outside. I don’t remember. Perhaps we should have buried him in a wash cloth in a grassy corner of our apartment complex, but I know I would stand and cry in that corner a lot. I didn’t truly make peace with having a miscarriage until I became pregnant with Emma almost 7 months later. And even then I was worried about losing her too. I once read about a woman who had six miscarriages before she was able to have a baby that was born big and healthy.
I later asked Michael if he was still mad about me not going to brunch, and he quickly answered, “No!” and seemed like he felt bad for not believing me in the first place. I did often cancel on hanging out with his friends or would purposely drive separately so I could leave after a couple hours. It wasn’t my type of environment. I can’t just sit there and talk for six hours. I need to be eating or walking or doing something! Multitasking. I can’t just be chill like that. I get antsy.
I called to make another doctor appointment to check everything after the fact. The receptionist asked the reason for the appointment and then also had to ask, “What makes you think you had a miscarriage?” I’m sure she hates asking that question, just like I cringe when we have to ask rape victims on 911 if there was penetration. It’s a required question and makes me feel so uncomfortable and embarrassed for the victim. I told the girl at the doctor’s office, “I had super bad cramps since last night and lots of bleeding and then the tiny fetus fell out of me into the toilet.”
When we were at the appointment I got really upset internally when the same OBGYN woman said something like, “Sometimes people who have rare blood types have more problems getting pregnant. Like O negative.”
My eyes widened. “I am O Negative.” I remember her kind of laughing and I hated that so much. It was probably more of a flustered or embarrassed laugh, but because of that fact, I got a RhoGAM shot that morning. I closed my eyes as she gave the shot in the muscle at the top of my butt, and saw that Michael’s eyes were so big. He told me, “That needle was no joke!”
The way I learned it is that whatever blood type Shrimp had, my blood and body thought it was a disease or something bad, so it did what it needed to in order to get rid of it. :( Google says,“Rh incompatibility happens when an expecting mom is Rh-negative and her baby is Rh-positive. If your baby’s blood comes into contact with yours during pregnancy or delivery, your body can build antibodies against the Rh factor, which can lead to complications.” Stupid body not knowing the baby was there on purpose! I was verbally upset when we got back in the car, and I complained about her a lot, but Michael still felt like she was a good doctor (actually, I think she was listed as a midwife in the hospital’s computer system). So I gave her a second chance when I became pregnant with Emma and made sure to remind her of my blood type and needing the RhoGAM shot at my first appointment in November 2016, a week after Shrimp would have been born. By mid May 2017, a month before Emma was born, she was no longer with the practice and I was switched to the main doctor at the location, Dr. Feld, and he was the one who delivered Emma.
According to my Instagram posts, after Shrimp went to Heaven, Michael bought me flowers and Sasha snuggled with me and my empty uterus. I remember talking to Michael on a walk about us getting chickens in the house we would buy. He really liked one that was only 15 minutes from my job on a road called Jamie Lane. Someone else bought the house before we got a chance to look inside. I asked if we could name one of the chickens Shrimp. I would easily go from laughing at the beginning of a sentence to crying at the end because of losing our baby. Being happy felt wrong, but I didn’t want to be sad forever. Now I wonder if Shrimp also would have had Meier-Gorlin Syndrome like Emma does?
One thing that made things more difficult after Shrimp, was finding out just a few days later that my sister-in-law Jacquie was pregnant again. I felt like I was really rude towards her when I visited my family that weekend, but she said she didn’t notice. My dad did though and we went for a walk and cried together. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my dad cry. I guess at my wedding, I saw him wiping his eyes.
I had a full week off from work after the miscarriage because of my body being sick (I was still bleeding a lot and needed time to rest physically and emotionally) and then also had the following weekend previously approved off since my trainer was off because she was buying a house and getting things done for that. That's when we went up to Gainesville as I just mentioned. We also went to the retired Horse Farm with my family.
Anyway, when I back to work a few days later, I had to be back in my uniform. The supervisor, Cheryl, very cheerfully asked me if I was feeling better since I had called out sick two of the days. I closed her office door, sat down, and immediately started crying and told her about my miscarriage. A few minutes later when I signed in to my computer, my trainer Kim asked the same thing. I held my composure a little better, but was a tad snippy as I held back tears and said something like, "I'm back in my uniform if that tells you anything." She was quiet for a little bit unless I needed help on work stuff and then when things calmed down later in the night she shared that she has four healthy kids, but she had a miscarriage between each one. How terrible!
I know it can be hard to know what to say to someone who has dealt with an unexpected loss, but I loved the way my friends gave their support in ways they knew how: my penpal Jenn asked if it was okay if she could notify a group she knew if who sends care packages to women who have suffered miscarriages, I said yes and received a handful of items in the mail a few weeks later. My favorite part was the small drawing of Jesus holding a baby that I still have framed in my scrapbook room. My friend Lindsey mailed me a pretty necklace she made with my first initial on it for my first born. Mia joined me and Michael at Universal for Mardi Gras- my first big, fun outing. Reminding myself that it was okay to keep going in life and laugh again even though life still felt hard. And, of course, it was so good having Michael through every thing. He didn’t express his sadness or disappointment in loss as much I openly did, but years later he told me he cried a lot about Shrimp too. Even though it was a very sad event, I honestly felt like we had never been closer or more in love than we were during that time.
