**Disclaimer: this is a sad post, and some of it is detailed, but it still needs to be remembered.**
I had a miscarriage today (Sunday, 3 April 2016), just three weeks after finding out I was pregnant for the first time. It was a very sad day, but Michael has been so kind and sensitive and incredible with everything. Here's the good part:
It was only our second month of trying when I found out via test on Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 8:10am. I got
back in bed, then at 8:30 I asked if Michael was awake. "Can I tell you
something?" Mhmm. "Okay. Close your eyes and hold out your hand." He
was facing the wall with his back towards me, so I asked him to lay on
his back. I put the tiny plastic baby figure in his hand (one of those Mardi Gras King babies they put in the cake), then closed his
fingers over the baby. He looked at it, gasped, and quickly sat up.
"You're pregnant?" I told him I was pretty sure and showed him the pink pee
stick with instructions (saying its normal for the left line to be a
little lighter than the right line). We both laughed a little and asked
each other if we were excited. Of course we both said yes and kept
laughing a bit. It seemed so unreal.
After that we were trying not to stress
about finding an OB/GYN in a decent area to call, and Michael began
looking at houses to rent (or buy). Our Bala Sands lease is up in September-- we later found out it is up at the end of July! My estimated due date according to all the pregnancy apps was November 15th and told me that I was 4 weeks and 6 days pregnant with baby being the size of a poppy seed. Although I got down to a very comfortable weight of 106 for Christmas, after the cruise with my parents in February, plus a month of eating mostly bagel bites and Oreos, I weighed about 115 pounds again. But I slowed down on the cookies and began eating bananas and salads
at work again. Michael said he "knew"
when he came home from Birmingham (after a trip where he had to spend a night in the hospital from a small fire that exploded in his face while he was working on a penny stove!!) that I was pregnant because certain parts of my body looked bigger (he used the word "sexier") but he wasn't 100% sure and didn't want to
get my hopes up in case I got my period.
3/14: That afternoon I made a doctor appointment for 9 super long days from then. (March 23rd) This day I kept referring to our baby as "Shrimp"
because at the 5 week mark, the baby (embryo) looks like a teensy shrimp. We went for a walk. Then Michael asked me to take
another pregnancy test (a different brand) because he didn't like that
one of the lines on the first test wasn't as bold. I told him I was "super pregnant" since the second test gave the results in about 20 seconds!
We took these pictures on 3/15 when Shrimp was said to be exactly 5 weeks:
This walk bump picture was taken a week later, on 3/22. ^^
I went
home sick from Teletype training, beginning of Phase 2 ~ at 2am on 3/13 & at
10pm on 3/16. On 3/17, I threw up three times at work (main /most time was at 9:15pm) as well as a lot of dry heaves once I got home at 7am, but forced myself to stay for the whole shift. I was also getting really bad headaches during this week, but luckily after two more days of headaches, they were gone and I wasn't getting sick anymore. I cried when I told my trainer, Kim, as well as the Teletype supervisor, Cheryl. But I think that was more stress related.
3/19: When we drove around and looked at houses we liked (a few days before meeting our realtor), I asked
Michael if we could also stop in to look around Buy Buy Baby, since I
had never been there before and he previously told me that he wouldn't
look for anything baby related until I was actually pregnant. This seemed to
overwhelm Michael and stress him out about money since all the really
good baby equipment is pretty pricey. However, the next day, he
suggested that we go to IKEA, Macro Baby, and Babies R Us to look at
cribs, strollers, car seats and high chairs. I later found him on his
laptop watching video reviews of the ones we liked best. I almost cried
then ~ overwhelmed with joy and peace. After that, Michael sometimes seemed more excited than I did about having a baby
and came up with a little dance that always made me laugh.
3/23: During my first doctor appointment, she said my uterus was measuring at 4 weeks and 6 days
although according to my last period, I was calculated at 6 weeks and 1
day. The baby could not be seen on the stomach ultrasound or the intro-vaginal ultrasound, but they did see
the gestational sac. Also I have two cysts on my fallopian tubes- one
is 2cm, one is 4cm. But nothing ectopic, which was my worry since I had seen that happen on a couple of TV shows. She also said I need to drink more water (that's always true) and told me, "This is your first pregnancy. You have no reason to worry about anything going wrong. Just stay positive."
Unfortunately (back to the sad stuff), a few days later, I began to see a little bit of pink blood when I wiped sometimes. I looked up "bleeding during the first trimester" and it said it was very common and nothing to worry about. This happened almost every day that week, then on Friday (April 1st) there was more blood than normal and it was more of a red color. I still tried to stay positive and kept praying. I heard that some people had this happen and still ended up with a healthy baby. But Saturday night, my cramps became very strong and there was a lot of blood. Again, I read about it and many women said they rushed to the ER for an emergency ultrasound only to find a strong heartbeat. I kept praying.
But today, the cramps continued and so did the blood. I knew it was all over when I actually saw "the baby" in the toilet. I cried and yelled for Michael who was in the bedroom. He ran in and continued to apologize while hugging me. I called my mom on the phone after that. I had to. I had been wanting to talk to her about this exciting time since I first found out, but we were going to wait until after my next doctor's appointment which was supposed to be this Wednesday (April 6th). Then when everything turned out super great, we would drive up to see our families and surprise them in creative ways with the news in person over the weekend. But God often has different plans and we have to accept them and understand there is always a good reason for why He lets things happen when and the way they do.
