“You always believed that you’d get pregnant, but after all these years I honestly started to doubt if you would.”
One of my dearest friends said this after I shared our news with her earlier this year. It was a sweet moment of honesty between trusted souls and to be truthful?
I did.
I did doubt. I feared. I questioned God’s goodness, faithfulness and mercy.
One thing I did know – I would be a mom someday, just maybe not through pregnancy of my own. If you read my post on believing it’s real, you know that I hardly could even grasp it was real during the first 19 weeks!
7 years ago today I started spotting.
I was late in the 1st trimester and from that moment on I just knew.
It was a Sunday and I called the nurse line mid afternoon. They told me to rest and set an appointment for 1pm the next day.
Rest.
Easy to do right? Especially when your body just wants to run away and avoid the pain you just know in your heart is coming.
When I was blogging through our adoption journey I shared bits about our miscarriage, but never the whole story.
Today I woke up knowing what day it was – the date isn’t easily forgotten as it is always 4 days before our anniversary.
This year feels different, yet not any heavier or lighter than years past. And the prompting on my heart today is to take some time to write out what that week was like – it’s a story I’ve only fully shared face to face with cherished people.
Yet this story is one that is calling to be written as the pieces which make that whole story may not always be with me as my heart and memories are soon going to be filled with joys and heartaches of a new kind.
This story may be too much of a trigger for many of you right now.
Please know I too hold your grief and loss gently as I understand how frail it can make you feel – don’t visit this story if you’re in a season where your own pain or that of others is too much to bare.
I’ve walked through stories of miscarriage with many women, few who have divulged the darkest parts of their loss. The darkest parts are often the most lonely.
Every story is different, the details vary and yet the sisterhood of unwelcome pain is familiar.
2011 was one of our busiest wedding seasons ever. It was mid-August and Dan was starting his 3rd semester of his MBA program the next week (and of course, had homework to prep for each class, plus editing weddings, engagements, family and newborn sessions like a madman… Swamped doesn’t quite describe fit)
We were in the middle of 9 weddings in 5 weekends (yes, you read that right – meaning double wedding weekends galore) and our nephew was coming to stay with us that week while everyone was out of town.
Monday morning came along with continued spotting as I headed to Eau Claire to pick up our nephew. Knowing what was going on, I picked up our friend Karen to have a companion – thank you Jesus for Chris and Karen.
Once we rolled back in town Karen and I headed straight to the clinic. Chris and Dan met us there and they took Layton out for lunch while we had “the appointment”
As we sat in the waiting room there weren’t too many words shared as the dread was mutual.
At one point I left to go to the bathroom – I could tell the bleeding and pressure just couldn’t wait a minute longer.
So off I went.
I still remember that stall. To this day when we drive by the clinic off Hwy 100 I swear sometimes I can even recall the smell of that bathroom. Smell is a powerful thing after all…
You see it was there, in that moment – in the second stall from the right is where our miscarriage happened.
It was officially a “fetus” at this point, with fingerprints being formed and bones starting to grow. At that point it may have been just over an inch.
There are many questions I’ll never have answered – ones that I have, at times, wish I knew or experienced…
Looking back though? As much as I despise the fact that I had to literally flush my by first born down the toilet – I honestly don’t think I could have handled anything more intimate than that during that season of life.
There are stories of women who actually get to hold their sweet tiny baby after it passed because of where/when/how it happened. The wonder and awe they’ve expressed at how developed even the tiniest of babies is extraordinary and yet painfully profound.
As I rejoined Dan we were called back to a room and I didn’t even get a moment to process or tell him what happened.
We were ushered into a very clinical room – the “So you’ve had a miscarriage” brochure obviously waiting for us on the table next to where the nurse had me sit down.
This was our first appointment for this pregnancy so the rapport was minimal as she got straight to the point…
After some questions I remember robotically saying, “Based off of what just passed in the bathroom of your waiting area, I’d say it fully passed” as she started to talk about a D&C – a procedure that, to this day, I am SO grateful I didn’t need to have.
She didn’t even do an exam, just a quick blood draw, gave us a prescription for pain and sent us on our way.
The rest of Monday was a hazy blur of getting home, eating, taking pills, throwing them back up and finally sleeping. Tuesday brought with it isn’t own torture as we (ahem, Dan) continued to share with those who knew that we miscarried as well as an evening trip to the Emergency Room as the bleeding was only increasing…
Being that we also had a 4 year old in our care that week Dan took him home for dinner and bedtime as I was examined by an ER Doctor – WHO – I am pretty sure walked off a Grey’s Anatomy set (maybe he’d be called McHandsome on the show) and barely an hour out of med school… This poor young buck had to check out what felt like a small civil war battlefield… Just keeping it real.
Needless to say I was ready to be home and my dear friend Maggie stepped up to the plate and took care of me very well that night.
Wednesday was my most emotional day and came with my first ever migraine – Dan was the world’s best uncle as he delicately balanced Layton’s needs with some work as well as tending to me as well. That evening our sweet friend Andrea picked up Layton and took him bowling near our home which gave us the first few hours along to actually (but not really) process the events of the last few days…
Thursday brought with it a unique kind of bittersweet… It was our 4th anniversary. Also the day I was to drive Layton back to Eau Clare – thankfully I was feeling good enough to do so as the amount of work Dan had to do was higher than we’d hoped.
Getting back in time for dinner, we got take out from our favorite Asian restaurant down the street from our house and ate at a nearby park. I still could show you which tree we sat by but I honestly couldn’t tell you what we talked about.
Frankly, I’m guessing few words were shared… We were both exhausted from the week in every way imaginable and we both knew the absolute chaos of the end of summer and fall we had coming at us. Breathe. That’s about all we could do.
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