On Losing Our Baby

This is not an easy post to write, and one I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to. But I have written honestly about deployments, I've written honestly about Autism, and I felt it was important to write about this too...the great thing about the blog world is finding stories from people who have gone through the same thing and knowing that you're not alone, and so here I am sharing my story.

Friday, November 9th, I took a home pregnancy test and was excited to see a faint positive line. That Monday, the blood test confirmed the pregnancy and we excitedly told our friends and family. We could not contain our excitement. As I had said before, from the moment you get that first inkling that you might be pregnant, it is amazing how quickly you fall in love with that sweet baby. It's instantaneous. There is nothing like it.

The next Saturday, November 17, I started to have some light bleeding (I apologize if TMI, there's really no other way to tell the story). After calling the doctor they said it could be normal but if it got worse or I started having any cramping with that to head to the ER. A few hours later, both happened and we made our way there. I tried to stay optimistic along the way. I'd had issues with UTIs, etc during my pregnancy with Shaun and prayed that baby brother/sister was just a trouble maker like big brother. After several exams, ultrasounds and a blood test, I finally got the news. My blood test had shown that my HCG level was at 7. This wouldn't even show on a pregnancy test, which meant the level had definitely gone down and I was definitely losing the baby. It was devastating.

The technical term for what happened to us is a chemical pregnancy. What a horrible term that is! It makes it sound like you weren't ever really pregnant and it wasn't a real miscarriage. But I was, and it was. This is apparently extremely common, and most women might never even know they were pregnant or miscarried to begin with because it's so early.

Calling it a chemical pregnancy, or knowing that I was only 4 weeks along might make some people think we're over reacting, or that it's not that bad. Would it have been harder had I been further along? Perhaps. Probably in fact. But it doesn't make the loss any less real. Not only do you fall in love the moment you see that second line, but you also start thinking of the new life...no matter how far along in pregnancy, it's a tough thing to deal with.

But I also feel incredibly blessed. I will talk more about our decision to try for #2 at another time, but for now I will say that it was a tough decision for me and I had a lot of doubts if it was really what I wanted. But once we had that news, those doubts were replaced and I knew that it was the right time and that it would all work out. And losing this baby solidified that decision.

As a family, we've survived a lot, and we'll survive this as well. And someday soon I am confident we will welcome a new little one into our family, and it will be just the baby God intended us to have.