The First Loss

In spring 2014, my husband and I began trying to build our family.  I tracked my cycle and after 3-4 months, we were pregnant.  We were overjoyed, naively excited, and pretty clueless.  My positive pregnancy test came at 6 weeks, but we couldn’t get into see our OBGYN until week 9.  So in the meantime, we painted our extra bedroom, told my parents the good news, bought a couple of onesies, started taking weekly pregnant belly pictures, etc.  It was a pretty exciting time.

Then we had our doctor’s appointment and sonogram to confirm the pregnancy.  The sonographer was really excited, told us that at 9 weeks the baby would look great, that it was an exciting week to see it.  So we were eagerly optimistic to see our baby.  Once she found the baby with her sono wand, we could hear a very faint heartbeat and see a blob of a gummy bear on the screen.  It was our baby!  Since this was our first experience with a sonogram, we didn’t know what we were really seeing.  She said it looked fine, with a small but good heartbeat, and that it was measuring around 6 weeks.  Woah woah, hold the phone.  6 weeks?  I knew that couldn’t be right.  It should be 9 weeks.  I felt like something was wrong with her machine, not with the baby.  We met with our OB and she said I must have had our dates mixed up and to come back in a week to make sure it was growing.  My husband and I were cautious but still optimistic.  We went back in a week for another sonogram and the baby was measuring just slightly bigger but there was no heartbeat.  I was 10 weeks pregnant with a baby that stopped growing almost 4 weeks ago.  I was shocked, upset and confused.  My OB said we would schedule a D&C surgery later that week.  And that was the end of our first pregnancy.

We went to my parents house to tell them the bad news.  I just looked at my mom and started crying and went in for a hug.  They knew then that it was over.  I told my boss at work that I had a miscarriage and would need a couple days off for the surgery.  And that was about the extent of the people we had told.  The day of the surgery came, and I was extremely upset.  As the sweet nurse prepared me for the doctor, tears just kept streaming down my face.  I couldn’t control it.  My baby had died, inside of me.  I would never get to meet him/her, never get to give them the onesies we bought, never get to kiss them good night.

During the whole process, my husband was steadily by my side.  He was there during our appointments with the OB, there for the surgery, and there for the recovery.  Two days after the surgery, I had extreme abdominal pain that pulsated throughout my entire body.  I woke up in the middle of the night shaking from the stabbing feeling inside my uterus.  I had taken my pain meds but nothing was helping.  My husband held me in bed while I cried, cried out in physical and emotional pain.  A few hours later, I passed a large blood clot and the shooting pain subsided.  It was exhausting.  And I never wanted to go back to that painful place, and hoped I never would have to.

After this first loss, I was eager to find out when we could begin trying again.  I expedited the grieving process and made excuses for myself like “well, at least 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage” and thinking that I just drew one of the short straws.  I thought that would be our only loss, like so many that go on to have successful pregnancies after a miscarriage.  I was hopefully naive and continued to press on towards our next cycle.

Looking back, I wish I had taken more time to grieve.  I rushed through that process, trying to ignore the tragedy that we endured, trying to put it all in a box and close it off to the rest of my life.  I was sad and frustrated but still hopeful.  I had heard that this had happened to many other people before, so I don’t think that I fully processed our loss during those fall months.  If I could tell my 2014 self something, I would tell her to embrace the shitty feelings and thoughts and to accept the loss fully, not to rush on to the next thing.  I would tell her that it is ok to talk about with your friends and family and husband, and that what you went through was a traumatizing event, and to cut yourself some slack.  Give yourself some time off work to just be.  No one is rushing you to get better, just yourself.  I would give her a big hug and tell her that she is stronger than she will ever know.