The Day After

This was our first pregnancy and I'm absolutely devastated. I feel so confused because we had a healthy heartbeat of 141 at the 8 week ultrasound last month, and although I had brown spotting on and off since the beginning, I'd read online it was not uncommon and my OB didn't seem too concerned. I didn't have any morning sickness (except for a couple days where I felt a little queasy, but nothing too bad at all), though was tired and had other typical symptoms like sore breasts, frequent urination, belly bloating, and light headaches (which I hardly ever get). I just don't understand what went wrong because the first ultrasound seemed great, I was taking all my vitamins, drinking tons of water, and eating better than I think I've eaten in my life. My husband and I were religiously ensuring that I got 75 grams of protein a day and I didn't "cheat" on any dietary no-nos -- in fact I’ve been eating healthier and drinking more water than I ever remember. Although I realized before getting pregnant that miscarriages were always a possibility, I stupidly tricked myself into believing we were almost in the clear after the 8 week ultrasound detected a healthy heartbeat.

Today I am no longer in physical pain, but feel like an emotional basket case and really just want to stay in bed crying. My husband went back to work today and I feel so alone, partly because hardly anybody knew about the pregnancy and so we don't want to tell a lot of people about the miscarriage either. Our moms know, but don't live nearby, and I called my bff to break the news on Tuesday. She has been very supportive by checking in on me, and it helps to know she went through this 8 years ago before having her beautiful girls, but she also lives several hours away from me.

I was supposed to work from home today and tomorrow, but when I opened my laptop and saw all the work that had piled up, I couldn’t take it.... I broke down crying from a combination of frustration/anger/sadness/exhaustion/stress, and ended up emailing my director letting her know that I had an urgent medical situation and couldn’t work the rest of the week, despite the huge backlog of work I had and how strapped our team was for resources. To my surprise (I’m still not sure why I expected any less -- I think I was just so overwhelmed), she was incredibly supportive and knowing I didn’t have to deal with work for the next couple days provided some much-needed relief.

I spent the rest of the day in my pajamas, crying and watching soap operas.

In my brain, I understand that miscarriages are more common than they are discussed, and that chances are likely that the pregnancy wasn’t viable due to chromosomal abnormalities versus something I did or didn’t do. But I can’t help but wondering. What if we didn’t go to DR? What if I ate or drank something there that poisoned my baby? What if I can’t get pregnant again, or can’t carry a pregnancy to term? Just because many women go on to have healthy babies after a miscarriage doesn’t guarantee that I will.