3 Months

Three months have passed since I heard my doctor inform me that I was miscarrying.  I have now officially been "un-pregnant" for longer than I was pregnant.  It's weird, because in some ways it seems like just yesterday that my husband and I were hopping around our bedroom taking photos and staring excitedly at a simple blue plastic stick, yet it also seems like forever ago.

Emotionally, I am doing a lot better than I started out.  In June, I cried nearly every single day.  In July, I still cried quite often {probably too often for my husband's liking}, and there were many days where I felt that would always be the case.  In August I began to turn a corner, and although there were definitely still tears, hidden away in my pillow, typing at my computer, or while alone in the shower, there were on average more positive days than painful ones.  It's now September, and I am doing my best to keep moving forward... trying my best to remain grateful for the blessings I do have in my life, positive about our future, and hopeful that this month, or some month very soon, we'll be lucky enough to get pregnant again.

"We cannot change yesterday, we can only make the most of today, and look with hope toward tomorrow." - Unknown

I'm so very grateful for all the support I've received over the past few months; from my loving husband, my golden-hearted BFF, and my many online group chat board comrades out there on the world wide web.  I don't think I could've made it through this experience {mostly} unscathed without you.

Encouragement From a Long Lost Friend

I recently regained contact with a friend with whom I was once very close when I was younger, but lost touch with over the past 10 years.  I saw on Facebook that she was expecting a baby, so sent her a private message to congratulate her.  To my surprise, she responded by telling me that she and her husband were very excited to be parents, especially because they had experienced 3 miscarriages in the past 2 years.  Three miscarriages???  In two years??  My heart fell into my stomach and I began bawling.  I felt deep despair -- for her and her husband and their families.  But also for myself, and for anyone else who has been through this horrible experience.  And then I started thinking that if she could survive such a terrible thing THREE times, and still go on to try again and eventually have a healthy pregnancy.... maybe there was a little bit of hope for the rest of us?

She was very kind in her message and went into great detail about all 3 of her losses.  As I read, I cried and cried and cried.  I couldn't imagine how anyone could go through all of this and come out on the other side, still standing.  She ended her message by saying:

I wanted to share with you my (long) story because although it was really hard to go through, I did make it through and now I am pregnant!  I hope your journey is not as long and as painful.  Everyone would say to me after I miscarried that this is the way for nature to get rid of a pregnancy that wasn't going to work, or a baby that wouldn't have been healthy.  Nothing anyone said would help me to feel better.  Months after I would still randomly get upset about it.  Right now though, I can tell you that it is all worth it, and I don't think about all that I went through.  I'm just enjoying now and I am so grateful for this pregnancy.

and then...

Take care of yourself and think positively!  Good things happen to good people!  It's the way of the world and what you deserve!

Reading her words made it sound so easy to try to think positively, though thinking positively seems impossibly scary for me at this point.  But, after learning what this woman has been through, I do feel a slight glimmer of hope.  And I feel encouraged that if she could be so very strong and brave enough to try again and again and again, and to maintain hope that one day she'd get her miracle baby, that at the very least I should give it my best to try to follow in her footsteps...

Normal!

We finally got the much anticipated call from our Genetic Counselor, and we're normal!  {Chromosomally speaking anyway.}  Our karyotype results show that my husband and I each have 46 normal chromosomes, with no translocations.  That's good news.

It means the chromosomal abnormalities that caused our miscarriage were not inherited; they were "de novo" or new, likely due to errors during cell division.

It doesn't mean that they won't occur again; it's certainly not impossible, though from the research I've done so far, it seems improbable that we'll experience a chromosomal abnormality twice in a row.  As we've come to realize, there are no guarantees -- but I'll happily accept this prognosis.

This has been the longest 13 days of my life.  Who am I kidding... it's been the longest 53 days of my life.  Although hearing these results don't change or lessen in any way the loss of our first pregnancy, confirming that the miscarriage was not due to any inherited abnormalities does, finally, give me some sense of hope back.

We still have a few unanswered questions, I plan on doing some more research online, and we'll likely place a follow-up call to the Genetic Counselor to obtain more information; but for now I'm going to enjoy this small bit of relief.

The Birth of a Blog

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I have been obsessed with the notion of starting a blog, but I can’t think of or decide on an appropriate name. I’m scared to choose a title that sounds too positive for fear of jinxing ourselves, and terrified of choosing something negative for the same reason. I’m pretty sure I won’t have any readers anyway, but for some reason it feels important for me to get my thoughts out of my head out onto the web. Maybe if someone comes across a post and it helps him or her cope in some small way, or I receive a comment from someone out there in the same boat as me, I won’t feel so isolated and hopeless. I want to have hope, honestly I do, but I’m having a really hard time mustering it.

{As you can see, I've been keeping a journal long before I created this blog.  Now that my hubby and I have finally decided on a blog name, I'm migrating all my journal entries to their new home, and dated them accordingly.  From here on out, this blog is our new journal.  Thanks so much for taking this journey with us.}

The Beginning of the End

Of course I didn’t know it, but today was the beginning of the end. After a lazy morning having breakfast with my hubby, I decided I’d show Aunt B. a photo of our first ultrasound while doing a video chat via Facetime. The plan was to call her up and ask her to try Facetime out on my new mac, and then I’d randomly hold the ultrasound photo over the camera and record her reaction. Great idea, right?! Only things didn’t turn out that way. After getting out of the shower, I felt the urge to pee. I didn’t have any pains, but there was a certain discomfort in my pelvic area that made me pee before even getting my robe on.

Looking down, I saw bright red blood come out in my urine stream and immediately my heart sank. I threw my robe on, screamed for my husband, hopped into bed and propped my feet up on pillows. The time was 2:30pm. I called my OBGYN’s emergency service line and anxiously awaited areturn call. The on-call doctor happened to be the one I saw at my recent visits, and she returned the call within a few minutes. She asked whether I had fallen or had any cramps or pain (which I didn’t) and advised that unless I was soaking a pad an hour (which I wasn't -- the blood was really only coming out when I urinated) to wait until Monday morning to come in. For several hours after that call I laid in bed, scared to death. I knew bright red blood could be bad, but I didn’t have any pains and the blood only seemed to be coming out when I urinated. After doing some online research, I slept with my legs up on a pillow and hardly bled on my pad at all at night.