Season of Life: Coping with Miscarriage – When you already have children, Part 1

Pink lines, blue lines, digital readouts, blood work – they all can read your hormones and tell you that you have a great bundle of joy on the way to you.

Then comes the ultrasounds, doctor appointments, and medical bills.

We’ve been fortunate to be blessed with two happy, healthy, and very loved daughters.

With both pregnancies we had been trying for several months before we got those positive results but as soon as we did we started the dreaming and wondering.

A boy or a girl? What color hair? Mom’s eye color or dad’s? What kind of person would they grow up to be? What all would they accomplish in their lives?

I know you are reading this and thinking I am never going to get to the point but I’m getting there – I promise!

So, we determined that we were ready to add another little to our family. We had talked about it. We had dreams for our next child.

A week – that is all it took to try and get those two blue lines. Needless to say, we were shocked as with our first daughter it was five months and three months with our second.

We were taking it all in – getting excited. Wondering how we were going to tell our daughters and when we were going to tell them so they could tell our parents, etc.

Well, around here, as you know, we are a farming family and harvest is in full swing – especially with impending rain coming our way.

That being said there wasn’t going to be a ‘good’ time to tell our daughters and them be able to call and tell everyone so we decided that we were going to have to wait until Sunday to tell them.

Thursday, October 25, 2018. A day that will be etched into my memory forever – just like that of June 20, 2019.

On Thursday I was having some pretty severe stomach and back pains and I felt ‘off’ but didn’t think much of it – until I seen blood. My heart sank. I immediately knew, deep down in my heart, that something was NOT right. I called my husband that was out cutting beans. He told me to call the doctor – I did later that afternoon and they advised me to go to the ER to get checked out as I was only 6 weeks.

After I got off work I got busy getting the girls ready and getting myself ready to go into public. We left right around 630 PM, met my husband at a town on our way, went through Chick-Fil-A to get food for everyone (after all, we were going to be in the hospital ER and everyone knows those are no fast trips and Lord knows that the ER staff did NOT need to deal with my hangry family).

We arrived to the ER around 730 PM. Typical – I went into Triage but then went straight to my ER room #7 and then immediately a urine sample was taken while waiting on the doctor. Nurse came in and asked all the questions. Then the doctor came in and talked to us about everything. Ordering blood work, the urinalysis, an ultrasound. Covering all the bases. Wanted to rule out everything and make sure I was OK.

At roughly 830 PM my blood was drawn. I was taken back for an ultrasound at roughly 845 PM. Doctor and nurse came in at roughly 930-945 PM.

That is when they came in and told us that my blood and urinalysis confirmed I was pregnant BUT that my levels were far too low for what they should be. We were told that this could have been because I was either super early in my pregnancy (earlier than what we believed I was) OR I was having a miscarriage.

My response, as I was sitting on the hospital bed with my 2 year old laying beside me and our 5 year old playing the tablet, “Well, we have more answers now than what we had before”.

I know, I know. SUPER weird pregnant lady response.

I’m pretty sure that they just knew I was going to break down because both a nurse AND the physician came in. They expected, you know, I guess the ‘normal’ response to the news.

Discharge orders were to follow up with my OBGYN the next day because they typically require follow-up blood work done 48 hours after the initial to see if my numbers were going up (was earlier in my pregnancy) or down (miscarriage).

It didn’t process that I was losing a baby. Our baby. We had two happy and healthy girls to be thankful for everyday and that is where my thought process was that night (I even told this to my husband) and that is where it stayed for the next day.

The next day I told my mom since she had our kids and they may make mention to being at the hospital the night before.

When we left her home from dropping our 2 year old off I called my doctors office. I asked to speak to a nurse and I was asked what for and I said, without skipping a beat, “I went to the ER last night as they told me to and I was told that they would want to order a followup blood draw for 48 hours to confirm a miscarriage” and I told my husband while I was on hold “I must sound like the weirdest pregnant/non-pregnant person ever”.

They did want a follow-up but it did not have to be EXACTLY 48 hours since that would be 830 PM on Saturday so they set it up to where I could go to the hospital to have my blood drawn anytime on Sunday. So, the plan was church and then home for lunch and then to the hospital and spend time with the girls at town for the afternoon. Friday I stayed busy with work all day – it was just another day.

 

When it HIT …

So, Saturday arrived. Oh, that Saturday. The day that everything hit. The day we realized it hurt. We hurt. We lost a baby. We lost OUR baby.

Our minds started to wonder and question. Was this baby another girl or our first boy? Would we be able to have anymore kids? Was there something that could have been done to prevent this from happening?

We felt guilt. We wanted another child and we had determined that we were going to start trying – we tried for 5 months with Abigail and 3 months for Rebekah – this baby took literally a week.  We were in shock at those positive lines staring back at us. We said ‘wow, ok – here we go again’ – we were excited BUT not AS excited as we had been for Abigail and Rebekah. We felt guilt because it felt that God knew we weren’t as excited about this baby as we were the last time we had those positive results staring back at us and so he took the baby.

Obviously that is not how God works BUT for a short period of time our minds went there.

I just kept going back to God took care of what needed to be taken care of because what if the pregnancy would have killed me (died while giving birth, other complications, etc) or there was something wrong, genetically, with our child that would cause it to not survive. Maybe God knew that I would be able to mentally handle a miscarriage better than a still birth or a baby that was born and taken from us way too soon?

On Sunday we continued our grieving. We met with our pastor and all of the deacons and their wives for prayer. We cried. We cried a lot. They cried with us and prayed over us. It was the first time we really cried.

I felt a weight lifted. I still hurt but a weight was lifted from trying to keep everything quiet.

I discovered that it helped me to actually talk about our baby. It helped a lot.

The more I talked to people about it – about what we went through and about our baby we never held in our arms – the more peace I felt.

Our baby existed. People knew it. It wasn’t just us that knew. Our baby was someone. Our baby made an impact in our lives. I was sharing that existence.

As hard as it is and as many questions as I have all I can do is have faith.

Faith that God took care of my child AND I. Faith that we will see our child one day once we enter those pearly gates.

Faith that our little one knew how much he or she was loved although we only knew for a short time.

I am still walking this path and there will always be a pain and a hole in my heart but I can’t do any good for my children if I dwell on the what if’s in life and I wouldn’t be able to fully enjoy them if I did.

Social Media for Coping- Friend or Foe?

Shortly after going through everything and knowing deep down in my soul that I had a miscarriage I did as most people do anymore – I went to social media for resources.

What I noticed though is that I felt different than most of these individuals – I attribute it mostly to the fact that the individuals I am referring to had miscarriages, experienced a stillbirth, or infertility and were without any children.

What I found is that although I thought I was the ‘odd ball out’ about how I was feeling I actually was not and several other mothers out there felt the same way. I know that it sounds a little different than most individuals that have lost a baby or having trouble conceiving but I don’t get jealous or upset when I see a pregnant woman or see announcements. I’m overjoyed for them! My cousin (that has always been similar to a sister to me) and one of my sister in laws are actually both pregnant and due in April (one the day after the other!) and I couldn’t be happier for them.

It actually seemed to be a common consensus amongst other mothers that had other children. We were actually made to where we were not able to talk or express our feelings for others as most of the Facebook groups (that I joined) would get upset and ‘vent’ when they would see a pregnancy announcement, etc. 

As a mother that feels this way I do believe part of it is because we DO have two children already.

Not everyone will react the same way as I do or think the same way as I do but I did notice in the online communities that I joined that those that lost children that already have children are made to feel bad that they are excited for others that are expecting when they would post their ‘rants’ in these groups. Needless to say, I don’t frequent those Facebook groups much anymore.

Like, we are not normal. That it is not normal to feel that way.

All I can say is that what you feel may not be normal to others but that’s okay! We are all different and that is a glorious thing.

Wouldn’t life be so boring if we all acted and felt the same?

So, tell me, how did you feel when coping?

Did you have the if, and, but’s go through your head? How did you cope?

Resources that helped me

One thing I did do is go to www.heldyourwholelife.com and ordered myself a necklace and my husband a keychain. It is a peace bringing sentiment that I can wear and helps me to cope, personally.

I also purchased a book but have not been able to read much of it as of yet – it is ‘Loved Baby: 31 Devotions. Helping You Grieve and Cherish Your Child after Pregnancy Loss’ by Sarah Philpott. This was one of the books that was talked about several times in the many different Facebook groups that I joined to help myself deal with coping.

Plans for upcoming related blog posts

So, my plans are to also make a second (and possibly more) posts on my/our miscarriage journey.

• The Follow Ups & Doctors
• Resources that I found that helped (a compiled list)
• How Males Cope with Miscarriage and How Can I Help?
• Telling our daughters about the sibling they never got to meet
• The Due Date – to watch it come and go
• Pregnancy after a loss (hopefully, eventually anyway!)

Is there something that you would like for me to write on? If so, feel free to comment here or reach out to me directly.