Grieving Silently

Part I Here.

It’s funny to see how I wrote before I lost the baby (yesterdays post) and then after. Everything in yesterdays post was written while I was still pregnant. Everything today was written after I miscarried.  Also, it isn't very pretty. This is real and raw. I have tried to keep it readable but bear with me that this is really what happened.

...They said to rest and they would see me Thursday for an ultrasound. I did nothing all day Wednesday and Thursday my apt time came. I was a nervous wreck. I just knew I would go in and get my ultrasound & there would be no heartbeat. I also double nervous cause I was alone.

I had decided Monday night there was reason God chose that verse for this baby. I told myself I am not carrying this baby- the Lord is. If he chooses to carry this baby for a week, a month, 9 months- I would find rest in him alone and just like Isaiah says, he will sustain and rescue me. As difficult as that was to swallow, I held tight and kept repeating myself (maybe to convince myself I’d be ok if something happened) Having a baby is a gift. A gift I don’t deserve. God allows me to be a carrier of HIS child. I just held tight that regardless of the outcome I would be okay because he made me, he will carry me, sustain and rescue me.

                I go in to the office and have to wait. I am looking through Instragram and see one of my friends has posted a handwritten note of Psalms 37:4

Delight yourselves in the Lord

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I sat in the waiting room and thought Oh Lord, I delight myself in you—you have yet to fail me - you will give me the desires of my heart. Oh I held onto that verse and prayed that when I was called back and the ultrasound began that I would see a baby and heart beating away. We started ultrasound and there the baby is…bigger than Monday and its heart is beating away. That sounds like a happily ever after right? I was so happy. My stress melted away. He told me we aren’t out of water yet but baby is growing and heart is still beating. Go downstairs and get more blood checked and see what your progesterone levels are now (after 5 doses of progesterone).

Well Monday I was a 7, Thursday I was a 9.9- still extremely low but getting better. Hope was still there. The baby now had arms and a little head along with eye holes, all visible on the ultrasound. I knew we weren’t out of water and I was still bleeding but oh I had hope again. Even my doctor said we don’t give up on babies that easily around here.  I started to get giddy and be happy. And praise Jesus- he had given us the desires of our heart. We would see the doctor again on the 21^st.

We drove to Kingwood because Friday we had apt with design center for our new house. Mom put the ultrasound photos on a painting I painted a few years ago of a lighthouse with psalms 71:14- I will always have hope. Friday was super busy and I was bleeding more. We got home Friday evening and decided Saturday we would do nothing and I would relax with my feet up. I went to bed full of hope and excited because my bleeding seemed to really have slowed down since resting.

Well Saturday came…I woke up worse than I had been yet. I messaged my nurse and told her I know doc said not to worry about bleeding, but when should I worry about bleeding?  She told me she would check with him and see what he wanted me to do. My nurse is amazing. We chatted back and forth and she told me not to give up and that God only gives the strong people tests. ( I mean really, who can talk with their baby doctor nurse on Saturday like they are just old friends chatting- I am so so thankful for her) Doctor told her to tell me that if it looks more like tissue instead of clots, I should worry. The rest of the day I would check every time I passed a clot.  As Saturday continued my bleeding got worse. My cramps got worse- like BAD. I took two showers—it was the only time my stomach felt semi-ok. I was losing hope and fast. Around 4:30 my cramps were awful. I would go lay in bed and oh the pain. I realized after an hour of misery—it wasn’t cramps. It was contractions. I knew the end was coming whether I was ready or not. I messaged my nurse again and told her this couldn’t be right I was in such pain. I felt like I was in labor. I told Justin that contractions with a baby at the end are much more bearable. Contractions to lose a baby are the worst thing I have ever experienced & I’ve had a central line and catheter put in with NO medicine.

At 7:30, I got ready for bed because I was miserable and lay in the bed, crying I was in such pain. I even told Justin- I’m not even crying because of the baby, I am crying because of how bad it hurts. At 7:45 I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom and stood up and felt it. I ran to the toilet saying Oh my gosh oh my gosh! I knew it was over. I just sat on the toilet and cried and cried. I messaged Kristi again and said Am I having a miscarriage? She said to be honest it sounds like but she would pray she was wrong. I boo-hooed the rest of the night…like ugly, scream cried. Justin went and got me a heating bad to help but as soon as the miscarriage happened my cramps slowly subdued. It was awful. I wrapped myself up in the heating pad anyways. Sunday I called the on call doctor and he confirmed that it sounded like I had a complete miscarriage.

I have been walking around numb ever since. I don’t think I have ever cried so much in my life. It is like I am perfectly fine then I am a mess. Little things set me off. Like this…I am writing this and thinking why? Everything about Ascher I write is for him to read. And as I write this I think, who will even read this? No baby will ever grow up to want to read the story of the hard road that led them to where they are today.

And maybe that is why I feel like I need to share my story and though my baby will never read the story and I’ll never get to watch that baby grow up it will always be my baby. My 2^nd baby. My little t-rex (as we called it after seeing it on Thursday before mc). And I need to acknowledge that this child existed. It had a purpose. 

So why do I feel the need to share with all of the internet? Because I feel like having a miscarriage is taboo yet so many women experience it and have suffered through one, two, three or more. Why do we wait to share our news at 12 weeks? Because its past the "scary time" or the "high risk"? Really…the second I found out something was not 100% ok with this baby I told all the people I knew would pray. I wanted heavens gates to be stormed with prayers not hidden away because I was scared. (I realized all people are different. Talking about a miscarriage may be awkward for you. You may think its personal and I shouldn’t share. That’s fine- we are all welcome to our opinions) However, I don’t do anything silently and grieving silently isn’t gonna happen for me.

I don’t think it’s right no one talks about miscarriages. They are real. They are common and they hurt. I was talking to my sister-in-law one night and she said something so true…we start caring for our babies the second we see two lines on a pregnancy test, not at 12 weeks when they are “safe.”  We never stop worrying. Why do we rejoice with women when they announce they are pregnant but leave them to grieve alone & silently when they lose a child? 

One night when I was writing two nights after the mc I wrote a list about why I cry. Little things would trigger the flood gates. Something else was a song that has made me have joy again. I’ll post it tomorrow.