From the time I was a very little girl I have always carried a baby doll around. My baby doll’s name was Stephanie and my extremely generous parents allowed me to get every accessory a kid needed for their baby doll including a stroller, bassinet, and a bunch of clothes. Stephanie came every where with me and I kept a journal for her because one day I saw my baby book and knew I just had to start a baby book for Stephanie. My whole life I wanted to be a Mom.
After many failed attempts at finding my forever partner, he showed up, at the perfect time. We wed two years later and were so excited to start our adventure. We were older and knew we wanted kids right away. About three months after our wedding, we decided to start trying for kids. We were excited, nervous but blinded to any issues that may occur because no one thinks it will happen to them. Honestly, I never really knew the chances or statics of something happening because no one talks about them. One month down, nothing. Two months down, no baby. Three months down, still no pink lines. I started to get nervous – was I one in four? I kept telling my Mom that something was wrong, and she kept telling me “I had a baby at 40 and I only had a 2% chance of getting pregnant – and I did! We are fertile! Don’t worry!” I kept saying “we are fertile” over and over again but nothing was happening.
After a few doctors’ appointments and investing in a watch that helps time your fertile window better we finally got the best news ever – two pink lines. There it was – the start of our family. The start to our next chapter. We were ecstatic. We couldn’t wait to see our little one on the screen so we can tell our family that we were pregnant. I scheduled a private ultrasound at 7 weeks so we could have an ultrasound picture to take home with us when we shared the news. We went to the ultrasound appointment, saw a tiny little blimp on the screen. That was our baby. We went home that weekend and shared the news to all our friends and family at 7 weeks and 4 days. WE WERE PREGNANT! FINALLY! I started to look at baby items, ordered maternity clothes, and started to plan our lives with this baby in it.
The time came to go see our baby again and confirm the due date – we were 10 weeks on the dot. My husband and I waited in the room so excited that we would get to see our little bean again. The doctor came in – the time was finally here. She was searching around for the baby – I kept looking over at the screen with a huge smile on my face. After what felt like hours, but really was only 30 seconds, she looked at me and said “I’m going to have to go and get another doctor to come take a look at this. I’m not sure if something is wrong or if you are measuring smaller but since I am a midwife, I will need a doctor to come in and take a look. I’m so sorry.” She took the probe out and we waited. I looked at my husband with tears in my eyes. I knew. My husband kept trying to tell me that everything was okay, but I knew. After 20 minutes of waiting for the doctor to finally come in, he took a look and said the dreaded words that I will never forget, “I’m sorry ma’am but your baby does not have a heartbeat.” I cried. I was in shock. He asked if I wanted a picture of the baby and I got so angry that I yelled at him to take the probe out because I wanted to go home! I left the OB not with the cute little sonogram picture and the excitement of a future with my husband and this baby but with pain, sadness, fear, and anger. I remember my husband telling me that he had to go back to work to finish a few things but begged me to just go home and wait for him. He hugged me – told me everything was going to be okay. I sat there in my car crying for the longest time. What happened? What did I do to make this pregnancy not viable? Immediately you start thinking oh its probably because I continued to run in the first weeks. Or maybe it was because I laid wrong on the couch. I was certain it was because I did something wrong.
I opted to take the Cytotec pills to pass the pregnancy. I had been carrying a baby that had passed for almost 3 weeks so letting it pass naturally was too hard for me and the idea of getting surgery to pass it was too scary for me. I went home, took the day to mourn and cry. I woke up the next day and took the first pill, then waited. It all happened pretty quickly. I cried and hugged my dog, my loyal companion who never left my side through it all. I knew when I had passed the baby – it was bigger than the other clots. I said a prayer, cried more and laid back down on the couch. My Mom kept calling, my brothers, sister-in-law all checked in. I felt like I kept telling them I’m okay just so I could get off the phone. I just needed time. I was angry. I kept asking God why me? What did I do in my life that was so bad that I deserved this? My husband was my rock through this all. He held me when I cried, he kept telling me it wasn’t my fault and that we would be okay. He listened to me question God’s decision and never once judged me for getting so angry that our baby was taken from us. He coped on his own and always had a positive outlook because he knew we would get our baby.
We took a month off and decided to go to Disney to get our mind off things. After such a devastating experience we could see just a tiny bit of hope and happiness for the future. I knew our future of being parents was super uncertain now and that the naiveness of being pregnant and expecting a baby as the outcome had been taken from us. After another month of trying, we waited. The dreaded two week wait. On the first day of my missed period, I took a test – negative. Okay, that’s fine. We’ll try again next month. Four days passed and still no period. I took another test – still negative. On day five of no period, I called my husband and told him something was wrong because I wasn’t getting a period. I was certain that the miscarriage had messed things up and told him I needed to make a doctor’s appointment. After getting off the phone with him I decided to take the one last pregnancy test I had to just confirm it was still negative and then I would promptly call the doctors. After waiting 2 minutes for the test to do its thing – there it was. TWO PINK LINES. We were pregnant, again. In March of 2019 we welcomed our first rainbow baby, Grace Herbert.
