I don’t think I have ever shared this story publicly. I have shared it with people who I felt needed to know they were not alone, and it isn’t a secret, so I don’t know why I have always felt so secretive about it?
So I am breaking my silence, I am a part of the 1 in 4 women who have experienced a miscarriage. This is my story.
It has been a decade now, I was 26 when I experienced a miscarriage. Though it has been some time, I can remember it like it happened yesterday.
My husband and I were just dating and the pregnancy was a surprise. This is a part of the reason I have not been as open publicly with my experience because it always felt a little like I was exposing myself and our premarital accident. I had convinced myself that due to those circumstances that maybe it didn’t count, maybe I didn’t deserve to mourn something that never felt real to me.
However, it happened and it was real and I have realized that no matter how short a time I carried that baby, I deserved to mourn and share my experience.
I remember the day I found out I was pregnant, I had a Redbull and it made me so sick! At the time I drank Redbull like I was sponsored by them, so it was so strange that I reacted that way. I couldn’t really rely on my cycle to alert me because I have always been so irregular that I could be late or it might just come at a different time this month. But since I had not started my period, and I was suddenly feeling ill, I decided to grab a test after work.
I was alone in my apartment when those two pink lines appeared. I felt shocked, I felt scared, I felt happy, and probably all the other emotions too. I cried, I didn’t know who to tell or what to do. How was I going to tell this man I was dating that things just got really serious? Before I told anyone I took a trip to the Pregnancy Center in Corpus just to get a second test and some encouragement that, if for some reason he didn’t react well, I would have the support and knew where to find help for myself and my child. Luckily he felt the same as me, scared, shocked but also happy! Now it was time to tell our families, this was the part that scared me most. But we were not teenagers, we both had good jobs, and our families were supportive and positive for us. And that was the best gift!
Almost immediately the morning sickness started. Everyone assured me this was a good sign, it was a sign that the baby was growing and things were as they should be. I called my doctor to make my appointment, to my surprise it would be a few weeks before I would go in. So I spent the next few weeks being excited and dreaming of how life was about to change for us.
Finally, the day came for our first appointment, we were supposed to first go for an ultrasound and then meet with my doctor shortly after. We went into the ultrasound room and I could tell by the face of the technician and her questions that something was not right. There was no pointing to the screen saying “there is your baby,” no asking if we wanted pictures to keep, just silence. Afterward, they said the doctor would need to talk to us but that it would be a while, so to go have lunch and come back in an hour. That was the worst hour of waiting, we were both trying to be positive and at the same time, we were scared. What did all of this mean, why didn’t they say ANYTHING to us? I’m sure I cried the whole time.
We went back and were called back by the doctor but we weren’t led into an examination room, we were taken to her office. This was bad. She told us that there was no baby. She couldn’t tell us exactly when we lost the pregnancy, I had only been a few weeks along. Then she went into the logistics of that they needed to do a dilation and curettage (D&C) to remove everything that remained, but that would not happen until the following week. So I was sent home for a weekend to mourn, and ask the question WHY!
I then had to go to work and ask for time off to have this procedure, and tell my boss who was a man about why I needed time off. He did his best to not make it weird, and I was blessed to have an HR representative that was so kind and suggested that I use the FMLA time to take not just a few days off but a week to heal and mourn. I will always be so grateful for them and the company for being so understanding and kind to me.
That experience was one of the hardest things I have endured, it also showed me how strong the relationship was between me and my now-husband. He totally stepped up during the weekend of waiting and the procedure. He drove me around, he let me cry, he let me be angry, and he stood with me when we had to tell our families.
It feels so good to be open publicly with our story and our loss. My story is mild to that of others, I have felt like it couldn’t even compare to those who have carried babies and lost them late in the term or those who have lost children. My baby never had a heartbeat that I could hear, I could never see a face or arm, I don’t even have any first ultrasound pictures to remember it by. That is the problem with comparisons, comparing my pain to someone else doesn’t diminish it or make it less than. It just makes it different.
