my miscarriage story

((update at the bottom))

I have always wondered when it would be my turn for a loss. That may sound morbid but since my very first positive pregnancy test almost 9 years ago, I have wondered. My whole life I have been surrounded by it. Hurting for each friend or family member that has gone through one. My mom had 3 miscarriages that she has always been very open about and my mother in law lost her first born baby born at 27 weeks and I think both she and my mom are amazing with all they have experienced in life. 

Just being a woman you are wired to feel for each one of these losses knowing that it could happen to you. No one is immune or safe from having a miscarriage/loss. It happens by no fault of your own and that is what makes it so scary and hence I have always wondered if and when it would be my turn.

Which brings me to my story. I started writing what you see below 👇 back when I first found out I was pregnant and I think I will keep it as part of the story. 

Tyler and I have always wanted 4+ kids. (In high school I told him I wanted 6). But after Halli was born we laughed and laughed realizing we had no idea what we were talking about. 
KIDS ARE HARD. PARENTING IS HARD.
So we took it one baby at a time. After Hayden we felt maybe we were done? Then when Will was born we thought okay maybe we are done? But once again, you can't make a decision within the first year of having a baby. You gotta give yourself time.
It was about mid April(in the middle of quarantine for COVID) that Tyler and I BOTH started feeling like it was time to start trying. I had brought it up to him many times before just to test the waters but he felt like he wasn't ready with all that he had going on with Enrollsy, he didn't feel like he could properly provide. Then one night in April he just said something like:
"I think it's getting to that time. Where I feel okay about having another kid." 
Except I had an IUD and ob offices weren't accepting appointments for elective procedures. So I called and fortunately they were taking appointments for the summer but unfortunately the soonest they could get me in was June 19th. We felt okay about this because it would give us time to mentally prepare. I was nervous to be pregnant while taking care of 3 children(one of which being a very active 2 year old boy!) was not going to be easy!

JUNE 19th finally came around! I was so ready. I got a babysitter and made a day of it. My ob told me that there is usually a spike in fertility after an IUD removal. 

This would be a good time to interject to say that we got pregnant with Hayden straight off an IUD so I wondered if that could happen again. 

I began taking ovulation tests immediately but never once got a positive. OKAY THEN? 

In the middle of July I was curious what a pregnancy test would say if I took one. Either way, if it was negative or positive I just wanted to KNOW. I only had one test and decided that afternoon to just randomly take it. I didn't tell Tyler cause I assumed it would be negative. I was SHOCKED to see these results. I felt giddy, happy, excited, baffled, guilty, scared, a bit of EVERYTHING. It was a very faint line so I decided to test again throughout the week.

(And test again I did. These are all the tests I took within two weeks.)

That night as soon as Tyler got home from work I gave him a newborn onesie rolled up with the test wrapped inside. It was the first time I truly surprised him because he didn't know I was taking a test and we weren't sure if we'd get pregnant so soon. I recorded his reaction and here are some screenshots.

*I remember later that evening he looked at me and said "are we really pregnant?"

And we both felt it was too good to be true.*

We told our girls a couple days later. I took a digital pregnancy test in real time with them. Hayden was SOO excited. It was adorable. Halli....cried sad tears. Yep. She told us she was worried that since we were adding another baby to the family that we wouldn't be okay with getting a dog. We assured her that wouldn't be the case. After she realized that, she got excited and called my mom to tell her. It was cute, she and my mom squealed and laughed and got so excited together. She told her that she wanted another brother because it would equal our family out. We also let our girls tell Tyler's mom and step dad.

Hayden's face

I called my OB office and was bummed to find out that they don't see you until you're 10 weeks because of COVID. I wasn't able to tell them when my last menstrual period was since I had an IUD and my periods were inconsistent/existent. They set my appointment for August 26th. 

I made this cute shirt for Will(thanks Hobby Lobby) to tell some of our best friends from high school about the pregnancy and were planning to use it later down the road. 

THAT IS WHERE I GOT IN MY WRITING.

BELOW IS WHERE I WILL BEGIN WRITING NOW

The end of July comes around and so does my birthday. I considered telling my grandparents and aunt at my birthday dinner but my heart(and my fear) told me to wait. 

August comes and I begin to worry about this pregnancy more. I had worried about this pregnancy from the start just because it's normal for me to worry but I hadn't had as much sickness yet as I usually experience in my pregnancies. Usually with all my pregnancies nausea happens pretty early on if not immediately. Severe headaches, obvious changes in my body, exhaustion and mood swings were my main symptoms. 

So this being how I felt, I called my ob's nurse telling her the concerns I had with this pregnancy and wondered if I could be seen sooner than my original appt date. They agreed and set up a time.

They took an ultrasound and I knew the minute it started that it didn't look right. The tech said that I was measuring 5 weeks, 2 days. That couldn't be right because that would put my "conception" date AFTER I got a positive pregnancy test(usually when you take a pregnancy test you're at least 4 weeks along so according to that I should have been 7.5 weeks at the time of this ultrasound). The tech said everything looked fine for 5 weeks and that it was too soon to hear a heartbeat. All that could be seen was a tiny little sac. My stomach just dropped because it confirmed what I had feared. That this pregnancy wasn't normal. When I met with my ob afterwards she assured me that the weeks can be off in early pregnancy and that it may just work itself out but I just felt it wasn't right. They scheduled me to get my blood drawn over a two day period to check my hcg levels. 

The next day was our anniversary and it's the day I started bleeding. I wasn't prepared for the feelings that flooded through me in that moment. I thought that I had already prepared myself for the likelihood of miscarriage after the ultrasound but this felt like the nail in the coffin. The extinguisher of hope. Some would say that it's unfortunate that this happened on our anniversary but to that I would say it's actually not. I had a date night to look forward to with some alone time with Tyler. He was such a comfort and rock for me. His emotional stability helped get me through. 

I wasn't expecting to feel so guilty. I felt that I couldn't be sad. I downplayed how I was feeling to everyone around me because I just knew how lucky Tyler and I were to have 3 kids and no infertility issues. So I shouldn't be all that sad right? Just be thankful that it wasn't worse. Be thankful you can get pregnant again on your own. Be thankful you weren't farther along etc. UNHEALTHY. I know this now but it's part of the emotions I was going through. 

I called my ob nurse to tell them about the bleeding and still they didn't seem worried especially because I wasn't cramping. They said to still come in for a second blood draw to see what my levels were. 

this would probably also be a good time to say that I bled with Hayden around 5 weeks. Everything turned out fine. 

I didn't feel like everything was going to turn out fine this time. I was protecting myself I think. Not wanting to hope for good news, accepting the outcome of what was coming.

The next morning my nurse called and said that my levels on my first draw were around 2900 mIU/ml and the levels on the second were only around 3200 mIU/ml. That's only a 15% increase which is not very much. They want a 50-100% increase. She said to come in for an ultrasound in a few days and that would be the determining factor to see if the sac and baby was growing. I was still bleeding and continued to bleed. 

I told Tyler and my parents and my mother in law not to have hope. I knew in my heart that this was my time and for some reason it hurt more to think that they were hoping for good news. It almost felt like I was letting them down if it wasn't good news. 

This was a hard time. I was DREADING going in for that ultrasound just to see an empty uterus. 

I continued to bleed every day with no cramping but still wondered what if it turned out fine. What if. 

It was hard to see my pregnancy ending and I felt for the tech doing the ultrasound. I assured her that this is what I assumed was happening and she didn't have to feel bad but I could tell she wasn't saying what was obvious. The sac was collapsing in on itself and the pregnancy hadn't progressed. 

I met with my ob afterwards and we had the hard chat. She explained to me what was happening and what my options were. It felt like an out of body experience. I think the part of my brain that sees logic took over and I was able to keep my emotions out of it. But when I got in the car and called Tyler to tell him the FINAL outcome out of all this I just cried and cried. I had shed plenty of tears since first seeing that ultrasound but KNOWING with a surety that it was happening and having a prescription to be picked up that would cause my body to pass the pregnancy was heart-wrenching. 

In case you're wondering how it went telling our girls about the miscarriage, yes it was hard and sad. Others would maybe have waited to tell them until later in the pregnancy BUT Tyler and I think it's a good thing to let your kids experience some of the hardships and grief of life. Sheltering our kids from anxiety and difficult times is doing them a disservice. They are going to experience these things whether we like it or not so let's help them develop the skills they need to handle these feelings.

It had also been really nice for them to know that I was in delicate condition and needed extra patience and care. They understood if daddy was putting them to bed because mommy was too tired even though it was my turn, or if I had to sleep in/take a nap, was grumpy etc. From the minute we took that pregnancy test with them we talked about miscarriage and the realities of it. So when the time came to tell them about what was happening, they understood and surprisingly they didn't cry. Halli I could tell was trying not to cry though and asked the hard questions like "how long until you're pregnant again? What if it takes a while?" Hayden had loved rubbing my belly, talking to the baby, talking about the baby, commenting on my tummy looking bigger etc. So when we told her about the miscarriage she rubbed my belly sadly and said "goodbye baby." And then asked where the baby went, why my belly still looked the same etc. 

It was heartbreaking but I think it was a good experience to have with them because maybe someday if one of them goes through a miscarriage they will remember this and I can help them get through it all the more. 

I don't really know how to end this except by saying that I am so thankful for the close friends and family that we did tell. It wasn't as hard as I thought to say we had a miscarriage to the people who knew and it actually helped immensely to have a handful of people knowing what we were going through. 

Thank you to all who have supported us in all aspects of our lives and continue to do so. I love you all. ♥ ♥ ♥

UPDATE:
I tried to go the natural route using medication called Cytotek to pass the miscarriage. All within a week I took 16 pills total to be sure I passed it all and I told my ob that I was pretty sure I did. About two weeks later though I started bleeding and I thought maybe it was my period coming back. It wasn't.

My ob had me come in for an ultrasound and there on the screen was the tissue that was refusing to come out. I cried a lot during this time. We decided to opt for the d&c after my ob told me she could do the procedure in her office because she could see what needed to come out and was confident she could get it with her tools. So on September 14, (33 days after my bleeding started) I had my first d&c. It was painful but not unbearably so. It was almost like a good pain because I was so frustrated with my body and just so ready to get it out and get on with my life. I felt really numb during this time. It was frustrating to think that I was struggling so hard all because we wanted to have another baby. I began missing who I was before my miscarriage. 

In case you're wondering like others have why I didn't get the d&c to begin with: my ob recommended against it. Not only was it upwards of $1000+ but it was very invasive and unnecessary. She was confident that the pills would work for me because the embryo wasn't far along. For whatever reason, the pills did not work on me as they should have.

I am in a better place now and have never felt jealous of any of my family or friends who are having babies in April. Yes I have several but I am only just so happy for them because I know my time is coming.