That's the difference...

Miscarriage puts you and your relationship in a weird place. One of grief and uncertainty.  As to where an unplanned pregnancy might be terribly stressful the strain is not the same. I have joined two websites over the year. One about pregnancy and one about miscarriage.

I have noticed something odd, but not unsupported by studies on the matter. Miscarriage results more in divorce and breakups than a live baby. Maybe not right away. But it seems to be the normal outcome. As to where the women with live children are constantly being proposed to and renewing vows and so on. The women on the miscarriage forum rarely talk about their significant others. I used to think this was because they felt alone in their grief. But as I went on through these terrible experiences, I realized. I also do not discuss my significant other. On either forum. Or really to anyone. ESPECIALLY about everything thats happened. I don't feel selfish. Its more out of guilt. I don't have the right to discuss him after what I have lost.

Today on the pregnancy forum girls were being proposed too.

All I could think is. "I hope he doesn't ask me to marry him. Please... don't let him be planning that." Why? Because I would probably say no. Not because I don't love him. I do. So much.

But because where do I draw the line? When is enough enough? Two dead babies? Three?

If we stay together, and I lose more of his children, wont he resent me? Doesn't he already even though he denies it? How can he not? How ridiculous. Of course he does.

So what are we doing? Me and the love of my life? What is this relationship we have? I don't want to marry him... because that would be terrible for him. How on earth could I let something like that happen? If I love him. Of the billions of women I sit in this little percent, its not that I can't have children. I just can't carry them long enough to live. There are so many others who can do it for him. He's not young. He does not have the time to sit here and waste with me.

So why would I burden him so?

I have a plan, of course, but I need more time for it. There are things I want to do for him. Debt I need to pay, renovations I want to do. But I get selfish some days. Where I don't want to leave him. Where I'm not strong enough and I just want to stay here with him. So weak, which makes me feel even worse.

So is that the reason? Do other women who have been through what I have been through feel the same way? Does the idea of the men we love with a happy family with someone else seem so wonderful? Is that why miscarriage results in a 40% increase in relationships ending? Usually a year and a half later? What a weird statistic. You are 40% more likely to divorce or break up but not for a 18 months. Is it time? Do other women have plans like I do, that take time? Curious for sure.

You wouldn't keep playing with a toy that was broken and sharp, causing you pain. When you can afford to, you get a new one. Is this logic irrational? Too basic? I do not talk to him about this, I actually don't talk to anyone about it. There are by far much darker thoughts in my brain that are all associated with this eventual event, that I'm concerned will result in too much meddling.

But what can I say? I have said I'm sorry. I know he hates to hear me say it. But I honestly don't know what else to say.

:(

:(

Testing...

I have had surprisingly not a lot of tests done.  Not because I don't want them but because doctors don't even consider you have an issue until you have lost 3 or more babies.  What exactly is the reasoning behind this? It shocks me when I hear of stories of women who give up after 8 losses or 12. Thats ridiculous.

Then as a woman we wonder. What if I had a different doctor. One who didn't just let my children die because thats the norm. That is the norm. Think about it. For those of you who have children. What would you do for them? Would you push them out of the way of a car, sacrifice yourself? Travel the world to make sure they have the best health care? Would you yell at a nurse who gave them the wrong dosage? Yes I bet you would do all of these things.

I bet you check on them when they are sleeping. I bet you feel their foreheads when they get red. I bet you would give a limb if it meant their life.

Thats whats annoying. I didn't break my arm. Don't treat me like it will heal. "You can try again after 6 months." Theres no cast. No magical time frame as to where I will heal. In fact I wont heal. My children are dieing, and it took me 4 doctors and three specialists to find someone who might help me figure out why. ITS ONLY A FEW TESTS! Granted, sometimes theres no answer, but why not test. Why not try to save our children. We want to save them. We don't want them to die. But doctors have weird ideas as to what is happening. Three times. Normally a woman has to lose three children before they even test her. Then how many do you lose while trying to figure it out? 1 or 2 more? 5 children? What kind of society do we live in, where we will let a family have 5 babies die for reasons that are preventable. What kind of society lets these families grieve a taboo disaster over and over and over again before we test?

There needs to be a miscarriage clinic. In every state. A place where women can go for answers and tests. A place where they wont be shrugged off. Where their children wont be shrugged off. Why is it, that there are plastic surgeons every where but no one to help women who have suffered the ultimate loss? Why s it easier for me to get a boob job than to get a simple blood test?

20% of all confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage. So in your child's first grade class of 30. There a 6 children missing.

Box Making and Beluga Whale Petting and other things that have worked...

I have to admit we are pretty pro at this now. We have two beautiful engraved boxes. This is by far my best therapy. Finding little things to put in them writing letters and in journals. Looking though the contents. Its a wonderful thing to have and for women who have been through something similar I strongly suggest it. It sooths me to have them next to my bed. Sometimes I wake up with my hand on the night stand and when its really bad I wrap the boxes in a blanket and sleep with them.

My significant other goes though them also. It took him a while but boy was I glad when he did. Even if its not often for him to share more in our grief with me reminds me that we might survive this.

When I lost Lily I had weird panics. That her box was cold and would sleep with it all of the time. There's one thing soothing about losing two. The idea that they are together. If I am grateful for one thing it is that where ever they are how ever this works they are together.

The second thing happened after Lily too. We went to Vancouver. I have a love of beluga whales. We went to th aquarium to see them, we planned to have an encounter. Where you pet and kiss and play with the whales. You don't actually get into the water but you for sure get to interact. It was amazing. The whole experience was beautiful. But at the end something happened. It had only been 10 days since i lost Lily. The man telling us about their oldest beluga whale was reminiscing about when she came there.

He started with. "you know when she got here she was pregnant..."

Please no, don't ruin this moment talking about a topic that was still so raw for me.

I let him continue though. I don't know why.

"We didn't know she was pregnant, and she lost her baby."

Out of no where he decided to tell me this story. He didn't tell the other group with us about it. I looked at that two ton whale and felt such sadness and relief. I'm not alone, we knew each other on some instinctual level me and this whale. We were both mammals that had lost our offspring. I hugged her and kissed her one more time before I left.

Later after I lost Logan another whale there lost a baby calf. I might move to Vancouver. Maybe I could start a beluga whale support group. I like them better than people anyway.

Oh grief counseling...

Why is it called counseling? What exactly are they selling me anyways? It sure was not what I expected or wanted. After Logan I promised I would see a counselor. We went though bunches of them and picked one.

She had lost a baby too! Maybe she could guide me way from my borderline suicidal thoughts and onto a new path of remembering my children and moving on with my life!

The first visit was awkward. She asked me questions. Lots of them. She didn't want to talk about my babies. She wanted to talk about my crummy childhood. I  kept trying to redirect her. She kept going back to it.

" I already went to counseling for my childhood I'm here for recent events." I pleaded. Please acknowledge my current issue... its a bigger deal. Its the biggest deal that's ever happened to me. Not some absent father and abusive step father. I don't have a daddy issue. I don't care about those things. I care that I am drowning in grief. That I dream at night of my water breaking and holding little babies.

Finally she reached into her file, and pulled out all of these papers. " I brought you some papers on grief."

I think I should inform you all now. My life has included quite a bit of psychology, as well as web design. I am not only medically savy  from nursing school, I'm pretty internet sufficient.

She printed from about.com the steps of grief. Yes, her solutions for me she found on about.com. The ad's printed on the side. "How to know if your man is gay."

Did she click that? Thats all I could think of. The next 10 minutes,while she tried to teach me breathing exercises. Is her man gay? or Not? Should I ask her? I was pretty irritated. Why would I pay someone to do something I can do easily myself. I have the internet. Hell, I have three editions of psychology books. I bet its in there a million times.

And without the tempting ad's of learning your mans true sexual preference. I hope he was gay.

I felt betrayed, that I was an afterthought whilst surfing the internet. But maybe I was being too sensitive. So I decided to try her again.

Oh wow. It started with her asking me again about when I was a kid. I redirected her. Then voiced all of my feelings about how my poor significant other is stuck with this woman who keeps losing babies.

"Don't think like that, just try planning a dream vacation instead." She replied. No "That's normal" or "Why don't you talk to him about these feelings."

When she saw it floundering she said. "Or maybe plan to remodel your kitchen. It seems like you  are too sad."

 Not even 14 days. It had not even been 14 days. I was still yet to get a d&c to remove placenta pieces left behind. Too sad?!?

I was shocked. I was here to move through the worst thing to ever happened to me and her answer was to plan a vacation. I never went back.

When I told my significant other he replied with. "Maybe you are too sad." The only time I felt like he wasn't on my side. I made a point from then on to not cry in front of him if I could help it.

So counseling was out.

Logan Rush

You are harder for me to write about. For a lot of reasons. Three months is not a long time, and I still find myself a mess remembering everything thats happened. Its all so intense. Just how similar everything occurred. I have never told anyone but some days I feel little kicks. Little reminders that someone is missing. Like popcorn. Just once maybe twice. Just like the last week when you were still with me.

When we found out we were pregnant with you it was like a dream. I was on birth control! Everyone said. "Sometimes theres nothing you can do, babies will do what they want."

I have never been so afraid. But everyone assured me. 3 ob's, 2 specialists, midwives, ER doctors, the chances of what happened with your sister happening again were not high. Well fine. If doctors all said I was fine then fine.

But everything was painfully similar. The first trimester bleeding. The cramping at 13 weeks. I was not going to sit by and let it happen again. So I went to the ER, twice. They did all the tests in the world and you were fine. My cervix was closed. Your water levels were beautiful. Your heart rate development everything picture perfect.
I still was not convinced. I changed Ob's because one wouldn't listen to me. The new one ran tests! Every week I went back to make sure my cervix was closed and you were fine. We must have had 8 ultrasounds of you. Wigglin and being cute.

Finally I sucked it up. I got past 17 weeks. I got past when I lost your sister. We all breathed a sigh of relief. The doctors changed my visits to every two weeks. We told your Grandma and Grandpa. They were so excited!

That weekend we went there. I could not pee. No matter how much water I drank. It was painful. But when I had brought it up to our doctor she said that was normal... Now that I look back its not. Your sisters water broke when I was trying to pee.

That week I had cramping, but I always had cramping and I was fine. We were fine. Everyone said so! So when we started driving to go up north and the cramping got worse I was not prepared. In fact I told you dad not to go to the ER because it might go away like it always does. But it didn't. It didn't even feel like contractions. The back pain was constant. There was no letup or give. When we finally got to the ER I called the doctor.

"I have to pee." I told her. "But I'm afraid my water will break." She told me that I needed to void my bladder. I told her that if I did my water was going to break. She told me that it was not going to happen and that I was just scaring myself.

The weirdest part was the day and time. Thursday at noon, its always Thursday at noon. I went pee before checking into the er and that sound. The all too familiar pop and gush. My water broke again.

I came out and your dad knew. He asked me "Please no..."

But i couldn't do anything for him or for you. I already knew.

You were much more into the idea of being born than your sister. Instead of 30 hours it was only 9. The nurse tried to console me. "Sometimes people just bleed, its probably not your water..." Mid sentence she stopped when the amniotic fluid test turned the color she didn't want to see.

"ohh." she said.

You were more oblivious than your sister. 150 heart rate. I was bleeding, I didn't bleed with your sister. And i was dialated to four. When they finally got some one to come and check me your feet were already dangling out of my cervix.

There you were. No water, blood flowing around you, half born. And had no idea. You were not distressed in the least. I'd like to say I joke about you being silly like me. But I can't yet. I cannot joke yet.

They took me into labor and deliver. And by 9:45 pm you were born. About the same time as your sister too. You were bigger. A whole ounce. I had to push. It sounds weird to have to push for a 6oz baby. I guess it shows just how not ready my cervix was.

Well. I was much more prepared for you than I thought. I knew how everything was going to happen. This time it was just me and your dad. your aunt showed up later, thank god. I told the nurses what I wanted and what to do. If i was going to lose you then they would do it the way we wanted. I would get all of the little things I didn't get with your sister.

I wanted hand prints, I wanted your clothes to be green not blue, I wanted the little stuffed animals they took your pictures with, I wanted your pictures, I wanted to chose where I sent you to be cremated... But more so I wanted you. I wanted this to not be happening. I was so ready for this not to happen. The doctors had all told me over and over again ti was not going to happen. So then why?

Now you were perfect. A week makes a big difference. A whole ounce bigger than your sister. You had big flat feet, and a wide nose. You kept pointing, even in the little hand cast they made you are pointing. It gave me and your aunt a giggle. Your tongue was sticking out, silly boy.

You looked so much like your dad. It was hard for me. To see those features on a baby, another one we wouldn't get to take home. Who was silent. You had his eyebrows, and floppy ears, his feet and nose.

Something about you was so sweet. We had seen you so many times on the ultrasound. So many little wiggles. So many little joys, and it was all gone.

The other part that hit me that night was that it was me. No one loses two babies that late and not have something wrong with them. You were both so healthy, it had to be me.

We held you for hours. I miss you, so much. I think about you all day all night. I dream about you. As your due date approaches I cannot help but feel such guilt that if you had another mother. You would still be warm and growing. Sorry little guy. I couldn't do it for you either.

Lily Joy

Oh where to begin. I am not sure. I feel like I could go on for hours. Discussing your chubby cheeks and little feet. I feel as if sometimes this is all a dream and that a 5 month old will wake me up hungry and cranky. That I will shrug off all of the crazy dreams I had about losing a beautiful little girl. That me and you will go about our day. Shopping, cleaning and cooking. Playing and tummy time all included, that you will giggle and your dad will too. That the two of you will play until you both fall asleep on the couch. That you will pull my hair and his glasses. 

But I don't wake up, because thats not what happened. The dream is true. I did lose you. That on January 6, 2010 my water did break. At that there was nothing anyone could do for you. That no matter who I saw or talked to. The midwife, the doctor, the other doctor, the emergency room doctors, the ob doctors. That there was nothing to be done.

The worst part for me was how healthy you were. It wasn't at the time. At the time I could not have been more proud. There you were, no water, infection, labor, but your heartbeat just kept on going like nothing was wrong. Sometimes on my better days I joke that you were oblivious to your surroundings. Something you defiantly get from me silly girl.

But it was not meant to be. I begged them to not give me en epidural. I just wanted to go through it with you. They did give me some weird drugs. Made me pretty loopy. But now that I look back it was probably better to be loopy. It was painful like they said it would be. "Worse than normal labor because your body is not ready." Is what they said. I believe it.

I was in labor with you for over 30 hours. From when my water broke to when you were born. The first doctor wanted me to go get a D & E. That infection would set in if I didn't, that the chances of your amniotic fluid refilling was so rare that it was not worth the risk.

But, we couldn't. We opted to wait the 24 hours. I should have gone to the ER. I should have not listened. I should have not gone home. We sat at home and said we loved you over and over again. Hoping you would hear us and begging that your water would fill back up.

But again it was not to be. By the next day at the ultrasound there was no water. Amniotic fluid refreshes around every four hours. I had not been leaking, but nope there was still none. It was heartbreaking to see you on the ultrasound. Trying to move without water, your heart beating happily, but probably a little confused. By then I had an infection. I had no idea what to do. They sent me to the ER. I sat there for 9 hours. Contractions and back pain. Oh yeah... I had a lot of back pain. Eventually they took me to labor and delivery. I'm not sure about how I feel about this practice. Though I understand their want to acknowledge me as a mother in labor. Listening to other babies cry when you didn't was hard to cope with also.

On your records it says you were not alive when you were born. But you were, only for a few seconds, less than a minute.

I remembered what your dad said to me when he handed you to me. "She might move." Warning me, to not be startled. You didn't though.  Before you were born nurses came in and urged us to hold you.

Before they brought me up to labor and delivery the woman gave me a choice of a D & E or labor so we could see you. Of course we wanted to see you. 

I'm not going to lie, you were perfect. So perfect I was shocked. I had no idea babies were so developed at 17 weeks. That your cheeks would be a little chubby. That your little toes would have their fingernails. That your nose would look so much like mine, your feet so tiny. Its funny at the time I Thought your feet were so tiny because you were born so early. It wasn't until after I had your brother that I realized they were small because mine were small. (He has your dads huge feet.)

Granted your skin was pretty transparent still. That I'm sure when i describe you to people that they imagine this miniature pink baby. But some women know better. Though I have not met one yet. There has to be women out there like me who have held a perfect little baby thats red, who's eyes are still sealed shut. Who's ears are so thin.

It was such a  weird experience. Your aunt and grandma came. They held you and loved all of you like we did. We should all be happy. I had a baby. Its supposed to be happy. But it wasn't. I told them about how strong you were. And we all talked about how perfect and beautiful you were. We held you and passed you around. But it was wrong, all wrong. It was too early, we were not prepared, and neither were you. I'm still sorry for that. As mad as it makes every one at me. I'm sorry I'm your mom, and the more I find out the more sorry I am. Thanks for gracing me with you presence even if it was only for 17 weeks. I never thought you could love someone that much. I feel overwhelmed by it. There's grief, and sadness, and guilt, the only reason these things don't crush me. The only reason I somehow get through the days. Is that how can these feelings overwhelm me, when loving you so much already has.

I miss you every single day.