Maria's Story: When hello means good-bye

Maria, I'm so sorry for your loss. Your words say it perfectly: "I almost told her: 'You got it wrong, this is the picture of my heart, dark, empty and broken.' But no, it was my uterus." Thanks for sharing your story, Rachel

May 16, 2010, I got a positive pregnancy test. June 23, I said good bye. 

I lost my baby at 9 weeks, but the embryo was only 6 weeks. I had dreams that I was losing the baby, but I thought it was just my natural fears.  I think it was God, trying to prepare me for the worst ... that was already happening.

June 21, I was driving and felt a little cramping. I went home, and noticed that I was having a slight bleeding. I drove to the hospital. My husband is in the Army and he was at the shooting range, so I couldn't reach him.

From 11 am until 2 pm, I waited for blood tests. Finally they got me in the ultrasound room. The nurse and the doctor just communicated with their eyes and whispering to each other. He finally decided to tell me that "there is no heartbeat."

My own heart, stopped beating. I needed to confirm so I asked: "What do you mean? I lost my baby? Is it gone? Dead?"

"Yes" was the answer.

I don't remember how loud I cried, screamed, and prayed for a miracle. I asked them to check again. I was alone. I wanted my baby back. My husband got to the hospital later. The doctor told us it could just be too early. Gave us some hope to take home. In my heart, I knew something was wrong, but I still believed there was a chance, maybe a miracle. 

I rested for 2 days, grasping for that little miracle to come and change everything.
Tuesday, June 22, I went to bed early, feeling some cramps. I prayed for hours until I finally fell asleep. I may have slept for a couple of hours before I woke up again, with strong cramps, only this time followed by blood. 

I didn't want to wake up my husband, but around 2 o'clock, the cramps got worse. I gently touched his arms, he turned to me, and I said: "Baby, don't go to work, I need you. It's over." I started to bleed. He kissed and we cried in silence. 

He called his Sergeant, and told them them it has started, our biggest fear. I was losing the baby. 

My second pre-natal visit was schedule for that Wednesday morning, June 23 at 8:45 am. We spent the rest of the night holding each other and praying. In the morning, I took a shower and he took me to my appointment. 

As I sat in the waiting room, I kept my sunglasses on. Behind them, tears were rolling down my cheeks. I was looking at all those women, so pregnant, so happy, knowing that the baby I had inside of me was dead, and so was I. I was questioning God, "why me? Why didn't you pick her, or her..." No answer. 

There, at the doctor's office, she read the lab results. This time, my husband was with me, holding my hands, but we already knew that it was over. She asked me if I needed another ultrasound to confirm. On the screen, I saw this dark, empty and broken space (my water). I almost told her: "You got it wrong, this is the picture of my heart, dark, empty and broken." But no, it was my uterus. 
Before we left the hospital, I was given Cytotec to finish with the process of miscarriage. When I got home, I laid in bed and waited. My husband sat beside me. We tried to watch a movie together, but the contractions started and I asked him to leave the bedroom, he didn't need to watch that.

I remember crying in silence, biting the pillows and rolling on the bed. Not sure if the pain was from the contractions or from my heart. I had taken strong pain killers and some sleeping pills. I passed out for about an hour. My husband woke me up, and I went to the bathroom. God was good to me, it was all over. I passed the baby and everything else at once.

Long time ago, in San Francisco, I used to shop at Claire's a lot. One day they offer me a little ceramic jewelery box for a $1, it was cute so I bought it. I never used it for anything, except for decoration. It now holds the most precious jewel I ever had, the remains of my unborn baby.

It may sound sick but I could not just flush it. No matter how small, it was my baby. 

I read articles, books, heard other woman stories of how they lost their babies at 7, 8 or 9 months of pregnancy. I know it could have been a lot worse, but I am hurting too. 

This is my loss. I am getting over this, little by little and keeping my hopes and dreams that someday, I will be a mother. 

Today, I have a 9 month old baby boy, the most wonderful thing in my life. But I still grieve and wonder about the baby I lost, was it a boy, a girl? He or she would be 3 years old now.

Janet's Story: Grief during another generation

Janet, thank you so much for sharing your story. I am so sorry that your family did not support you in your grief. So much has changed in 20 years, and, while not perfect,  I'm so glad that people are finally getting some support in their losses. Thanks for opening up. Rachel

Oh, how I wish your blog had been available 18 & 19 years ago! 

I was 22 when we miscarried our first baby. I was told that most women miscarry their first and never know it. Their period is just a little late and they never know the difference. I wasn't very far along, but I knew the difference in my body, hormones and emotions. 

I had to have a D&C August 25, 1995. 

We were told we wouldn't get pregnant again any time soon without fertility drugs so I took them for 1 month. We got pregnant with twins. We were scared, but incredibly happy. We were having a boy and a girl. 

At approximately 18 weeks, we found out that our baby girl was no longer alive. I miscarried both of them at 20 weeks. I named our son, Nicolas James. Our daughter had re-absorbed and I was convinced that she wasn't a baby anymore. In my heart I knew differently.  I really wish I had named her also. 

I ran an obituary/memorial notice in the paper for both of them - Nicolas James & Baby Emmanuel. I had a memorial service for them. Our families thought it was ridiculous and uncalled for. None of our friends came either.

I gave birth to them exactly 1 year, to the date, of having my D&C from our first pregnancy, on August 25th. My grandma died 5 days later. Not only did I lose 2 more babies, but I almost lost my life to suicide. My dad even went as far as to tell my husband he would understand if he wanted to divorce me. Nobody, but me, recognized the fact that I was a mom. 

My babies were in heaven, but I was still a mom! Friends and family eventually said they didn't know what to really say or do so they just ignored it. I know my husband was upset also, but to this day, I have NO idea as to his real feelings. 

We now have an amazing 15 year old son, Andrew. I will never forget our other babies. It wasn't possible for your thoughts and feelings to help me then, but I am ecstatic to find out that my feelings have finally been validated. It was like you were talking about me. 

Hopefully your blog will also help family and friends of those with losses know to help, what support to give, and what to say. Thank you for understanding that I am a mama with 4 children and not just 1.

Of idols and name tags

The other day, a dear friend sat me down to coffee.

You have heard of this momma friend -- she was Leyla's foster mom.

Well, God had put something on her heart and she needed to share with me.


"When I first met you," she started, "you shared about your story with Olivia. And then I began reading your blogs. And as much as I liked you, I felt like I didn't really who Rachel really was. What did she like? What makes her tick?  It was like grief and loss and infertility were all that you could see, like a name tag you wore. As time has gone on, I've watched you transition out of grief and loss and have started moving forward with life. And it's really neat to see and to get to know you."

[Ok, well, Deanna, if you're reading this, you probably are thinking, "I'm not sure those were my exact words." But this is at least what I can remember of what you said, and what has stuck with me.]

She had more to say, which is probably food for another blog . . . but these particular words have been mulling around in my brain.



You know, she's right. I think back to the last 3ish years, and I just feel like they are a total and complete fog. I think having a loss every 9 months on average for a few years does something to you. Well, at least it did to me.

But I think even before the recurrent loss, just with Olivia, I lost myself. I lost myself in grief, and longing, and despair.

I didn't know who I was anymore. The priorities I had in my life before my ectopic just suddenly seemed shallow. I couldn't relate to someone who had not experienced deep pain. Life -- everything in life -- seemed to be a painful reminder of what I didn't have.

Even though I was mom, I stayed the heck away from mom's groups. Or play groups. Or anything that might remind me that I had lost a little baby. (Oh, thank God I didn't know at that time that there would not be a rainbow baby at the end of my story. I don't even want to know what would have become of me had I seen the whole next few years laid out in front of me.)

I became the girl who runs out of church crying because someone announced a pregnancy.

I became the girl who (true story) runs out of church crying, slams her phone into the dash of the car, cusses up a storm, and then cries like crazy because someone was having a gender-reveal party.

I became the girl who (also true story) told her husband to stay home one night just to make sure she stayed safe. Safe from herself.

I became the girl who tried, tried, tried, tried to deal with my sorrow in a healthy, Christ-like way. I blogged, I cried out to God, I went to a Christian counselor. But that did not stop the anxiety. Oh, the crazy, horrid anxiety that clawed at me. It did not stop the images that kept showing themselves uninvited of me sitting on my kitchen floor, bleeding out from freshly cut arms.

Oh, dear friends. This is the horrible, horrible truth of how bad I was.

I have friends who have had losses. They have had later losses. or more traumatic ones, and they did not plunge into the darkness as I did.

Why did I respond how I did?

Honestly, I can't tell you that anymore than I can explain why God picked the color blue for the ocean, and green for land.

However it happened -- I became a new person. And yes, I wore that name tag.

"Hi I'm Rachel. Habitual aborter. Infertile mom. Nice to meet you."

And then last March, almost a year ago now, we had the last (oh please, dear God, let it be the last) of the miscarriages.

And I went just numb. Numb to pretty much everything. I threw myself into Leyla's adoption because that was the only joy I could find. The rest of my life was just meh. Could do with it, could do without it.

When I lost the ability to care about my life -- it was time (OH, way past time) to make a serious change.

We called it. No more trying to conceive for a year.

And now that we are ending that year, I'm really leaning toward calling it quits for good.




Today at our mom's group (see how far I have come!!!), we talked about loving the gift more than the Giver. We talked about what takes up all our thoughts, our emotions, our time, our energy, our money and how those things become our idols.

And it just hit me.

For so long, I placed the value of getting a healthy baby from a healthy pregnancy above the Giver of Life Himself. I wanted a baby. Not the creator of life.


This is not something I want to admit. Oh, do I not want to admit it. Because you know, I'm just a girl that tried her best. I managed loss, and life changes, and adoption, and infertility, and health scares, and the loss of all control as best as I could.

I just was surviving. Surviving from day to day. Trigger to trigger. Loss to loss.

Just trying to make it through alive, and (hopefully) with a live baby to show for it.


It is humbling to admit that maybe I had survived wrong. That if I had changed my focus to the Giver instead of the gift, I may have made it through so much easier. To admit that I placed my babies before God himself feels like such failure.

I recently watched the movie Wild with a friend. It's about a woman who went to some serious extremes in order to deal with grief. And at the end, she admits that maybe she isn't so sorry she had sex with a ton of men, or became a druggie. Because somehow that turned her into who she is today.

And maybe I also feel a little like that. I do have some regrets about how I acted the last few years. I maybe wish that I could've trusted God more than I did. Maybe crave HIM more than I craved a baby.

But all that has led me to where I am today.

It's now part of my journey, part of my story . . . part of my PAST.

I have slowly been able to peel off that name tag, that identity as an infertile woman. Take off the label of the woman whose body kills her babies. Take off the label of bereaved. (Even as the grief will never fully be gone.)

Triggers come and go. So do the tears. But more days than not, I am excited about where I'm at and where I'm headed.

I've learned to see that as wonderful as a baby and a healthy pregnancy are, my life has more purpose and more to it than just that.

I have learned, as was mentioned in our group today, "Good things can be bad gods."

Fertility and healthy babies are GOOD THINGS! But they make bad gods.


And so as I set out each new day, I'm learning to put on a new name tag.

"Hi, I'm Rachel. I've stumbled, and I've fallen, and parts of me are scarred. But I'm learning, and I'm growing, and I'm covered in grace. I have a purpose, and a plan, and a God that's bigger than me.

It's nice to meet you."

If you wouldn't say it to a pregnant woman, don't say it to a bereaved one

 

When your loved one has a miscarriage -- knowing what to say, how to say it and when to say it can be tricky. On the one hand, you want to support her in her grief. On the other hand, you want to offer something that will comfort her.

Unfortunately, so many of the things people say are meant with the best of heart, and come out all wrong.

So I wanted to make a quick and easy rule for you.

If you wouldn't say it to a pregnant woman,

don't say it to a bereaved one.

Why?

Because the value of a live baby is just the same as the value of a dead baby.

Because the experience of a miscarriage is just as valid as the experience of a continuing pregnancy.

Because a mom's love and devotion for her kid doesn't go away when the baby dies.





So let's play my little rule out.

 

So what happens when you respond to a pregnancy announcement at 6 weeks in the same way you would to a miscarriage announcement at 6 weeks?

 

 

 

 

Not terribly supportive. Let's try this again . . .

 

 

 

 

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And my personal favorite:

 

Of course, there is always an exception to every rule.

 

 

 

 

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However we are supporting our friend, let's make sure we use words that affirm her baby and her experience.