Our First Miscarriage

*Warning: this post may contain too much bloody TMI. I tried to keep it low key. Also, it’s really, really long. Just to warn you.*

It could be our only miscarriage. Who knows. For now, I only know it’s our first.

Alex and I were not in a rush to have another child. Heck, we still aren’t. I’m still recovering from my depression and I’ve just reached the point where I really feel like I can handle taking care of one kid, and while Alex can pretty much count on steady pay raises for the next year or two at least, he still is barely making enough to cover our expenses. But one day, back in September 2018, I was complaining to Alex about how I always seem to have pregnancy symptoms and I was sick of being paranoid. It had only been a couple weeks since I’d had my first period in two years. I joked about how maybe we should just try for a second kid, so I could know for sure and stop worrying all the time. Then I cut myself off, because I had a strong prompting that that was indeed what the Lord wanted us to do. I brought it up to Alex, and he had the same impression. We prayed about it to make sure, but that was unnecessary at that point. About three weeks later I went to the doctor and had my IUD removed, and we figured it was only a matter of time after that.

I first suspected that I was pregnant on November 24, when I was going through the temple for the first time. While I was in the endowment session, it felt like there was an excited spirit in my belly that could barely be contained. She was excited to be at the temple, I reasoned. I didn’t have a positive test yet, though, and I was so sick of being uncertain. By that time I’d decided to think in terms of either ‘I’m pregnant’ or ‘I’m not.’ No more maybe’s and false excitement.

I found out for sure that I was pregnant on December 6, on our son’s 18-month birthday. At the time Ian and I were visiting Alex’s parents in Tennessee without him. The test had a very faint line, but it was there. Getting that second line was a relief. I hate taking pregnancy tests and I’d just suffered some awfully suspicious ‘car sickness’ on the RV trip through the midwest. I could also confirm what I first started to suspect in the temple. I messaged Alex first, but it was only five or six AM MST and he was still asleep, so he was not the first to know. Next I texted my parents and told his mom in person when she came to pick me up that morning to drive us down to Georgia. I guess I expected her to tell Alex’s dad or something, because I forgot to text him and he didn’t find out until a little later. Oops.

I’d never planned to announce a pregnancy to family so early on, but Alex’s mom knew I’d been having decently bad pregnancy symptoms and that it was a possibility, and I also felt bad about keeping my first pregnancy a secret for so long. We didn’t tell our parents until Christmas Eve/Day, a week after we were married, and at that point I was already in the second trimester. I knew my mom in particular was upset about us keeping that one a secret, and I didn’t want to do that to any of our family again.

We were hoping that I was farther along than the faint positive might suggest I was, so we scheduled my first doctor’s appointment for a week after I got the positive. I totally called that they’d try to calculate my pregnancy based on my last period, despite the fact I got my IUD out after that. My doctor couldn’t find anything with the ultrasound except what could be the possible beginnings of a gestational sac, but he ordered a couple of blood samples to test my HcG and make sure I really was just early along. That day my HcG levels were around 700, and 48 hours later I think they were around 1100. That 700 should have doubled in that time. I didn’t feel like this was anything to worry about at the time, but I knew that meant there was some chance this could mean the pregnancy wasn’t exactly healthy.

I think I only had one more doctor’s appointment, a week later. The potential gestational sac was a little more visible, but it was still too early to see or say anything. My doctor gave me the option of having my HcG levels drawn again or coming back in two or three weeks to do another ultrasound. I very nearly passed out the last time I had my blood drawn, so I opted for the latter. We scheduled my next appointment for three weeks out and I recalculated my guess for the due date. At this point I figured that my first trip through the temple might have actually been the day of conception, making my due date mid to late August.

About a week after that, the day before our family was sealed in the Payson Temple, I ran into an old coworker. This coworker has a really special gift. In late September of 2016 she knew that I was pregnant and that the baby’s gender was a boy. I think a month passed before she told me, and by that time I knew I was pregnant. If she’d told me before, I would have thought she was crazy. And I would have been terrified out of my mind to find out that way. It was indeed a boy, and I’m not the first person she’s been able to do this with. My best friend’s mom has the same gift, but I can’t remember if she knows the baby’s gender like my old coworker does. Anyway, on that day before our sealing, this beautiful lady asked me if I was pregnant. I tried to shrug off the question, because we weren’t trying to spread the news to all the world yet, but she called me out and told me she knew I was. It was then that I remembered about her gift. I asked her if she knew the gender. She told me it was a girl! I was super excited for a brief moment until I remembered we don’t have enough clothes for a girl and a boy would have been way more convenient for our low income family, but even then, I’ve always wanted a girl. So of course I was still excited. I texted Alex and our parents about this event, although for all I know our parents never believed it.

I believe it. I kind of suspected it was a girl back at the temple, after all.

Alex ended up naming Ian. I’m still not sure I like that name. As compensation, we decided I got to pick the next child’s name and he would have no say. I’d long since decided on Isaac Oliver Newton if it was a boy, and Hazel Mariah Newton if it was a girl. (Fun story: I’ve loved the name Isaac for a long time, but because Alex’s last name is Newton he vetoed it right away with Ian. He stated that our son would be made fun of for being named Isaac Newton. I don’t see how that’s any worse than having your initials spell your name, like what he did to Ian.) (Also, I fell in love with the name Hazel when I read The Fault in Our Stars. Hazel Grace in particular is a beautiful combination, but I didn’t want to straight up copy that. Since deciding on the name Hazel Mariah, I found out that my aunt’s top choice for a girl’s name was Mariah and her second choice was Hazel. She just never had any girls. I’m named after my mom who was named after a grandma, but I had no idea Hazel was a family name on my dad’s side.)

I was only a month along, and I already knew the gender and the name. At this point, I figured this pregnancy would feel a lot longer than the last one.

It was either Christmas Day or the day after that I started spotting.

This time I was immediately worried that something was wrong, but I spent hours researching and tried to brush it off as a fairly normal pregnancy thing. I could never quite ignore that gut instinct.

Within a couple days, I’d gone from spotting to bleeding. I suspected it was a miscarriage at this point, but I tried to be optimistic. I didn’t see how going in to the doctor’s would help, so I’d just wait it out and hope nothing was wrong.

That Saturday I decided I was going to crochet a blanket for Hazel. I picked up a big ball of purple yarn at Walmart and got started, hoping I’d be able to give it to her in a few months. I also reasoned that if we did lose her, crocheting this blanket might help as a sort of therapy process. If I needed that.

Our New Year’s Eve was quiet. We went to bed early and stayed up past midnight talking and working on our hobbies. I did a lot of reflecting. I have a friend who was very excited to finally be pregnant with a girl only to lose the pregnancy sometime last year, and that loss seemed to define her entire year. Almost all of her posts that I can remember had to do with her struggles with the grieving process, how badly she missed the daughter she never knew. I have a couple more friends who also vocally struggled with miscarriages on Facebook last year, though not as loudly. I found myself wondering if I’d hurt as bad as they did once I knew for sure, once it could be confirmed that I lost this pregnancy. I’d been looking forward to 2019 as the first year since high school that didn’t start out with me being completely miserable and depressed. I didn’t want this miscarriage to change that.

However, I’ve also always suspected that a miscarriage wouldn’t effect me emotionally.

I’ve never lost anyone all that close to me. I adored my great grandmother, but when I saw her struggling to breathe just hours before her death, all I could think about was how cool it would be to know someone who was dead. I think I was eight or nine years old at the time. My grandmother passed away a couple years before that, and even when I watched my heartbroken mother bawl on the phone, all I could think about was how my grandmother would be at least just as happy on the other side of the veil as she was here. After all, what is loss? Our loved ones don’t really disappear when they die. They still have opportunities to be here with us, even if we can’t see them. And we will see them again. They’re keeping busy in the meantime. Our mortal lives are but a brief moment in the span of eternity. And most importantly, I know Heavenly Father loves each of us very dearly, and He can give us the comfort and support we need if we do miss our family and friends. In the meantime, we’ll be just fine, and everything will work out for the best.

When I expressed on Facebook that I thought I was going through a miscarriage, many people commented and messaged to express their condolences. They treated me as a grieving mother. This actually bothered me. I never claimed to be grieving. I’d even said I was emotionally fine. As far as I could tell, they were treating me the way they would want to be treated when going through something like this, because of how this would affect them. And that’s fine, really. That’s the golden rule, the rule we generally ought to live by. But in a way, it actually invalidated what this experience means to me.

At this point, I sort of hoped I would have it confirmed that this was a miscarriage. I try to be a source of positivity on social media, and I don’t ever want to announce a successful pregnancy by telling everyone I think I’m miscarrying. That would be a happy miracle if it worked out, for sure, but to me it wouldn’t be as special as announcing a healthy pregnancy once I’m farther along. I don’t want my social media friends to start remembering me as the lucky woman who had the miracle pregnancy/baby. My experiences and stories are so much greater than that. There’s so much more to what I want to be known for.

After that, there were a couple days where the bleeding started to slow down. I hadn’t yet experienced any pain or cramping, but it had been a week and a half and I was hoping that that was the end of the miscarriage. That it wouldn’t be physically painful or anything for me.

And then January 6 rolled along, marking one month since the positive pregnancy test.

I was extra tired that day. Alex took Ian to church without me and I pretty much just slept or laid around wishing I was sleeping until about 1pm. Shortly after Alex and Ian got home I decided I should change my pad, regardless of how little I was bleeding. I went back to the living room and sat down, and about half an hour later I realized something was wrong. I rushed to the bathroom and found out I’d completely soaked through my pants, and there was a lot of stuff coming out of me. I hopped into the shower and had Alex call the doctor, the hospital, and his mom as we tried to figure out what we should do. Even with the water running, I was standing in pools of blood the whole time. Alex’s mom immediately suggested we go to the hospital. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to even keep myself dry enough to get dressed again, and I sat on a towel on the drive over.

At this point I could not deny what was happening, on any level.

We spent several hours at the hospital. My mom came, watched my son in the waiting room for a while, and took him home to spend the night at her house. I had to do a blood test, an ultrasound, a transvaginal ultrasound, and then the doctor put something up me to pull out some of the heavier material and check who knows what else. I went through a lot more pads. In the end, there wasn’t a lot they could for me. I took some tylenol near the beginning when the contraction-like cramps started, and that was about it. Eventually the doctor gave me three options: do a D&C, which sounds awful based on what I read online the day before, take a pill that should stop the bleeding within a few hours and wait there at the hospital to see how that went, or just go home and see if the bleeding stopped or slowed down on its own by midnight. I automatically opted for the last option. Alex had to pray with me before he was confident that was the right choice, too. Actually, the answer to his prayer was to do whatever it was I thought was right. So. We went home. Alex gathered plenty of their blue and white flat pad/sheet things and some of the giant post-delivery pads for me to use, and we drove home and watched a couple movies. By 11:30 I was hardly bleeding at all, and I felt fine. I mean, if wanting to eat literally everything in the house qualifies as ‘fine’. I had a serious case of the munchies, and I had no desire to sleep anytime soon.

It’s been a week now. I’m still bleeding. Some days there’s more than others. The cramping lasted a couple days, on and off, but it was never very bad. More than anything, I’ve just been exhausted. There have been days where I’ve slept twelve or more hours, but regardless of how much sleep I get I still feel like I have to distract myself with Facebook or television or whatever else just to keep myself awake and concentrating on SOMETHING. I’ve made quite a bit of progress on that baby blanket. I haven’t felt like I need it for therapy, though. It’s just another thing to help keep me focused.

I still have questions, though. Religious ones. Okay, mostly just one. Was that our only chance in this life to give birth to Hazel? Or was this just not the right time? Will we get her again the next time we get pregnant, or will that be a different baby?

I don’t know. I’m okay either way. I think it’d be great to have an opportunity to raise more children during the millennium, whenever that occurs. Next time I run into my old coworker, I’m going to ask her if she has any idea. Perhaps when I’m pregnant again she’ll be able to sense if the spirit was the same one as last time. Unless it’s a boy, in which case that would be irrelevant and I would guess that was Hazel’s only chance. Either way, God has it all under control. He loves us and He’s taking care of all of us. Everything will work out perfectly.