Deja Vu

     I wasn't sure I wanted to share this.  But knowing that one of these days I will turn the blog into photobooks has made me want to include this since it is part of our story.  At the end of January I found out that we were expecting, again.  The whole situation was surreal in how I found out to how things eventually unfolded.  It first started when I thought I had started my cycle super early, so I put in a call to the doctor's office.  They said that they can be irregular after a miscarriage {which I knew}, and to give it a few months.  It was an unusual cycle, but I didn't really think much more about it until it seemed to have stopped and started again.  I have no idea why, but I frantically took a pregnancy test.  I thought I had botched it, so I left the bathroom and came downstairs for a little while.  When I went back upstairs it was positive.  Shock and disbelief immediately set in.  To confirm the results I took another one that immediately turned positive.  Right away I was on the phone with the doctor's office.  This time they got back to me and sent me for a lab work up to check on my hcg and progesterone levels.  Both were lower than what they should have been.  I was told to repeat the test in a few days to see if the numbers were going up or down.  I completely expected them to have gone down, but instead my hcg doubled like it should have but my progesterone was still low.  A little ray of hope.  At this time I was also prescribed a nightly dose of progesterone.  The next blood test was a week later.  They were hoping the numbers would be high enough to do an ultrasound.  They were {more hope} and I was scheduled for an ultrasound.  I was a little afraid to go by myself and since Mike is my coverage for the daycare, my sister went with me.  We were able to see a heartbeat.  But I only measured six weeks when I should have been seven and the heartbeat was lower than in a healthy baby.  I was told to come for another ultrasound a week later.  It only took that night for me to know that I had already lost the baby.  For some reason I went to bed feeling pregnant, but woke up feeling completely unpregnant {probably not a word, but it is how I felt}.  I tried explaining it to Mike, but I don't think he quite got it.  The whole next week seemed to take forever.  Part of me was hoping that I was just being paranoid and that I would go in for the ultrasound and there would be a healthy heartbeat.  Reality was that there was no heartbeat.  I'm sure that I was expected to cry more than I did, but I don't think that what people realized was that I started mourning for this baby before even finding out I was pregnant {sounds strange, I know, but my first thought with the early cycle was that it was another miscarriage}.  So really I had been mourning for weeks.  It still breaks my heart.  I can't help but think that if I would have taken a pregnancy when I thought I had gotten my cycle that maybe this one could have had a fighting chance.  But what is in the past is in the past and I can't change that, I can only cling to hope for the future.  With this miscarriag, it did not progress on its own.  In order to move beyond the loss, I scheduled a D&C.  I was hoping the recovery would be quicker than the last, but no such luck.  At the D&C follow-up appointment I was referred for some bloodwork to check thyroid function and blood clotting issues.  When the results came back I was told I have a mild form of a blood clotting disorder called heterozygous MTHFR.  Basically it is a blood clotting disorder that may or may not have anything to do with the miscarriages.  It may cause tiny clots to form that may inhibit nutrient rich bloodflow to the baby.  There is a relationship between homocysteine and folic acid that I do not fully understand except that my body may not be able to fully absorb folic acid.  I was put on a baby aspirin daily to help reduce the risk of a clot. 
     I am not sure why, but I was more private with this miscarriage.  I think part of it has to do with the fact that I don't want people to feel sorry for me.  Yes, it is a difficult and heartbreaking set of events, but I still cling to the idea that everything happens for a reason.  And if we are meant to have another baby, it will happen.  As with the last miscarriage, we decided to name the baby.  The name we decided on was Logan Taylor.  I am thinking about getting a ring to memorialize the baby and possibly two angel garden stones.

Where My Heart Is

     This week finds me in kind of a hard place.  I was looking forward to {really counting down to} telling everyone that we were expecting.  But here I am with no such news and a touch of sadness that still lingers in my heart.  We want to try again.  We will try again.  But the waiting does nothing for the pain we are feeling now.  And even if we do get pregnant again, I have a fear that it will come with a little angst and worry.  My goal for myself is to embrace my pregnancy the same way I have the others.  I am going to try and be just as excited.  But just because we try again and get to have another little one to love on, it still will not replace the one we lost.  I want to remember them always.  So for now we wait until the time is right and I have a beautiful little reminder of the one we lost.

{Necklace made by kaycejones.com.}

What Gets Me Through

     These past few weeks have been tough.  I am making it through though, with hopes that maybe one day I will be able to feel the joys {with trepidation} of expecting another child.  But there are a few things that I have found to keep me going through the days.  I have had enough science classes to know that there is a pretty good chance that there was nothing I could have done to prevent the miscarriage from happening. Of course, I still traced all my steps of all the questionable things that could have happened, but I have never once stopped to think "if only I hadn't done that." It is definitely hard to go through the process and not second guess everything, but one thing that has kept me going is God {yes, I did bring Him into this}. I know that He has a plan for me and I can only think that there must be some reason why He had me go through this process. I will not blame Him, or anyone else {myself included} for that matter. A few of the sermons we have had at church keep playing through my mind. The main one being that most of us ask when we are in the face of tragedy, "Why me?", but the message of the service was "Why not me?" God wants to use as a vessel to spread His message and it does leave me wondering if this is my venue? And as if there could be a more perfect timing to hear a message, I found this through another blog. It just confirmed the thoughts I had, that God is still there for me.  But one of the main things that has helped is just letting other people know what I am going through.  I am a pretty private person, but I knew that this would take more than just me to move on.  Each time I told someone what was going on, I felt like it was getting easier and that I was getting another shoulder to cry on if I should need it.  More than just sharing though I have chosen to take joy in my two children that I have here.  They are my world right now.  One final thing that has helped is naming the baby.  Even though we were so early on in the pregnancy, I didn't like referring to the baby as "it."  So we have decided to name the baby Avery Lee.  Soon I hope to get a necklace engraved as a memorial.

     Another resource for any one going through a miscarriage is iamtheface.org.  I think it is always good to know that there is some one else out there who is going {has been} through the same thing you are and this is a great site to realize that you are not alone.

A Loss

     I wasn't sure that I even wanted to post this, but I feel I need a forum in which to share my story and to at the very least get it out.  On September 11, 2011 we found out that we were expecting our third child.  We were excited, elated and the wheels just got to churning on how we were going to make it work with three kiddos.  I started thinking about what they would be like, how I would deliver, and all the excitement that I would hear from their brother and sister when I told them there would soon be a baby.  For some reason I was having a hard time believing I was pregnant this time.  I mean I was going through the motions, but it just never seemed quite real.  With my other two kids the whole pregnancy became real when I heard their heart beat for the first time, and then even more real when I felt them move, so I was patiently waiting.  I truly relished all the movements and everything else that came with the pregnancies {except the indigestion}.  This time around I felt as if I was not having the same "pregnancy" symptoms that I had with the other two.  Even though it was early on I could see my little belly getting bigger, especially in the evening.  Then it all seemed to stop, but I can't recall exactly when.  I had began spotting at about five and a half weeks, but it was never anthing major.  It all seemed reminiscent of what I experienced with Noah, except I am pretty sure with him it was in the second trimester.  One day it just seemed to get to be a little bit more.  I decided that day to take it easy thinking that maybe I was trying to do too much.  But the next day I woke up and it was even heavier.  I prompted Mike that I thought I needed to go to the doctor and put a call into their after-hours service.  When they didn't call back I called the office once it opened and they called me back to let me know I should go in for a blood test to check my HCG levels.  They were supposed to call me later that day to let me know the results, but I already had a feeling what the news would be.  I ended up calling the next day to see what I should be doing.  A sonogram was done and showed that the baby was measuring 5 weeks 6 days, when I should have been 7 weeks 1 day.  I spent the previous day preparing myself for the news, but still to hear the doctor actually say that I may be having a miscarriage, it became so real.  To be fair, he said there is still a chance the baby could still be growing, but I could already tell.  The next step was to set up a sonogram a week later to see if there was any change in the growth of the baby.  In the mean time I was left to myself and told of a few of the things I should expect. 
     I will just say that the whole process was {is} a tough one {more emotionally than physically}.  It left me wondering when it will all be over and all that will be left is just a memory of the life that could have been.  There were moments when I would just break out in tears, it didn't even have to be anything baby related, just a thought and the tears would come.  Thankfully I had Mike here to guide me through it and lots of hugs from the kids even though they weren't yet aware of what was going on.  But I couldn't help but have moments where I wondered if Mike was feeling the same ache I was.  He is not a real emotional person, and it was hard to gauge exactly where his emotions were in all of this.  All I could hold onto was that he was here for me, and that when he was ready he would let me in on his pain.  I continued operating the daycare through the whole miscarriage process, but there were a few evenings where I basically shut myself in my room and left all the evening stuff to Mike.  The time in my room was merely a time for me to relax and give my body a break.
     At the second sonogram appointment it was confirmed that I did in fact have a miscarriage and that there was no longer a baby. It was surprisingly easier to hear that it had been confirmed. I think it was because I had the whole week to take it all in. Thankfully my doctor was available to talk to us and was very good at explaining what was going on and what we could expect the future to be like.
     I have a few more posts where I hope to share what has helped me through the process, some resources, and what is in store in the future for us.  If any good can come from this sad circumstance is that if there is some one else out there in the world feeling the same pain, maybe I can help them find something to guide them through it.