Is there anybody in there?

I took a pregnancy test on Valentine's Day. Even though I was only 9 DPO I figured that there may be a chance of an early positive. I even dreamt about it all night. I had a dream where I had the pregnancy stick and took it in to the kitchen to look at it because I didn't want Andrew to see what I was doing. The second line appeared and it was so dark that the dye slowly covered the whole white part. In my dream I knew it meant it was super positive. I did it again to show Andrew to see if he saw. He did. Then I woke up to pee on the stick and get a big fat negative. I knew that it was still pretty early and not likely, but it was still a little disappointing.

I'm noticing symptoms but trying to ignore them. I'm afraid that they're in my head or that dear Aunt Flow is being a tricky bitch and wants to get my hopes up before showing up and breaking my heart. First symptom- frequent urination. Seriously! Over the last week I've had to pee so much more often and I've been waking up in the middle of the night to go, just like when I was pregnant. I've had to start watching what I drink before bed again. Second symptom- sleeplessness. Since about two days after ovulation I've had the hardest time sleeping. I have a hard time falling asleep and then I constantly wake up to toss and turn. Once I get up to pee it's almost guaranteed that I will not be getting back to sleep. These are the symptoms that I believe the most in. These are not things I can fake or make up and they're not period related. I don't drink more than I ever have during the day, so that's not why I'm making more trips to the bathroom, and I can't make myself wake up at all times of the night.

Third symptom- break outs. I've have been having some horrible breaking out lately. Before I got pregnant my skin wasn't great but it was pretty under control. Once I was pregnant it became worse than high school acne. I've been working on it since the miscarriage and it's actually gotten a lot better again. Granted, I do break out a little before my period but not usually two weeks before and it's not usually this much. Forth symptom- increased appetite. This is one I worry that I could be making up entirely. I've noticed I've been hungrier lately and getting more cravings. I had been dieting/eating healthier up until a couple of weeks ago so that could be it too. I wouldn't bet anything on this symptom.

I think the number one symptom that made me know I was pregnant before was breast tenderness. I haven't experienced that yet, which I thought I would by now. I think they are more tender now, as of yesterday, but it's so hard to tell. I squeeze them just about every hour to check if they're sore yet so I may be the cause. I have noticed my nipples are quite a bit more sensitive than usual, even by period standards.

I wanted to get down what I'm going through as something to look back on. Either my period is coming back with a vengeance or I'm pregnant. If I am pregnant then I can look back and see that it's pretty neat I had that dream about being pregnant. I had all those symptoms and I wasn't just imagining them. Then again, maybe I'm crazy. TTC has a way of doing that to women. Oh wouldn't it be nice if this all meant something and that I will have good news soon?

In other news, I had a pretty great Valentine's weekend. On Friday I got a delivery of flowers to my work! What a sweet husband I have! Then on Saturday I got a delivery of a rose to the house with a message that said "Someone thinks you're special by sending this rose. Look for a Valentine message in the Coloradoan on February 14th." Then we went to see Valentine's Day. Overall, I enjoyed it. I definitely can agree with what some critics are saying, specifically my husband, but I liked it. It's no Love Actually, though. Then we went grocery shopping and bought ingredients for a spectacular Indian dinner. We made chicken curry, Indian style basmati rice, and naan. It only took us four hours! It was the naan's fault though. It had to rise for 2 hours altogether, I think. It was quite amazing if I do say so myself.

Those were our original V-day plans, but Andrew got tickets to an Eagle's hockey game and we weren't going to have time to make it after. On Sunday I read the special section of the paper where people wrote Valentine's to their loved ones. What a sweet message Andrew put in there to me. Aw. I'm one lucky woman to have such a romantic husband. Later we went to the hockey game which was a lot of fun! We ended up leaving about 5 minutes early when the game was tied because we bought steaks to cook for dinner and the game lasted another 30 minutes. We literally turned onto our street when the game ended. It would have been a great game to stay for but at the same time we missed the crowed and got home 40 minutes earlier than we probably would have otherwise. We made another amazing dinner of pan fried New York strip steak, garlic mashed potatoes, rolls, and veggies. It was so good!

I have to say it was the best Valentine's ever! I'm happy with life. I have the best husband in the world. There's only one more thing I could think to ask for...

Only time will tell

I started this blog after my miscarriage, and though I do mention it in every post, I realize I've been overly cautious and I'm unsure why. I think a lot of it has to do with trying again. I'm so terrified of people knowing because of the "what-if" factor. What if we do get pregnant? What if we don't? What if something goes wrong again? This defeats the purpose of starting a blog in the first place! I wanted a place where I could write down my feelings and figure out what's going on in my mind and heart instead of freaking out in silence. Then I thought no one probably reads this anyway. :)

First, I want to talk about updates in the part of my life that don't involve trying to conceive (TTC) because those are easier and more straight forward. As for the weight loss goal...I fail. After a week I got to 121lbs, which was 1lb short of my goal. I was so proud of myself! Then the next day I get on the scale and I'm back at 123lbs. Seriously?? It's been fluctuating daily but staying in the 122lbs range. I'm ok with that because I'm only 2lbs heavier than I was when I was pregnant before, which the doc said was totally healthy. It's my fault because I've stopped working out. Horrible, I know. I just haven't been motivated. I'm going to try and start doing light exercise again soon; it's just too much to deal with right now.

That leads me to the TTC portion of today's post. I have learned more about conception than I ever thought possible. I know about the changes in a woman's body, hormone surges, tests to predict ovulation, and so much more. It's pretty amazing the signs we are given that "it's time" and yet we may not even notice or be aware of. Right now I'm using ovulation predictor kits (OPK) to determine when I ovulate and the best time to baby dance (BD). I have anything except a normal cycle and here on CD18, still no ovulation. I'm really starting to understand why so many women find OPKs frustrating! Based on my cycles (30-35 days) I should ovulate by this weekend at the latest, otherwise I have faulty tests, I didn't ovulate, or I missed the LH surge that they detect. I hope I just haven't ovulated yet and it's coming soon!

I'm really starting to get discouraged. It was so easy to stay positive and optimistic at first. We decided to go with the sperm meets egg plan. I started doing the OPKs, negative at first, then a faint line...which pretty much hasn't gotten any darker in a week. I know every brand is different and even from woman to woman they can have dissimilarities, but I was hoping I would fit into the norm. When I got to CD15 and the line still wasn't any darker, that's when I started stressing. I don't want to stress. A big part of me was already setting myself up for a BFN (big fat negative). I figured if I didn't have any expectations or hopes then I couldn't be let down. That's not me though. I know once I'm in the 2WW (2 week wait) I will be obsessing over every symptom and taking pregnancy tests like it's nobody's business. Either way, I would have been able to stay calm until after ovulation, my first "obstacle," but since it hasn't come yet I'm already driving myself crazy! Those damn test stripes are tormenting me with their unchanging lines!!

I'm not overly stressed but if I continue to obsess about this I'm afraid that I will be under too much stress to conceive. TTC is supposed to be fun but sometimes it's hard to be spontaneous and passionate when you're on a schedule. And many people will tell me to just relax. Easier said than done. Those people don't know what goes on in the minds of woman who have lost their child. It makes you constantly afraid. It takes away your ignorance and naivety. I will never be one of those women who are just happy and excited in their pregnancy thinking that nothing can go wrong. I will always have this underlying worry that at any moment my child's life can be taken away from me for any known or unknown reason. That is what drives us. Our desire to have a family more than anything in the world and our fear that it could happen again. Every time is another set-back. Every time another piece of your heart is broken beyond repair.

Patience is not one of my strong suits. I'm a little depressed that this hasn't gone exactly the way I thought it would so far but I just have to be patient. I can't already be preparing for the worst! I just need to take it one day at a time. I want it to happen NOW but it doesn't work like that. I think that will be one of my goals over the next few weeks- trying to work on being more patient. After all, if we do get pregnant, that is going to be a necessity over the next 9 months so I better start working on it now!

New Year's Resolutions

I'm not a fan of New Year's Resolutions because why start tomorrow what you can start today? Sometimes, though, it can be a good starting point and when you set a date it becomes more of a commitment, which is motivating (for me). Something I had started to do in December was get in shape. During my 14+ weeks of pregnancy, I gained about a pound, which is normal. A pound doesn't seem like a lot but my stomach had been expanding, muscles loosening and all that, to make room for the baby. I didn't have a super flat stomach before I got pregnant but I wasn't embarrassed to wear a tight fitting shirt. Since we lost the baby I gained an additional 3-4 pounds from eating lots of comfort food and being very inactive. My weight isn't unhealthy (at 124 pounds) but it's the most I've weighed and I'm the least toned I've ever been. After I eat or when I'm bloated I look like I'm 3 and a half months pregnant again. It's so embarrassing to me that I went out and bought a few looser fitting shirts. Then I decided to try and take charge and get my body back as best I can. I started with Wii Fit, which can actually be quite challenging and tiring! I figured if anything I would use it as a stepping stone to something harder where I would be able to tone more and burn more calories.

As of last week I started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred after reading about it on someone else's blog. It's insane! I felt like I was going to die after the first workout and I couldn't even do all the exercises for the full time (like pushups...ugh). I have done 5 days of it so far and I've lost a pound. Not much, but I've noticed my body is starting to tone up, even my abs a little bit, and my endurance has gone up quite a bit from day one. It's only 20 minutes a day so I can do it after I get home from work and then I'm done for the day! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to lose weight and tone up but is short on time. Andrew and I have also started to eat much healthier and lower the calorie intake. I would ideally like to get back to 120 pounds and really tone up my abs before I get pregnant again.

That may conflict a little with my second New Year's resolution which is to get pregnant and have a baby. I'm going to continue working out for as long as possible but if everything works out the way we want it to, I'll be pregnant in February. Maybe I'll be setting enough of a tone that I can still keep working out after I'm pregnant, though I probably won't be able to continue with the 30 Day Shred since the rule of thumb is that while you're working out you should still be able to carry on a normal conversation without becoming out of breath. I can't do that now and I don't know if I'll be in good enough shape in a couple weeks to still be able to do it.

As for trying again, the doctor said wait two cycles, and I'm on cycle number two! Waiting has been really hard, but I know that I have to because it's really important to have accurate dates. Now that we're a week away from being able to try again, the waiting is even harder. The last couple of months have gone by pretty fast, to my surprise, but I know I have done a lot of healing, both physically and emotionally. Dealing with the loss of our son was a really depressing time, but I had an amazing support system. I still think about the miscarriage every single day and, of course, I'm scared that it could happen again, possibly for completely different reasons than the first time, but I'm also so excited. I seriously can't wait to be pregnant again! I am also very lucky to have such an amazingly patient husband, who is really excited for the baby-making part of the whole process. ;)

We have already booked a room at the Armstrong Hotel in Old Town for January 30th, for a relaxing night away from everything. We haven't had a romantic night/getaway since our honeymoon so this is going to be a special night for both of us! From the pictures, the hotel is really nice. It has a bed and breakfast appeal but in a hotel type setting. If that doesn't make any sense then check it out for yourself! http://www.thearmstronghotel.com/

Wish us luck for a rainbow baby in 2010!

Happy New Year's

Nothing especially eventful happened in the 7 days from Christmas to New Years Eve. Andrew and I discussed birthday plans trying to decide between staying home to eat or going out. We ended up deciding on going out to Hibachi's. We had a coupon, which we didn't end up using, but it's super close to our house, which was a plus. We had planned on just relaxing all day and then going out to dinner early, before the crowds were out. That didn't end up happening.

Andrew and I have been talking about buying a new car for a long time. His car has continued to fall apart throughout the years (though it ran fine) and was not exactly the most comfortable and reliable car. When I was pregnant we knew it wasn't a "family" car. My car is fine but if something ever came up and we needed to use Andrew's car, I wouldn't feel safe, especially if we had to put a baby in the back seat. We had sort of started looking at cars online for the last week or so to buy in January, but I hadn't taken it too seriously yet because we still had a month, plus we had been looking at newer used cars (2009) and I hadn't found exactly what I was wanting in a car. Well, on the 30th Andrew told me he had talked to his cars.com rep at the Coloradoan who had referred him to Pederson Toyota. He contacted them and ended up finding exactly what we wanted.

The afternoon of my birthday we bought a new 2010 Toyota Corolla. Our first new car! We didn't think we were going to buy a brand new car when we started, but it was such a good deal that we couldn't pass it up. It had a whopping 9 miles on it when we took it home. It gets 26mpg city and 35mpg highway. It's very safe and pretty snazzy looking if I do say so myself. When we get pregnant again and have a baby, I will have peace of mind knowing we have such a reliable and dependable car that is going to save us money in the long run. I also don't need to worry about Andrew driving around that old clunker with its bald tires in winter.

This is our new car, minus the tinted windows.

That was a pseudo birthday present, even though it's really Andrew's car. The 4 hours we spent at the car dealership, was not. It was super busy and we ended up not leaving until 6:00, after we had planned on going to dinner at 5:00. We still had to run home and change before dinner. We arrived at Hibachi's around 6:45 to find the parking lot packed. We contemplated going somewhere else, but where wasn't going to be busy on New Year's Eve? We were both pretty tired from the dealership and the 45 minute wait for dinner, when we were both starving, didn't help. Sometimes it can be pretty depressing when you have expectations that don't get met. I deal with it every year. It's not my birthday; it's New Year's Eve. Sure, I could celebrate it on a different night, but it's not the same. I really wish I just had a normal birthday where that's all it was, nothing else.

Once we got seated our moods picked up and we were a little more awake. Dinner was pretty good. There is a part where the chef tosses food at you (shrimp in our case) and most of the people at the table declined the opportunity to look like fools, including me. Andrew would not let that happen and had to explain it was my birthday so I had to do it. Betrayer. The chef told me to close my eyes and open my mouth. I did as he said, terrified that something horrible was about to happen. It seemed like I had my eyes closed forever, so finally I decide to open them and I see a shrimp being flung at me with extreme speed. It smacked the back of my throat and I luckily didn't choke on it. All in all it was an enjoyable dinner and an enjoyable evening out with my husband.

Unfortunately, though Andrew had been the exhausted one before, as soon as we got home I felt so ridiculously tired and he was more awake. I started nodding off on the couch still holding my glass of champagne. I decided to get ready for bed, thinking that would help wake me up, which it did. That didn't last long, though, as I fell asleep for good at 11:30. I had been so determined to stay up until midnight, thinking it would be so easy. Andrew was sweet and still woke me up at midnight for a kiss. It was the best birthday and New Year's Eve I've had in a long time.

Here's to 2010 and all that it may bring! *Cheers*

Christmas time

Christmas was really nice this year. Andrew's family decided to cancel the big family dinner, due to snow (and no parking spaces), so we were able to go down earlier and have dinner with them. His mom and I ended up getting a bit drunk off of the wine. The whole evening was very enjoyable and gift giving was very fun this year. Everyone seemed pretty happy with their presents.

Near the end of the evening, it became less enjoyable. A string of small disasters led up to me having a nuclear meltdown at home later. A little before we were leaving I felt one of my earings and it was missing the stone in it. No big deal, I can just buy new earings...they were cheap anyway. Then we get in the car and start to drive, realizing that for some reason my door isn't latching. Andrew and his dad tried to figure out what was wrong but ended up having to tie it shut. I sat in the back seat on the way home, which was strange, but I tried to make light of the situation though Andrew seemed a little grumpy. After we got home I was getting ready for bed, taking my jewelry off, and I dropped my wedding ring and band. The ring fell on my vanity but I couldn't find the band. I started looking for it and when I couldn't find it right away, I became frantic. I searched in all the pockets of my make-up bag, all the drawers of my jewelry box, all over the floor and in the vent. Andrew joined in my search and had no better luck. Then I started crying and continued to frantically search until I ended up throwing things of my vanity.

Andrew was very gentle and told me to calm down, at which point I layed down on the floor and just started bawling. He continued to search for my wedding band while I told him how depressing life was. It's bad enough that my child was taken from me but life had to continue throwing these little irritating situations on me. If God exists he hates me. He doesn't want me to be happy. I'm not supposed to have a child and losing my wedding band was a "sign" that I'm not supposed to have a happy marriage either. If He is only supposed to give us as much as we can handle, then I can't handle anymore and I should just give up now. I think that might have been the single most depressing moment of my life after the miscarriage, which obviously contributed to how I was feeling. That and the wine...

Just when I was feeling like everything was hopeless, Andrew sat on the floor next to me and handed me my wedding band. "Where did you find it?!" "In one of the drawers of your jewelry box." "But I looked in there and didn't see it. How did it even get in there?" He didn't know how it got in there either but that's where he found it. "I guess I am supposed to be with you. You help me when things are hard." He agreed and told me he would always be there. (Or something like that).

It was Christmas the next day and I told him I was sorry for being crazy. It's just when you are so emotionally fragile, it doesn't take much to set you off. We had a great breakfast of ham, eggs, and toast. Then we unwrapped the presents we bought ourselves (I just wanted something to open on Christmas) and relaxed on the couch the rest of the morning. We went to my mom's that afternoon for a late lunch and met her new boyfriend, Tim. He's nice. After dinner we played some Wii Sports Resort and drank beer. Tim had never played the Wii so it was funny to see him and my mom play. We tried playing the Mario Bros. for the Wii, but they had no idea what was going on. Old people. :)

Yesterday we took my car in to the shop where it miraculously fixed itself. They said they couldn't find anything wrong so they think it was just frozen. Frozen for four days? Still popping open on the drive there (it was tied shut but every bump and turn it would ding at me that it wasn't closed)? Then fixes itself? I'm glad it's fine but it was very frustrating. We also bought a new Christmas tree for next year. 50% off at Walmart. It's quite a big bigger than the one we borrowed from my mom; we are going to have to do a lot of rearranging to fit it in next year. Hopefully that won't be the only reason to rearrange. Hopefully next year we will be celebrating our new baby's first Christmas. We'll see how things go come February...

It was a pretty nice Christmas season overall, though it definitely had a darker mood about it than previous Christmases (for me). Obviously a lot of it has to do with my sadness about losing the baby, which still affects me deeply. I've had very few nights of restful sleep, even though the baby/children dreams are mostly gone. I have been having a lot of dreams where I am in horrible and difficult situations that often result in my death. I also had an 11 day period which didn't help with it's mood swings. I'm still waiting to feel normal again, and even though I do have days of normalcy, normal isn't the same as it used to be. Normal is me with a piece missing. I'll never get that piece back. For the most part it's life as usual, I still just have my days...my set-backs. I wish I didn't have them, but they are getting fewer and farther between and I'd like to think they are helping me understand a lot about myself. I can honestly say that I'm pretty happy with life right for now. I'm very lucky to have a few close friends, supportive family, and my loving husband, who I couldn't live without.

Holden's Christmas Decoration

Visiting family and preparing for Christmas

Saturday night we went down to see Andrew's parents. We hadn't seen them since we lost the baby and we didn't want to wait until Christmas; we didn't want that to be the first day we talked to them about it in person. It's easier talking about it now. I thought it would be harder because I haven't talked to them since the miscarriage, but it wasn't. We told them about what happned, what's next, and when we are going to start trying again and his mom said she would pray for us.

I realized that waiting is the hardest part. I want to have a baby to hold in my arms so badly but I know my body still needs to heal in order for that to happen. I'm on my first period since the miscarriage and the doctors don't prepare you for it. The first few days it seemed very normal, except for passing some clots, then it got extremely heavy. Yesterday, I had cramps so bad it felt like I was in labor again, which made me cry because it was like the miscarriage all over again. I took 1200mg of Ibuprofen in two hours and it did almost nothing to stop the pain. I had to go home and take one of the leftover percocet the doctor prescribed for after miscarriage cramps. Within 30 minutes the cramps were gone and 30 minutes after that, if I didn't lay down, I felt like I had morning sickness again (which also made me a little depressed). I forgot how nauseas percocet makes me (from when I had my wisdom teeth out). I did a lot of research online and on forums and found out heavy, crampy periods are normal and the clots are just stuff that didn't pass when I had the baby. It's your body's way of clearing out all the "bad" stuff. As much as this period sucks, it was the first thing I've been waiting for and I'm happy it happened so quickly. I was told it could take up to 6 or 7 weeks after the miscarriage. I hope my next period comes on time too. One down, one to go. :)

In other news, Andrew and I have almost finished our Christmas shopping. We have one more package from Amazon coming today and we will be done! Christmas feels weird this year. I have always loved Christmas so much and am usually super excited for it. I am enjoying the season, don't get me wrong, but it's just harder to get in the spirit this year. At least I'm at the point where my happy days out number my sad days. I still can't help but think about what would be happening if I was still pregnant; I'd be almost 20 weeks and sometime between Christmas and my birthday we would have been able to find out the sex of the baby. I miss you, my angel baby.

I am really excited to give presents though. I think Andrew and I did a good job this year of picking out great gifts and I can't wait to see the excited look on everyones faces! We're just doing the personal gift exchange with Andrew's family instead of the big dinner they usually have. We decided that it's Christmas, a time to be happy and enjoy life, and it's not a day we want be reminded of the tragic loss of our son over and over again. We already think of him every day and I would like to have only positive thoughts of him on Christmas. It would be different if it was any other (regular) day. I hope that everyone can understand that and know that the holidays are the hardest times to deal with loss (in my opinion) and not take it personally.

We are also having lunch/dinner with my mom on Christmas day. I finally get to meet the guy she's been dating for the last 2 or 3 months and approve (hopefully). We've decided not to do gift exchange this year, due mostly in part to my mom's medical bills after breaking her wrist, which is a bit of a relief. We have a medical bill of our own from the hospital so any way we can save money is good. Plus it'll be nice to just eat and relax. I'm really excited about the food. I can't wait!

Merry Christmas!

It just takes one thing for it all to come crashing back

Today was a typical day at work, full of procrastination of course. Damn Facebook and its addictiveness! In addition to some computer work I had to do I was working on a report for the company that my fellowship is through. I have to summarize what I've done/learned the past year, future plans, etc. I needed to verify when my end date was so I was going through my email to see if I could find any paperwork that stated when my fellowship was officially over. That led me to start cleaning out my horribly full inbox. I seriously don't delete anything. I was going through months worth of emails and just hitting the delete button.

I came across an email from a couple of months ago entittled "poem." It was an email to Andrew about how I wanted to tell our families that we were pregnant. This is the poem:

I do not have a face to see,
or put inside a frame.
I do not have soft cheeks to kiss;
I don't yet have a name.

You can't hold my tiny hands,
or whisper in my ear.
It's still too soon to sing a song,
or cuddle me so near.

But all will change come May 16th,
when they say I'm due.
I'm your new [niece/nephew/grandchild/etc.];
I can't wait till I meet you.

We ended up just using it for my grandma and brother and did something different for our parents. We gave them a baby picture frame with "Picture to follow in May 2010" on it:

Andrew replied by saying he just wanted to announce it. He didn't want to tell some people and not others and he was excited and wanted to tell everyone. He said he was hopeful that we would have a smooth pregnancy.

I replied telling him how I didn't want to tell everyone, mostly I didn't want it getting around at work yet, though I was sure we were going to have a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy.

After I read that I almost broke down at work. I left 20 minutes early because I knew I was going to cry. I really tried not to, my eyes started filling up in the car and then I would breathe and focus on something to keep myself from crying. That cycle went on for the next 15 minutes until I got home let it loose.

I remember those people. The so-in-love newlyweds expecting their first child. They were so excited and happy. There was no reason to doubt that everything was going to be fine. I miss that feeling. I miss the baby inside of me and everything he was going to be in our lives. Part of me wonders if I was being so cautious because I thought something would go wrong. Of course, thinking something might happen and it actually happening are two different things. Deep down though, I was already planning our future with a baby. I would go online and look at baby clothes, toys, furniture, and anything baby related! I really never thought anything so horrible would happen. It took one little email reminding me of how happy I was to show me how sad I still am. It's getting easier but I still have days that set me back. I wish it was easier.

Comforting words

When I first came back to work, it was very difficult for me. Sometimes I would just sit and think about my miscarriage experience and my poor baby. I would want to cry but didn't...most of the time anyway. The days would go by very quickly regardless of how busy I was. In my grief, time did not exist. I couldn't explain how I felt, I just knew that it was terrible and sad. The pain of a broken heart. I felt a need to connect with other women who had experienced the same thing to find comfort, to know that what I was feeling was normal, and to know I'm not alone. I joined a miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss group on babycenter.com (a great site with a lot of information for pregnant women). One day at work, I came across a post that I wanted to share that put what I was feeling into words and helped me better understand the way people react to miscarriage. This is what we wish everyone knew about pregnancy loss:

When women experience the loss of a child, one of the first things they discover they have in common is a list of things they wish no one had ever said to them. The lists tend to be remarkably similar. The comments are rarely malicious - just misguided attempts to soothe.


This list was compiled as a way of helping other people understand pregnancy loss. While generated by mothers for mothers, it may also apply similarly to the fathers who have endured this loss.

When trying to help a woman who has lost a baby, the best rule of thumb is a matter of manners: don't offer your personal opinion of her life, her choices, her prospects for children. No woman is looking to poll her acquaintances for their opinions on why it happened or how she should cope.

-Don't say, "It's God's Will." Even if we are members of the same congregation, unless you are a cleric and I am seeking your spiritual counseling, please don't presume to tell me what God wants for me. Besides, many terrible things are God's Will, that doesn't make them less terrible.

-Don't say, "It was for the best - there was probably something wrong with your baby." The fact that something was wrong with the baby is what is making me so sad. My poor baby never had a chance. Please don't try to comfort me by pointing that out.

-Don't say, "You can always have another one." This baby was never disposable. If had been given the choice between loosing this child or stabbing my eye out with a fork, I would have said, "Where's the fork?" I would have died for this baby, just as you would die for your children.

-Don't say, "Be grateful for the children you have." If your mother died in a terrible wreck and you grieved, would that make you less grateful to have your father?

-Don't say, "Thank God you lost the baby before you really loved it." I loved my son or daughter. Whether I lost the baby after two weeks of pregnancy or just after birth, I loved him or her.

-Don't say, "Isn't it time you got over this and moved on?" It's not something I enjoy, being grief-stricken. I wish it had never happened. But it did and it's a part of me forever. The grief will ease on its own timeline, not mine - or yours.

-Don't say, "Now you have an angel watching over you." I didn't want her to be my angel. I wanted her to bury me in my old age.

-Don't say, "I understand how you feel." Unless you've lost a child, you really don't understand how I feel. And even if you have lost a child, everyone experiences grief differently.

-Don't tell me horror stories of your neighbor or cousin or mother who had it worse. The last thing I need to hear right now is that it is possible to have this happen six times, or that I could carry until two days before my due-date and labor 20 hours for a dead baby. These stories frighten and horrify me and leave me up at night weeping in despair. Even if they have a happy ending, do not share these stories with me.

-Don't pretend it didn't happen and don't change the subject when I bring it up. If I say, "Before the baby died..." or "when I was pregnant..." don't get scared. If I'm talking about it, it means I want to. Let me. Pretending it didn't happen will only make me feel utterly alone.

- Don't say, "It's not your fault." It may not have been my fault, but it was my responsibility and I failed. The fact that I never stood a chance of succeeding only makes me feel worse. This tiny little being depended upon me to bring him safely into the world and I couldn't do it. I was supposed to care for him for a lifetime, but I couldn't even give him a childhood. I am so angry at my body you just can't imagine.

-Don't say, "Well, you weren't too sure about this baby, anyway." I already feel so guilty about ever having complained about morning sickness, or a child I wasn't prepared for, or another mouth to feed that we couldn't afford. I already fear that this baby died because I didn't take the vitamins, or drank too much coffee, or had alcohol in the first few weeks when I didn't know I was pregnant. I hate myself for any minute that I had reservations about this baby. Being unsure of my pregnancy isn't the same as wanting my child to die - I never would have chosen for this to happen.

-Do say, "I am so sorry." That's enough. You don't need to be eloquent. Say it and mean it and it will matter.

-Do say, "You're going to be wonderful parents some day," or "You're wonderful parents and that baby was lucky to have you." We both need to hear that.

-Do say, "I have lighted a candle for your baby," or "I have said a prayer for your baby."

-Do send flowers or a kind note. Every one I receive makes me feel as though my baby was loved. Don't resent it if I don't respond.

-Don't call more than once and don't be angry if the machine is on and I don't return your call. If we're close friends and I am not responding to your attempts to help me, please don't resent that, either. Help me by not needing anything from me for a while.

If you're my boss or my co-worker:
-Do recognize that I have suffered a death in my family - not a medical condition.

-Do recognize that in addition to the physical after effects I may experience, I'm going to be grieving for quite some time. Please treat me as you would any person who has endured the tragic death of a loved one - I need time and space.

-DO understand if I do not attend baby showers/christening/birthday parties etc. And DON'T ask why I can't come.

Please don't bring your baby or toddler into the workplace. If your niece is pregnant, or your daughter just had a baby, please don't share that with me right now. It's not that I can't be happy for anyone else, it's that every smiling, cooing baby, every glowing new mother makes me ache so deep in my heart I can barely stand it. I may look okay to you, but there's a good chance that I'm still crying every day. It may be weeks before I can go a whole hour without thinking about it. You'll know when I'm ready - I'll be the one to say, "Did your daughter have her baby?" or, "How is that precious little boy of yours? I haven't seen him around the office in a while."


Above all, please remember that this is the worst thing that ever happened to me. The word "miscarriage" is small and easy. But my baby's death is monolithic and awful. It's going to take me a while to figure out how to live with it. Bear with me.

My official follow-up

Today I had my official follow-up appointment with the specialist at the women's clinic. Before I talk about the appointment I did have, I want to talk about the one that I didn't. This appointment was originally scheduled for two days ago (Tuesday). Tuesday was when we had a ton of snow on the ground so the streets were awful and it was freezing. That turns a 20 minute drive into a 30 minute drive (with me going as slow as an old lady) and doesn't make a great start to the day.

Once I get there at 8:40 am there aren't that many people and I get checked in and back to the exam room pretty quick. They take my weight, blood pressure, etc. Then they leave and ask me to take my bottoms off, cover with the sheet, and the doctor will be in. So I sit there...aaaand sit there. It's starting to get a wee bit chilly with nothing but my socks and a paper sheet to keep my bottom half warm. I think it was 15 minutes later when the nurse came in to tell me that the doctor is in surgery and it's taking longer than expected; it'll be another hour. So I can go run errands, which it would probably take an hour just to drive somewhere and back, or I can get dressed and wait in the waiting room. So I go sit in the waiting room.

Never has waiting in a waiting room been so horribly depressing and the name been so appropriate. I tried to occupy my time by going through facebook and email on my phone and avoiding the magazines provided, most of which are pregnancy and family related, the last thing I need to look at right now. I got to see pregnant women going in and out, women and couples with their infants, and whole families with adorable little toddlers in toe. I must keep looking at my phone. After about 45 minutes they called me back to the exam room to wait some more until the doctor arrived. It was now two hours after I arrived and the nurse came in telling me that there were complications so they were having to reschedule all of the doctor's appointments for this afternoon. I was going to have to come back at 3:00 pm.

As soon as I got in my car I had the uncontrollable urge to cry. Tears were streaming down my face thinking of all the beautiful happy pregnant women and the cute little babies. It's not fair. I want that. When I got home it was 11:00 am. Almost half the day wasted waiting around. Skip to 2:00 pm where I recieve a call from the nurse asking if I can come in at 3:30 instead of 3:00? Sure. Skip to 2:50 pm where I recieve a call from the nurse telling me the doctor won't be in today so they will have to reschedule me for Thursday morning. Pain in the ass.

Now back to today's appointment. I got there at 11:30 am and had the same nurse. She didn't bother to weigh me again, thank goodness. (Somebody at work went to Hawaii and brought back chocolate covered macademia nuts and shortbread cookies. They're sitting on the cabinets between mine and Roselyn's half cubes and all I have to do is turn around to eat them. I'm sure I've gained at least a pound). She does the whole blood pressure and question and answer thing, then leaves me alone with the dreaded paper sheet again. I'm pretty sure I was waiting for at least 20 minutes this time with nothing but the sound of badly sung Christmas songs to keep my brain some-what occupied. At least it wasn't as chilly this time.

Finally the doctor comes in. "Sorry about all this...am I in the right room?" He trails off, mumbling to himself and trying to get the laptop started up. Then he asked what happened between when he saw me and....even he doesn't say it out loud. "So you had ruptured membranes?" Yep, my water broke Wednesday night. He asked me about what the doctors saw when they did an exam. I told him they said I was effaced and slightly dilated but didn't say how much, though I got the feeling it wasn't very much. He asks if they said anything about the polyp. They hadn't mentioned it to me. He had talked to the doctor from labor and delivery that night and she hadn't mentioned anything to him either. This is when he told me he thought that maybe it wasn't a polyp after all. If it wasn't a polyp, what was it? Pregnancy tissue. What this means is that it wasn't the polyp causing my bleeding. I was in the early stages of an impending and inevitable miscarriage. "Is this something that can happen fast? Because we saw you on Tuesday when you saw it but at the urgent care on the Sunday before they didn't see it." That's the thing, polyps don't just pop up suddenly like that and they are usually very easy to spot on the ultrasound. He did a quick pelvic exam and there was no polyp there. It's not there now and knowing how big it was, how difficult it was to find on ultrasound, and someone not seeing it two days before, it sounded like it was definitely pregnancy tissue. I have an imcompetent cervix.

I already knew that's what it was; I had done my research, which is why I never understood why my doctor never seemed to be concerned about that being an issue. With an incompetent cervix it doesn't have to be very dilated for bad things to happen. The amniotic sac can start falling through and it's like an hourglass effect on the inside and outside of the cervix, or as my normal physician said, like a balloon that is trying to squeeze through a small space and then "pops." If that was the case then the cerclage wouldn't have helped. Like he said, it was inevitable. As sad as it was to hear that nothing would have saved the baby at that point, it was such an emotional relief. I can quit blaming myself for thinking it was something I did and quit thinking of the what-ifs. Coming in a couple of days earlier wouldn't have changed a thing. They would have had to catch the incompetence when it very first started, which was somewhere between our perfectly normal 11 week ultrasound  and just prior to 14 weeks after I started bleeding and they found the effacement at the urgent care. Maybe if they had done the surgery the day they saw my cervix shortening they could have saved the pregnancy, but that is a pretty big maybe and it would have been impossible to schedule at that time when they didn't know definitively what was happening. It's better to put the stitch in before any effacement occurs anyway.

During the pelvic exam he said everything was looking pretty normal but my "cervix is looking pretty incompetent still." It almost sounds like an insult, doesn't it? He said what this means for future pregnancies is putting in the cerclage earlier, before any changes take place in my cervix. 14 weeks usually is the standard for early incompetence cases, with most women exhibiting my degree of incompetence between 16 and 20 weeks. This just means my cervix is more imcompetent. Cervix fail. Next time we will be stitching it up at 12 and a half weeks when we're out of the realm of normal, natural first trimester miscarriage and it shouldn't irritate my cervix too much. He asked about when we were thinking of trying again. I told him we would like to try as soon as we can, maybe in January or February after I have a period. He said that he recommends two cycles but there is no reason to wait any longer than that. Timing is going to be very important next time so it's crucial to have reliable and accurate dates. He has to be notified right away when we get pregnant again so we can get things set in motion.

Finally, there is some hope for the future. It's hard to have hope again but it feels good. Even though we lost our first little one, it doesn't have to happen again. I have confidence that with accurate dates and frequent, careful monitoring that they can prevent another tragedy. I know we will have a beautful baby to hold in our arms one day. Maybe this time next year we will be celebrating the holidays with a little addition to our family. That's a nice thought.

Going back to work

Here I am in week two of being back at work doing fairly well, but the first week was pretty awful. When I thought I was going to be back at work a week earlier, I had told my supervisor to let people know and have them not bring it up to me. It was still really hard for me to talk about it and having people mention it would just make it harder. It would have been true for that previous week, but it made it more difficult the first week back, the first week in December, when people didn't talk about it.

The first person to talk to me was my unofficial supervisor, Brandy. She just got right back into the swing of things and what I needed to be doing. She also seemed to have some difficulty looking me in the eyes, but maybe I was imagining that. Still, other people would look at me strange and give a weird, sad smile when I walked by, not knowing if they should say hi or not. Part of me was glad they didn't talk to me because I didn't want to talk to them. It was awkward day. I cried in my car all the way home that night. The next day I started doing job searches online feeling that there was no way I could still work here, not with people knowing what happened to me. I needed to go somewhere where people didn't know what happened and would treat me like just another normal person. That Wednesday was our monthy section meeting which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Still, I left wishing things weren't so weird between me and every other person at work. I told Andrew I wished they would all just tell me what they wanted to say and get it over with. He said that was how it had been at work for him; people told him they were sorry, they were thinking of or praying for us, then it got back to work as usual.

Thursday I had my second follow-up appointment with my doctor. It was two weeks exactly that day. While waiting for her in the exam room I saw the pictures on her poster board of the newborns she must have delivered. As if that wasn't heartbreaking enough, I could also hear a baby crying in another room. For the remaining 5 minutes I had to look away from the pictures and focus on the ticking clock, not the wailing child, to keep from crying. When she came in she asked how I was doing. If she had asked that question prior to Monday I would have been able to say "pretty good." I said "ok." I told her how hard it had been going back to work with people ignoring me and not knowing how to act or what to say to me. I told her I still wasn't sleeping well. It wasn't due to uncomfortable breasts and cramps this time, it was my dreams. Part of it was that I wasn't so exhausted from crying all the time, which as miserable as it had been, it had still helped me sleep soundly. Once the crying had mostly diminished, right before bed anyway, I had very vivid and memorable dreams. More like nightmares. Every dream had infants or children in it. In some dreams I was pregnant, some I played the protector of the child, and in some I was the child. I would wake up several times a night or, as I do now, very early in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep. She suggested I take Benadryl, but that hasn't helped me sleep through the night, it just makes me groggy in the morning. I didn't tell her about my dreams, just that they were weird, and she went on asking me physical health questions. She said that I seemed to be doing better than last time but to call her if I had any set-backs or seemed to be stuck in a depressed emotional state. She talked to the nurse and set-up an appointment with the specialist, that had been scheduled to do my cerclage, for a follow-up. She was also going to see if she could cancel the prenatal classes Andrew and I had signed up for and get our money back. Thank goodness for thoughtful people, especially when they're your doctor.

When Friday came, I was ready for it. What a long week it had been. Being busy and occupied at work really had not been helping my emotional state at all. I did finally get some relief from the awkwardness. I have a small cubicle in a shared space with another small cubicle. Roselyn works half-time in this building and half time in the other building. Despite the fact that she is in her 50's (I think), she is one of the few people I easily get along with and enjoy talking to at work. On Friday she told me that she didn't know if she should say anything but she wanted to let me know how sorry she was and she asked me how I was doing. Wow. It was so weird to be asked by someone that wasn't a family and so touching that she did, even though I'm sure she got the email that Brandy sent out saying I had requested not to be talked to about it. Just the fact that she cared enough to say anything made me a little choked up and I had to keep myself from crying. Her sweet gesure had turned Friday around for me. Now if only everyone else could do that.