Final Notes

Flowers from my Sis and BIL

This is the final entry of a 4 part story. For part 1, please click here. For part 2, please click here. For part 3, please click here.

January 21, 2012

Considering the stories I had been told, it seemed to me that the bleeding was never much more than a regular period. Until today. Which I thought was odd since it's been several days since it happened.

I was visiting my friend who was in that horrible air show accident in Reno last summer. She's doing really well. She's been working from home but will be going back to her office next week. Her prosthesis should be ready in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, while I was sitting there chatting, I felt a surge of blood. It soaked through my pad, and I could feel it spreading across my jeans within a couple of minutes. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, got cleaned up, and thankfully, stopped bleeding.

When I got home I decided to call the doctor. He told me that it's normal after the medication I took on Wednesday to have a gush. If usually happens between two hours after to a few days after. I felt much better. Well, mentally anyway. Physically, I was wiped out. I finally told the girls I just needed to rest for a little bit on the couch. Then I started having pains, so DH got some hydrocodone for me, and I ended up staying there for the rest of the day. I felt better after dinner though.

It seemed fairly simple - not that I want to do it again, but it wasn't as physically painful as I had imagined. Granted, I also knew it was coming so had pretty strong drugs to help me through it, not to mention supportive family and friends, and God's peace surrounding me when I needed it most.

It's amazing to me how different people and things were put in my path in this time. The opportunity to meet with my friend - she's been through the most horrific thing imaginable, and still has an incredibly positive outlook. She's been back in KC for a couple of months, but the date we had set to meet was today. I had no idea last week when we planned it that between making our plans and actually meeting up I would go through this. Seeing her today couldn't have been at a better time.

Also incredible is that I just finished reading the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom. I had never heard of this book, even though it is 40 years old. My best friend told me about it at Christmastime. I tried to check it out from the library before New Year's, but there was a waiting list. It wasn't available for me to start reading until - you guessed it - a few days before my miscarriage. It's about a woman who was in the Nazi concentration camps for hiding Jews and was able to give thanks for everything in spite of the unimaginable atrocities she endured. So inspiring.

And so I am trying to give thanks for everything - "even the fleas" as Corrie and her sister did. I know God has a plan, and everything will work out. Thank you all for your kind words and support.

The Miscarriage

This is the third of a 4 part story. For part 1, please click here. For part 2, please click here. 

January 18, 2012

Yesterday, I decided to go to my regular night job shift a little early since my FIL was taking the girls to the airport to drop off my SIL who has been visiting the last few days. I spoke to my boss and let him know what was going on and that I may not show up to work one night for obvious reasons. I left there and stopped by my office because I needed to print off some personal emails, but couldn't access them because my account had been hacked earlier in the day. I thought I had fixed it by resetting the password but Hotmail locked me out anyway. Frustrated, I headed back home to meet friends to carpool to bunko.

One of them, SJK, knows what's going on. I had called her last night to tell her while I was downing half a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food that DH was kind enough to run to the store for. (I'm a comfort eater.)

Anyway, we carpooled with two other ladies, so I didn't get to talk to her about it much. But I was so grateful she was with me because around 8pm, I started cramping. At 8:30pm, I had to run to the bathroom. I was bleeding pretty heavily, and I heard a loud "plop" - it was starting. I kept it together surprisingly well, though when I came back out to the kitchen, I couldn't look at SJK, because I knew she would be able to tell from looking at my face, and I would break down. I asked her if she had any ibuprofen, and swallowed four quickly.

We had just finished a round and were debating starting another one, so I begged off. We had dessert and wrapped things up, heading out into the bitter cold.

When we got back to my house and the others had gone, I told SJK what she had already surmised. She hugged me and wished me well. I headed in to the house.

I let DH know. He asked if there was anything he could do for me, but there wasn't yet. I couldn't find our heating pad like the OB had suggested, but I did find a lavender wrap we have that can be warmed in the microwave. I got into bed, and prepared myself for a few hours of pain and sadness.

Oddly enough, they didn't come. I was uncomfortable, but not curled in a ball moaning. And though I bled, it was more like a regular period than the gushing I'd been expecting. I finally fell asleep.

This morning, I woke up and felt like there was still unfinished business. I wasn't sure what to do. Call the doctor? Wait and see if anything more happened this morning once I was up and moving? Go to work?

In the end I decided to go to work mostly because I needed to tell my boss what was going on and meet a friend for lunch.

Lunch ended and still nothing more had happened. I called the doctor, and they said to come right in. I let DH know and was sure they would have to do a DNC to finish the job that Mother Nature had started.

The nurse did a sonogram to verify, and it all looked clear. Since I felt weird, though, to be positive everything was completely cleaned out, she sent me home with a med to do the job and hydrocondone for the pain that would go with it.

I waited to we got the girls in bed, then took the pain meds before placing the prescription under my tongue. She had said it would take about 30 minutes to dissolve and get started, so I watched "Modern Family" to keep my mind in a semi-vegetative state, distracted from the process my body was going through.

The lavender wrap and hydrocodone helped, but it was severe enough that I got out my iPad for multi-tasking distraction. DH rubbed my lower back while we watched "CSI," and that helped, too.

At 10pm, I took 3 ibuprofen as directed to overlap the hydrocodone doses and help with the interim. But even though I set an alarm for a second dose of the heavy stuff at midnight, I was afraid of falling asleep and missing it and being in too much pain to get it back under control. So I started writing today's entry. And wouldn't you know it, the alarm just sounded. Time to take my meds, read my Bible and pray, and to try to sleep.

Telling the Girls

This is the second of a 4 part story. For part 1, please click here.

When I called DH from the doctor's office, I knew he would be in his morning meeting. I left him a message and told him I'd be home around 10am, and to call me as soon as he could. He called around 10:15am and was already in the car on his way home. I have never been so thankful for him.

When he got home, I filled him in on the details. He choked up when he asked if they could tell if it was a boy or a girl. I told him it was too soon to tell. He asked if there was anything we could have done differently. I told him no, and even though I know it's true, I had briefly thought, except maybe if I hadn't worked out Saturday, or if I hadn't let myself get so stressed. But part of me had wondered last week if we were trying to force something that wasn't meant to be. The OB had even said that sometimes when our hormone levels are low, it's just our body needing a little help. But sometimes they are low because our body is trying to resolve something that's not going to work on its own.

DH and I sat on the couch, holding hands and leaning on each other. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him cry. I was a little surprised that he had gotten so attached so quickly. And so, so very thankful that I wasn't going through this alone.

I had texted a friend who has been through this - a couple of times, unfortunately -  to ask her what she had told her girls as they had been around the same age as ours with her last loss. She called me as soon as she had a break at school. It was wonderful to hear her voice and advice. She told me it would suck for a long time. Then it would get better. Then August would come and DH wouldn't understand why I was upset. I would tell him because it was the baby's due date, and he wouldn't get it. And I told her that's when I'd call her. Though, after how emotional he was today, I might be surprised by him again when that time comes.

He went to pick up the girls at lunchtime. By then I was able to be calm. While we were eating, I told them we had some sad news. We weren't going to have a baby after all. S asked why. I told her that it just wasn't the right time. I was prepared for her to be upset, but I should have known she would just want to know more. She asked me where the baby was, how it got out, couldn't it just stay there and start growing again when it was ready, etc. Thankfully, she wasn't as upset as I had feared. She's definitely disappointed, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

After lunch we all napped. When S got up, she wanted to play with the neighbor boy, P. DH took her outside and chatted with P's parents while they were on the swing set while I stayed in and waited for Baby R to wake up. Apparently, S told P that we weren't going to have a baby anymore. He said, "What happened to Baby R?" Leave it to kids to bring the funny to a seemingly humorless situation.