Tough Day

I had a miscarriage in June, and these last few weeks have been tough. I have tried not to talk about it too much to people lately because I am worried that everyone is sick of hearing me talk about it. I feel like it is all I think about some days.


When I got pregnant, I felt like things were not okay. We waited for a very long time to tell anyone. I had two miscarriages about 10 years ago, so I am always a little apprehensive to tell people. I feel like I am jinxing my pregnancy. My kids still talk about the babies I lost before they were even born. I was worried that if my miscarriages affected them that long ago, they would have a tough time dealing with me losing a baby.


With this pregnancy, at each appointment it always took the doctor a long time to find the heartbeat, and there were several doctor's appointments where they couldn't find the heart beat with the Doppler, so they took me in to find it with the ultrasound. At every single doctor's appointment, I always thought that I had lost the baby, and then they would finally find the heartbeat and I would feel so relieved. It seemed like everyone was announcing pregnancies and everyone was due right around the time I was due. It was always tough to hear everyone joyfully announcing their happy news, while I was trying to keep mine a secret. I have always been horrible at keeping secrets. Finally I passed my first trimester and we finally decided to tell everyone. We knew that this would be our last baby, and so we wanted it to be a big deal. We bought big brother/big sister shirts for all of our kids and we gave them to them so they could help us announce the pregnancy. We had a big family barbecue where we announced the news to everyone.




I have had problems with my previous pregnancies, and I often get put on bed rest because of pre-term labor. I started having contractions at 3 months with this pregnancy, and so I decided to lay down for the rest of the pregnancy. I was worried about how it would affect my family, but I was willing to inconvenience everyone to get this baby here safely. My daughter would come in every night to look through our baby name book to find a name for our baby. She was so excited. She was convinced that Heavenly Father would finally send her a sister. We tried really hard to prepare her for the fact that it might be a boy. She said that she would be okay with that, but she really wanted a sister.




Here is the dog eared copy of baby names book. When I lost the baby, it was the hardest thing for me to pack up. Makenzie suggested several people we could pass the book off to. The names in this book are truly horrible, but her favorite thing to do was look through this book.


My husband took work off to come to the doctor with me for the ultrasound at 20 weeks. We decided to take the three oldest kids in, and they were all so excited. The night before the ultrasound was like the night before Christmas. Everyone was so excited, and no one could sleep. When we got to the doctor, there were some problems with scheduling, and after having us wait for over a half an hour, they asked us if we could come in the next day. We told them no, that we had gone through great lengths to get everyone there that day, and so the doctor took us on his lunch break. As soon as the doctor saw the baby, he knew there was a problem. He let us know that they baby had died. He left, and we explained what had happened to the kids. They bawled for a few minutes, and then they haven't really talked about it since.



I had to go into the hospital and deliver the baby. Originally they had planned to put me in a room a little way off from the mom's having their babies, but the room that was available ended up being right in the middle of the maternity ward. They started me on pitocin, and hooked me up to the monitors. They told me that I could have an epidural if I didn't want to feel anything. I wanted to feel the pain. It was the only connection I would ever have to the baby. As I was laboring we could hear the cries of the newborn babies in all the rooms around us. I was very happy for those moms. I thought a lot about the lives that those babies would have. After a few hours the baby was delivered. It was a little girl. We were able to hold her, but I didn't feel any connection to her. She didn't look much like a baby. The cord had been wrapped too tightly around her, and she wasn't able to get the nourishment she needed.




There was a support group at the hospital that made these hand and feel molds for me. They made some actual molds of the hands and feet, but they said that they just fell apart. They said that they had never made molds on a baby so small before. One of the ladies that is in charge of the group has lost 4 babies, two of those babies she has carried to full term. She didn't have any living children. It definitely made me grateful for the 4 healthy kids I have.


The first month or two after the miscarriage was really tough. People were very sweet and thoughtful. I got to a point where I wasn't crying all the time, and I had more control of my emotions. I still thought about the baby all the time. I have no answers about how this baby fits into our eternal family. I have a lot of questions about this little girls spirit, and I kind of feel like I am stuck in my grieving process because I don't have those answers. I don't feel like I will get the answers in this lifetime.


A week after I miscarried, a woman in our ward had a grandson born at 21 weeks. I have listened intently to any information about this baby. It was exactly the age my baby would have been, and born just one week after my miscarriage. It was able to live, and is now home and doing well. This last month many of the women who were due around the same time I was have been announcing the births of their babies. There was one woman at church today. She is the daughter in law of a friend. She is due very close to when I was due. She was large, pregnant, and I believe she was in labor today. It was a tough day. My due date is a week from Tuesday. I'm having a tough time.
This was how I told my husband I was pregnant.
This is a hat was crocheted by one of my husband's co-workers for our baby. The hand and feet pins are from the support group at the hospital. I think they are pro life pins. They are the size of a 10 week fetus. I keep this hat in a drawer that I open several times a day, and it is always special to take a moment to think about my daughter.


Sorry this has turned out to be so long. This blog is more for me than for anyone else. I really needed to get this out.