Pregnancy Loss

I found out I was pregnant about a month ago. It was a surprise, as it always is for us. We have struggled with infertility, so pregnancy isn’t exactly something we ever really can plan. But it’s always exciting when it happens 🙂 I think the fact that I’ve lost weight may have helped, but it’s always hard to know the exact reason that we actually got pregnant. I also have a history of recurrent miscarriages. So not only do we have a hard time getting pregnant, but I usually lose the baby during the first trimester. This was my sixth pregnancy. The baby would have been due in November, which we thought was fun because that would mean we would have a birthday each month from September to January. I already had a fun pregnancy announcement picked out based around that 🙂

Unfortunately, this time around we found out really early that things were not going well. My hcg was going up very slowly, and, given my history, we knew what would probably happen, but we still tried to hold onto hope. It was a long, dramatic month filled with hard things, including not knowing if the pregnancy was possibly ectopic, which meant having to consider whether it was in my best interest to terminate the pregnancy. That wasn’t something I was comfortable doing without knowing if the pregnancy could be viable, so it meant a month of waiting, repeated blood draws and ultrasounds that showed nothing was going right, and a month of hoping that I was making the right choice not terminating the pregnancy and hoping I was going to be okay.

And now it’s finally ending. The end felt inevitable from so early on, that at this point it’s almost a relief. Almost. It’s sad. It’s always sad. I came from a big family and I always wanted a big family. My siblings are my favorite people and I always looked forward to watching my kids interact with each other the way I interacted with my siblings. But thankfully I am blessed and I do have two wonderful, healthy kids, and they have a very sweet relationship. I love that 🙂

So, we’ll move forward. I think eventually we’ll have a third. That’s what my heart tells me anyway. For me, it’s easier to deal with the reality that I don’t know if I’ll be able to get pregnant again, or if I will be able to keep that pregnancy, than to lose the hope of having another child. So we’ll keep hoping that someday it will work out again. Until then, I’m grateful for the two miracle babies I do have and the joy they bring me every day. I recognize that that’s a tremendous blessing to have them, and they are amazing little people.

And I’m okay. I get through these losses okay. But I guess for me it helps to just do something to honor this little life that was with me, that grew inside of me and once again made me a mother, even if for a short time. You are still mine. You were very much wanted, and I love you. 

I will carry you with me always.