The One That Left Too Soon

I can still remember getting the call like it was yesterday. It was early on a Monday morning. I had waited all weekend for the news. I was asleep in bed and the phone rang. “Nicole?” “Yes?” “So we got your results back from the lab and your hCG blood level is dropping and will most likely continue to do so.”

Let me tell you about the loss I’ve experienced during my childbearing years thus far.

First, let me preface this article with: no one, not a doctor, spouse, friend, family member or the internet can define loss. Loss is subjective. It is what you say it is and what you feel. It varies from person to person.

I am reaching back into parts of the last few years that are raw, real and hard for me. I am doing that because no one talks about it.

No one talks about the loss, the stress, the longing, the regret, the unknown, the changes. What we hear, see and perceive from family members, Hollywood and from the media is that a BABY is one who is born outside the womb, is near/almost term and one who can sustain life.

How quickly you fall off the wagon of being pregnant and your baby being viable. You have to reset your pregnancy tracking app, no more doctors appointments, no ultrasound to determine the baby’s gender, you don’t make it to when baby starts kicking and baby never makes it outside the womb.

Sentiments that are meant to ease the sense of loss such as “At least you weren’t that far along”, “it was for the best”, and “they wouldn’t have formed and developed correctly” are shared in desperation.

I finished nursing school and we had decided to start trying. I went in for a prenatal counseling appointment to get some ideas of ways to increase my chances of getting pregnant.

They had me leave a urine sample, the ones that always accompany a trip to the OB/GYN office. The provider came back in and said “Well we got your urine results and you are already pregnant! Let’s take a blood sample now and again in a few days to see if your hCG levels are rising therapeutically.”

I went home and prepared a cute Pinterest perfect way of telling my husband.

We started to plan, dream, imagine and expect a little one in October.

I had never known this type of loss and didn’t expect what was coming.

On Sunday before the phone call, I started bleeding, I remember being in Sunday school thinking I am bleeding SO MUCH and tearfully praying for a miracle.

When we got home from church that day Myron gave me a blessing of comfort.

The following week both of our angelic parents tried to comfort us in our loss. My parents sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers from a local florist.

My in-laws came down and said they wanted to take us to dinner… because we just had a miscarriage.

Although known statistics and happenings of the childbearing years, that of your first pregnancy being one of the most common to end in miscarriage, that pregnancy loss is much more common than we think with a moderate amount of pregnancies ending before one knows they are pregnant, can ease the blow, there is a strong and permanent effect miscarriage has on our souls.

We had the best support from family and friends.

The bishop in our church recommended I read a book called Gone too Soon by Sherri Devashrayee Wittwer. It was an amazing book that was so relevant and helpful to what we were going through.

We decided to try again a few weeks later in March and ended up with a positive pregnancy test.

The nurse in the office told me it was probably too soon to try again as my body needed to heal from the miscarriage, as a nurse myself I totally agreed with that from a medical perspective.

However, from a mental and emotional perspective I was aching for a baby following our loss and wanted to conceive as soon as possible to fill that void.

After having our daughter Emberly I quickly felt the effects of this loss we had only months before. I felt the real and devastating reality of postpartum depression with new responsibilities, changed relationships, body changes and hormone fluctuations.

I would cry for my lost baby although I had a perfectly healthy, heaven sent baby in my arms. I wanted to die and be with my baby who I had lost.

I felt these feelings not because I am a terrible, crazy, unstable individual but because I had never grieved the loss of our little one that left too soon.

Notably I remember feeling these feelings on another occasion when Emberly was 6 months old. We were packing up our little honeymoon home and moving to a new house. I hadn’t retrieved the above mentioned book from our shelf since our loss 15 months prior.

At 10 o clock at night packing up our bookshelf in our front room, those feelings and tears came flooding back.

5+ years later there are moments, thoughts and remembrances that make me think of this loss.

I don’t know that you ever heal from something like this or if you learn to live with it never forgetting the impressions that being had on you.

I am grateful in my beliefs in that I believe we have a loving God and that I will be able to hold and care for that child one day in Heaven.

Following my pregnancy with Emberly I had lingering hormonal changes in my body. Residual nausea, amenorrhea, numbness in my hands and had REAL feelings of being pregnant.

I took pregnancy tests like they were going out of style, very confused by changes I was confounded by in my body.

I did have faint lines (knowing now they were most likely evaporation lines) and so I frantically made appointments with a provider to get an hCG blood test.

Looking back I 100% believed and felt I was pregnant but I also think some of my subconscious was fishing for that infant we had lost.

I felt very alone, felt crazy, and felt like I was a burden to family and friends as I wrestled with these very real feelings.

This happened twice where I got a call from the PA with him on the line saying “ Nicole the levels came back negative, you’re not pregnant.”

I hadn’t lost a baby like I had before we had Emberly but like any pregnancy or possibility of a pregnancy I started to plan, dream and imagine what it would be like to have two little ones.

A final experience I have had with loss, happened this last year when I had 3 positive pregnancy tests while having an IUD(a form of hormonal birth control) in place.

I took these tests because I was experiencing incredible amounts of pregnancy- like symptoms. Fatigue, breast tenderness, abnormal menstruation, moodiness, nausea and bloating and they lasted for weeks.

My doctor ordered a blood test. Yes- I still had blood at this point for them to draw, and the test for pregnancy came back negative.

I was hurt and confused and although the IUD releases small amounts of progesterone, I had large amounts circulating.

For my sanity I had the IUD removed- trying to rid my body of hormone imbalances and real thoughts of being pregnant.

Dang, is it just me or are the childbearing years FULL of emotions? It’s a literal rollercoaster ride from the moment you decide to conceive. “Are we pregnant, not pregnant, do we want to be?” Pregnancy loss, hard pregnancies, little ones having unexpected anomalies, and changes in marriages following kids.

I share this not to gain sympathies but to let anyone know who has experienced something similar that YOU’RE NOT ALONE, YOU’RE NOT CRAZY FOR FEELING THESE THINGS, AND THERE IS HELP.

A few suggestions I have are:

1. Read the above mentioned book or a book on loss, any type of loss. It can help validate what you are feeling and help you start to move past it.

2. Check in with your spouse too-when a loss happens. We don’t always shed light on what dad is feeling because they didn’t carry the baby, don’t feel the hormone and pregnancy changes and in our society are expected to be strong, unemotional and to carry the family.

3. See a counselor, join a mom group or seek help from a leader in your church. Motherhood can be extremely isolating. I believe the adversary would have us believe we are alone, we are wrong/weird for feeling feelings of loss and that it was something we did or didn’t do that caused the loss.

4. Don’t expect to ever forget it but to move forward with it. Despite loss we can be happy, healthy mothers.

I am still trying to navigate this journey of childbearing and somedays it’s still a battle with losses I have experienced.

Please seek help, cry, grieve, make mementos, and then allow yourself to be happy and know you are enough.

You’re an amazing person and mom and this chapter in our lives can be so HARD and confusing.

Please if you feel like you can, leave your thoughts and stories in the comments!

Disclaimer: Use all parental, medical, life and general advice contained herein at your own risk.