First comes Love then comes... Miscarriage...Wait! What?!
I'm a part of the wrong club. Lumped into a common but largely unknown statistic.
I never thought it would happen to me, but then again in the back of my mind something felt..."off".
Let's start from the beginning. I'm a 34 year old woman, increasingly aware of my ticking biological clock, but work has been my distraction. I've done fairly well for myself with more to accomplish as a marketing executive. During my high school and college years, I always had a reoccurring dream...me coming home from a successful day at the office, to my modern and stylish high-rise condo in my red power suit. I always interrupted this dream as aspirational. I was going to be successful and travel the world! Not a bad dream for a teenager to have!
But as I approached my 30's and reflected on my career and revisited the details of that dream, I never recall coming home to anyone. No partner, no pet, no children. Now, that dream seemed lonely to me. And it served as a warning to not get so caught up in my career that I forget to live. If it's fundamentally important for me to love, be loved and start a family, then I need to open myself up to the possibilities.
When I least expected it, I met "my person" (that's what we call each other) several years ago. We met through a mutual friend and he was nothing like anyone I'd dated in the past. And he had children of his own, sons. It was a world wind romance - navigating his creative, free spirit with my organized and sometimes calculated nature. We taught each other balance and patience. So unlike that presumed successful yet lonely person in my dream, it IS important to me to have that balance of a happy home, family and career. Will it be easy or perfect, no. But I'm damn sure flighting for it all.
Fast forward to 2017. Work has been great for us both, our families are strong and well, and we bought our first home together! What's in store for us next?
Well, a little pee (hey, you know the drill) and a 2 minute wait revealed that BABY was next!
Of course I always hoped for our engagment or wedding first, just to keep things in politically correct order. Yes, I had a little anxiety about breaking the news to my boss and a totally unjustified concern about what the other execs (mainly male) would think. My boyfriend and I had also been kicking ass at the gym and with our diet so I thought welp, there goes the budget for my personal trainer. But all of these SILLY concerns were fleeting. Within a day or two, I was giggling when my stomach growled and I took the nausea as a great sign that my body was doing what it was supposed to do.
We decided to keep the exciting news to ourselves until our first scheduled doctor appointment 13 days later. Meanwhile, he left for a work trip the day after we got the positive, so that allowed me time alone to download every pregnancy app imaginable, watch every YouTube video about the first trimester (I watched both the good and scary ones) and to get excited about the life that was growing inside of me. We discussed how we were going to tell our parents and tried to guess their reactions. We were excited. We made plans. I was connected to the blessing of this pregnancy.
I failed to mention earlier that I spent most of my 20's being told that I had PCOS and that it would be difficult and frankly unlikely that I could get pregnant naturally. So when it happened only 4 months post NuvaRing, I was in shock and immediately thanked God!
I wrote down ever little thing I felt in my app, including when I began to feel...nothing. That was 7 days later. I wrote, "other than being tired, I don't feel pregnant". I uttered those same words to my boyfriend on the phone. My absence of symptoms began during week 5. I never gained any weight, I was no longer nauseous, wasn't hungry and just felt regular AF. Seriously, if it wasn't for my excitement (and slight worry) to remind me, I probably would have been Starbucks wasted! I did not feel pregnant.
It's amazing how the symptoms of bloating, nausea and frequent urination can be so annoying yet when they stop you are dying for a sign, any sign, to let you know that your body is doing what it was born to do. It killed me to wait for that doctor's appointment. That just further confirmed that we made the right decision to wait before we told anyone because something just felt, "off".
I even thought to myself, "I can't be THAT lucky to not feel sick". Every app and YouTuber I watched described week 5-6 symptoms that just weren't happening for me. I didn't stress over it too much, but I also didn't refrain from rotating in miscarriage videos along with the joyful videos that I watched. So, maybe that was my instincts? I don't know.
The week of my loss, I had some lower back pain, cramping and bloating - all of which felt like my period was coming. My abdomen felt "heavy", like there was a weight pulling down on it. The bloating was also back and in full effect. I felt kinda miserable, which was tough because it was a really intense week at work so it was hard to push through.
The day it all began my lower back pain became more intense. When I got home from work, I saw a really faint light pink tint when I wiped myself. I stuck some tissue up there, which revealed dark brown blood as if my period was ending. I called my boyfriend as he was boarding his flight and told him I'm spotting. He told me not to worry and that he would see me in a few hours. I searched online and on YouTube for answers and honestly I saw a mix. Some said there's nothing to worry about as it could be implantation bleeding, your body shedding your old lining, and as long as it wasn't bright red you're probably in the clear. Other findings showed I should be concerned. I can't describe how bad the cramps were. On my drive to pick up my boyfriend from the airport, I literally turned on my car seat warmer (mind you it's August) in hopes that the heat would help. I had to exhale through the pain.
When we got home I put a pantyliner on before bed and he held me while I somehow drifted off to sleep. At 6am I woke up in a panic from a nightmare that I was miscarrying. I went to the bathroom and had a sigh of relief when my pantyliner was dry. But when I began to urinate, my real life nightmare was confirmed. All of the excitement and the plans were literally leaving my body. It was over. I knew we were losing the baby.
I never thought it would happen to me, but then again in the back of my mind something felt..."off".
Let's start from the beginning. I'm a 34 year old woman, increasingly aware of my ticking biological clock, but work has been my distraction. I've done fairly well for myself with more to accomplish as a marketing executive. During my high school and college years, I always had a reoccurring dream...me coming home from a successful day at the office, to my modern and stylish high-rise condo in my red power suit. I always interrupted this dream as aspirational. I was going to be successful and travel the world! Not a bad dream for a teenager to have!
But as I approached my 30's and reflected on my career and revisited the details of that dream, I never recall coming home to anyone. No partner, no pet, no children. Now, that dream seemed lonely to me. And it served as a warning to not get so caught up in my career that I forget to live. If it's fundamentally important for me to love, be loved and start a family, then I need to open myself up to the possibilities.
When I least expected it, I met "my person" (that's what we call each other) several years ago. We met through a mutual friend and he was nothing like anyone I'd dated in the past. And he had children of his own, sons. It was a world wind romance - navigating his creative, free spirit with my organized and sometimes calculated nature. We taught each other balance and patience. So unlike that presumed successful yet lonely person in my dream, it IS important to me to have that balance of a happy home, family and career. Will it be easy or perfect, no. But I'm damn sure flighting for it all.
Fast forward to 2017. Work has been great for us both, our families are strong and well, and we bought our first home together! What's in store for us next?
Well, a little pee (hey, you know the drill) and a 2 minute wait revealed that BABY was next!
Of course I always hoped for our engagment or wedding first, just to keep things in politically correct order. Yes, I had a little anxiety about breaking the news to my boss and a totally unjustified concern about what the other execs (mainly male) would think. My boyfriend and I had also been kicking ass at the gym and with our diet so I thought welp, there goes the budget for my personal trainer. But all of these SILLY concerns were fleeting. Within a day or two, I was giggling when my stomach growled and I took the nausea as a great sign that my body was doing what it was supposed to do.
We decided to keep the exciting news to ourselves until our first scheduled doctor appointment 13 days later. Meanwhile, he left for a work trip the day after we got the positive, so that allowed me time alone to download every pregnancy app imaginable, watch every YouTube video about the first trimester (I watched both the good and scary ones) and to get excited about the life that was growing inside of me. We discussed how we were going to tell our parents and tried to guess their reactions. We were excited. We made plans. I was connected to the blessing of this pregnancy.
I failed to mention earlier that I spent most of my 20's being told that I had PCOS and that it would be difficult and frankly unlikely that I could get pregnant naturally. So when it happened only 4 months post NuvaRing, I was in shock and immediately thanked God!
I wrote down ever little thing I felt in my app, including when I began to feel...nothing. That was 7 days later. I wrote, "other than being tired, I don't feel pregnant". I uttered those same words to my boyfriend on the phone. My absence of symptoms began during week 5. I never gained any weight, I was no longer nauseous, wasn't hungry and just felt regular AF. Seriously, if it wasn't for my excitement (and slight worry) to remind me, I probably would have been Starbucks wasted! I did not feel pregnant.
It's amazing how the symptoms of bloating, nausea and frequent urination can be so annoying yet when they stop you are dying for a sign, any sign, to let you know that your body is doing what it was born to do. It killed me to wait for that doctor's appointment. That just further confirmed that we made the right decision to wait before we told anyone because something just felt, "off".
I even thought to myself, "I can't be THAT lucky to not feel sick". Every app and YouTuber I watched described week 5-6 symptoms that just weren't happening for me. I didn't stress over it too much, but I also didn't refrain from rotating in miscarriage videos along with the joyful videos that I watched. So, maybe that was my instincts? I don't know.
The week of my loss, I had some lower back pain, cramping and bloating - all of which felt like my period was coming. My abdomen felt "heavy", like there was a weight pulling down on it. The bloating was also back and in full effect. I felt kinda miserable, which was tough because it was a really intense week at work so it was hard to push through.
The day it all began my lower back pain became more intense. When I got home from work, I saw a really faint light pink tint when I wiped myself. I stuck some tissue up there, which revealed dark brown blood as if my period was ending. I called my boyfriend as he was boarding his flight and told him I'm spotting. He told me not to worry and that he would see me in a few hours. I searched online and on YouTube for answers and honestly I saw a mix. Some said there's nothing to worry about as it could be implantation bleeding, your body shedding your old lining, and as long as it wasn't bright red you're probably in the clear. Other findings showed I should be concerned. I can't describe how bad the cramps were. On my drive to pick up my boyfriend from the airport, I literally turned on my car seat warmer (mind you it's August) in hopes that the heat would help. I had to exhale through the pain.
When we got home I put a pantyliner on before bed and he held me while I somehow drifted off to sleep. At 6am I woke up in a panic from a nightmare that I was miscarrying. I went to the bathroom and had a sigh of relief when my pantyliner was dry. But when I began to urinate, my real life nightmare was confirmed. All of the excitement and the plans were literally leaving my body. It was over. I knew we were losing the baby.
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