An Anniversary

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had several friends experience the loss of a baby. In the course of reaching out, it made me think of my own loss - and how much the word "miscarriage" is still one of those hushed words that no one wants to talk about. It is one of those things, like post partum depression, that is still expected to be borne silently - and I don't understand why. Particularly when so much good can come from opening up.

I was very fortunate, my miscarriage is, in all likelihood, what created the hospitable environment for conception that I had been trying for for so long. I was one of the lucky ones, too, who was able to bring two healthy children into the world after the loss. So many cannot.

Still, it was incredibly painful - physically, emotionally and mentally. I wasn't sure what to feel or how to act or what to say. I wasn't even sure if it was okay to grieve - and no one had told me that miscarriages were as physically challenging as they were emotionally challenging.

As I thought about, and prayed for, those friends who've suffered losses recently, I went back and read a journal entry I'd written the fall of 2010, after reading an article on miscarriage. It was cathartic to write, perhaps it will be helpful to others - if nothing else to say, "I know it hurts."

------ (October 2010)
Four years ago this month, I lost a baby.

I woke up in the worst pain of my life, in a pool of blood, in the middle of the night.

I had no idea what was going on. Still dulled by the effects of sleep and the searing knife-like pain, I crawled to the bathroom, tried to clean up, took some medication and, too weak to go anywhere (and stupidly, not wanting to wake up Himself who had to get up at 5 a.m. for a 5:30 hour-long commute), I laid down on the bathroom floor.

I was cold and shaking and nauseous and scared to death - in retrospect, my body was in shock. Given the pain and the amount of blood I lost, it's not surprising. All I could think was I didn't want to wake anyone up.

The medication did nothing but make the pain worse. At some point, I lose the clarity of the memory - I was not even able to remember the exact sequence of events mere days later. Himself got up. I told him I was having a bad time of the month, that I must not be pregnant after all. He didn't question my matter-of-fact assessment mumbled from across the room. I sent an e-mail via my Blackberry to my boss who was on a business trip to Las Vegas, telling her I wasn't going to make it into work - that I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I was fairly certain this is what dying felt like. At some point I ended up on the couch piled blankets with a heating pad, bleeding, hurting and crying - not necessarily in that order.

Several hours later, the miscarriage was complete. It wasn't until then, when I passed the tissue that looked more clinical than human, that I realized what had been happening. I called the doctor. Sadly, that morning my least favorite receptionist on the planet (then and still) was manning the phones. She explained that if I hadn't had a positive pregnancy test on record at the office they couldn't see me for a miscarriage. After that, the conversation goes fuzzy. I was standing in my bedroom, freezing and shaking and weak and still in pain - though the passing of what would have been a baby had brought the pain from white hot, indescribable to something that would actually register on the ubiquitous 1-10 pain scale. Not knowing what to do - and still not thinking well - I posted a question to some online friends, who confirmed my suspicions and chided me for not seeking medical attention.

I called the doctor's office back, where the receptionist reiterated that there was nothing they could do if I didn't have confirmation of a pregnancy on file. Summoning any last reserves of strength, I demanded an ultrasound and a blood test. The receptionist grudgingly acquiesced. The only non-emergency ultrasound available that day was in a hospital on the western edge of the known world at a hospital I'd never even heard of, let alone visited. At least 5 hospitals in a 30-minute radius, hundreds of clinics, and I had to drive my cold, shaking, pale, listless self nearly an hour to a clinic in a town I'd never even been to - (with a chirpy reminder by the receptionist to be sure to "drink lots of water and hold it"). Somehow, in my not-thinking state of mind, I decided I should swing by one of my project construction sites to deliver some materials I had promised them that day - a testament to my "trip-chain, thrifty, above all don't let anyone down" self and a reflection of just how much I believed I was being a drama queen. It was, after all, on my way - sort of.

The clearest memory of the day came next - I remember stepping into the construction trailer, the world spinning a bit, and the assistant project manager asking if I was okay. "I'm on my way to the hospital," I said. He asked if I was supposed to be driving. "It's not far," I said, leaving him to believe I was going to the hospital that was mere blocks from the site, not one in another county. He, and another manager, looked at each other, alarmed. Here I was, dressed for the office, pale as a ghost, glassy-eyed and dazed. He said, "I think one of us should drive you." All I could think was "what on earth would people think if I showed up at the hospital for an ultrasound to confirm a miscarriage and evaluate the need for a D&C or other procedure accompanied by a male construction project manager - and how could I explain the need to drive by TWO hospitals without explaining WHY I needed to go to the hospital in the first place?" Above all else, miscarriages were taboo topics of discussion - not something to be broadcast. Never mind there was a phone. Never mind, if given the facts, they certainly would have called Himself or a medical professional or the grandmotherly sales manager in the next office over. Never mind, they wouldn't have accompanied me back into the exam room. Looking back, the fact that I was unable to think such clear, logic thoughts, was clear indication that I should not be driving at all - let alone through the Virginia countryside for an hour.

I said "No. I'm fine. It's not far." And that was that.

I don't remember the drive to the hospital. I couldn't even tell you how to get there now. I vaguely remember the ultrasound, which told me nothing other than, "your doctor will contact you with the results." I found out later that the person calling in the ultrasound order from my doctor's office called it in as an "evaluation of potential menstrual complications" - which explained why I had to drive to the western edge of the universe instead of any of the half dozen closer hospitals. It wasn't important. I was that patient who was all dramatic about something that isn't so.

I vaguely remember going to the doctor's after - having eaten nothing, functioning on the few hours of sleep I had had before the events began, still shaking, still pale, still cold and confused and hurting. I remember paying the $25 ransom (er, co-pay), having the nurse stab me with a needle, taking some blood and sending me away. There was no conversation about what had happened, what I should look for, what was wrong, or that I had in all likelihood just lost a baby. It was cold and efficient and clinical - as if it happened every day.

Thing is, it does happen every day. It is one of the most common, and yet unspoken, experiences of pregnancy. Millions go through some sort of variation on the above theme (usually with more sanity to at least not go through it alone). But it had never happened to me. I was terrified. In pain. Confused. Not sure what to think - what kind of person with severe hormone imbalances trying to conceive doesn't know for sure she's pregnant until her body rejects the baby?

I can't even remember if I spoke to Himself about it. I don't think I did. I did later, when the miscarriage was confirmed. But it happened on a day when Himself worked nearly back-to-back shifts at the clinic and spent the few middle-of-the-night hours between at a friend's house - so he didn't even come home that day. After all, the receptionist and nurse had convinced me it was probably "nothing" - since I hadn't even confirmed my pregnancy now, had I? It was probably just a very bad period. Or a cyst that ruptured. No one asked to see the tissue I had collected - carefully preserved on ice in a zipper bag in my purse. The tissue that an Internet search that night identified as most probably the gestational sac - still almost entirely in tact. I didn't offer it. By that point, I was convinced I was making a whole lot of drama over nothing, even though deep down I knew better. The ultrasound report would be back in a few days and it would tell us. I didn't want to be a drama queen. I didn't want to be pitied or fussed over - how can you mourn the loss of something you didn't even know for sure you had to lose? I went back to work the next day.

Two days later, the doctor's office called. It had been a miscarriage. My hcg levels were still high, but the ultrasound showed a complete spontaneous abortion - such an ugly, clinical phrase. I had been about 8 weeks along. I was advised to take it easy and stay off work for a couple of days - the news conveniently delivered on a Friday afternoon just before a 3-day weekend, after two days of burying myself in work trying to forget the whole thing.

Just after I received the call, one of our VPs called. My boss - still out of town on business - had phoned him after receiving my cryptic e-mail, asking him to check on me. He had been out of town, having only returned that morning. He asked if I was okay. I muttered an unconvincing "yes." He asked if I was sure - unconvinced by my lackluster response. "I had a miscarriage," I blurted, feeling the hot tears prick my eyes. Wanting desperately to take it back, to hide, to sob, to figure out how to deal with the news - the reality I had been fleeing for 48 hours.

He uttered the one thing I needed at that moment: "I'm sorry," he said. "That is a horrible thing to have to go through. My wife miscarried not too long ago. It will be tough for a little while." I hung up the phone and, for the first time since the middle-of-the-night agony, I cried.

Odd that the first conversation I had out loud about it was with someone I had absolutely no personal relationship with. Or, maybe not, since he was the first one to be unconvinced by my false bravado, worn down by two days of physical and emotional toil. He didn't know me well enough to know that false bravado was what I did best.

Eventually, I wrote a letter to the doctor, pouring out the emotional agony and the anger I had at how easily I had been dismissed by her staff. She phoned me from her home the day she received the letter and talked to me for half an hour, recounting her own experiences, which included multiple miscarriages. She told me to wait for awhile - to let my body heal and that it was okay to grieve.

The same day, a woman from church asked me if we were ever going to get around to having children. "You aren't getting any younger, you know - you shouldn't put it off."
A few others shrugged it off - inferring that I shouldn't spend too much time mourning the loss of something I didn't know I had to lose or dwelling on the events. "It is God's will," they said. Or "It's your body's way of sparing you the pain of a child who would have a poor quality of life." Odd thing to say to someone in acute pain.

I stopped telling anyone at all who didn't need it for medical reasons.

It's been 4 years - 4 years last week, actually. I almost never bring it up, except when I have to declare how many pregnancies I've had on a medical form, and I almost never talk about the experience itself. Part of it is that 2 1/2 months later, on Christmas Eve, I found out I was expecting again. It was a harrowing several months, dreading a repeat of that fall's events. There wasn't the energy to think about it. Part of it was not knowing how to feel - feeling like it wasn't okay to mourn the loss of a baby whose humble beginnings resided in the darkest corner of our freezer, wrapped carefully in plastic and sealed - until I was certain no one but me cared to examine it. Physically the experience had been traumatic - a day of severe pain and massive blood loss followed by 6 weeks of roller-coaster hormones that should have earned me the label "clinically insane," but I was certain I wasn't entitled to the emotional pain I felt.

However, I still think about it - once in awhile, on days like yesterday, when the weather begins to chill and the leaves turn and the sunlight loses some of its luster, I remember that fall day, remember the feeling of being totally alone, remember the numb, barely-held-together determination to not be a drama queen. The emotional pain of losing a baby has long since subsided. I have two beautiful little girls. I would feel greedy to ask for anything more. But last night, I stumbled across an essay on a father's perspective on the loss of his baby due to miscarriage - and I recognized so many of my own emotions and feelings in his poignant recounting. I realized that I had essentially shoved it under the rug - quietly mentioning it when necessary, but still feeling like it was taboo to take out an examine too closely.

I realized that while the emotional pain of loss has subsided, that the emotional, raw feeling of terror and being alone and chided for not knowing my body well enough had never gone away.

I am blessed. I have a beautiful little family that makes my life so much richer. And yet, now, 4 years later, I realized it's okay to say I too understand the pain of loss and the hazy, suppressed terror in facing something feeling utterly alone.

I hope this is the final anniversary.