What Happened, Part 1 - Thursday July 2nd

As I mentioned earlier, we went in for our first ultrasound on Thursday, July 2nd. I was 11 weeks pregnant and very excited about seeing our baby for the first time, but also nervous about if the baby was okay.

Early pregnancy is weird. You can't feel the baby move and pregnancy symptoms aren't always there, so sometimes it feels like you're not even pregnant. The ultrasound was going to be my first "real proof" that a baby was actually growing inside of me and that everything was going okay.

I had no signs of a miscarriage. No cramping. No bleeding. Up until the moment of the ultrasound, I thought everything was fine. They did the ultrasound and I saw the baby, but there was no heartbeat. The ultrasound technician took measurements that indicated the baby had stopped developing at 8 weeks, 6 days. We were devastated. The technician brought in an apologetic radiologist who confirmed her findings. They told me that nothing needed to be done right away (it was about 4:30 on the Thursday of a holiday weekend), but that I needed to call my midwife on Monday to discuss my options.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait until Monday. Probably 30 minutes after we got home, I got a call from one of the midwives at my midwifery practice. The ultrasound technician had faxed my results to her. She was very sympathetic and talked to me about my options - I could wait for the miscarriage to happen naturally (which could take a couple of weeks), take drugs to make it happen faster, or have a D & C. There was no way I was waiting for anything to happen, naturally or with drugs. I wanted the D & C. I wanted it right that second, but I knew that wasn't possible. She gave me a referral for a GYN and told me that his office was closed on Friday, but I could call him on Monday to schedule the procedure.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait until Monday. Within half an hour, the GYN called me. I didn't answer, so he left a very kind message, told me that he would get me in on Monday morning, and said he'd call me again to talk more about it that weekend. He called me the very next morning...on a holiday weekend...and I'm not even his patient. Seriously, this guy was amazing. One thing I feel lucky about was that I had a very good experience with all of the medical professionals I had to deal with during this time...except for the woman drew my blood at LabCorp on the day of the procedure. She was a beeyotch.

When the shock began to wear off a bit, Drew and I e-mailed the people who knew about the pregnancy and told them what happened. Thank God for e-mail. I would have hated to have to tell everyone in person or by phone. I felt fine talking about it after people initially knew, but it was really hard to actually tell someone what happened. I only had to do that twice, and both were people I wanted to call right away - my mom and my cousin (who had gone through it herself).

The first night was hard. A lot of tears and disbelief. Trying to come to terms that the plans we'd made were not happening, at least not for this baby. Part of me thought of this child as a miracle baby who was meant to be - since I'm older, I got pregnant the very first time that I could when we decided to start trying, and it happened on our honeymoon - and that there was no way anything would go wrong. It was extremely difficult to give up our dreams and plans.

It's Been Really Rough

Starting yesterday at 5:00 PM was the first time that I've felt really normal for any extended period of time since I found out I'd had a miscarriage. Yesterday morning and early afternoon I felt absolutely horrible, then when I finished reading the very last page of Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, I closed the book and for some reason felt great. It was really weird given that yesterday was one of my worst days - very high levels of anxiety and many crying spells. Last night my wonderful husband took me to see Bruno and the good mood continued. So far it's lasted on into today. I feel more like myself today since this whole thing started.

I'm planning to write about the miscarriage, what happened, what I had to go through, how I've felt, and how I've tried to deal with it. I think it's going to be better for me to write about these things in small chunks of individual postings. Like I said, I'm having a good day today and am not in the mood to revisit things right now. But since anywhere from 10%-30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and this rate doesn't even count for the very early miscarriages that occur in women who don't even realize they are pregnant, I'd like to share my thoughts and experience in case it will help other women.

Thank you for reading and for your comments and support.

Sad News

I went to my ultrasound appointment on Thursday and there was no heartbeat. I was 11 weeks pregnant, but the embryo only measured 9 weeks. Yesterday I had a D&C.

I'm going to write more about this experience, as well the journey of my next pregnancy. Right now I'm just having a hard time dealing with this and need to take a break. Writing has always helped me get through difficult times though, so I know I'll be back here soon.

Thanks for your comments and for reading.

First Ultrasound Today - 11 Weeks, One Day

I'm pretty excited. In just under three hours I'm going to have my very first ultrasound! It's going to be so cool to actually be able to see the baby and really know that something is going on in there. Early pregnancy is so weird because all of these things are happening inside, but you can't really tell. You can't feel the baby moving and you don't look pregnant (although I'm pretty sure I noticed a slight belly bump this morning...either that, or I'm eating too many chips and too much salsa). If you're not having morning sickness (like me), you feel lucky but also wonder if everything is okay in there. It will just be nice to have some confirmation that there is indeed a growing, living baby in my uterus.

I'll also have blood drawn since this ultrasound is part of my first trimester integrated screening. I'm not sure how long I'll have to wait for the results, but I hope mine are good enough to make me feel confident enough to skip the amniocentesis. I really don't want to have a test that has even a slight risk of miscarriage.

More later.