It’s been a while since I’ve shared or written anything super personal. In fairness, the last 3 years have been a lot. A lot of happy, a lot of sad, and a lot of new.
I’m awful at sharing personal struggles all the time. Sharing publicly about deeper things about my life has always been hard. It has never come easy for me. I’m one hundred precent an in person kind of person. I share, but it usually more verbal than in writing.
I realized that October 15th was coming up quickly. October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
I laid in bed the other night and realized I never shared a big experience in our lives. Our biggest pain, our biggest struggle, our biggest sadness. The untold story of our miscarriage. There was so much happiness before the sadness that I kinda just forgot about it all. Probably because it was easier.
Our 13 week Ultra Sound.
In March of 2021 we found out I was pregnant. All the emotions were had, but we were excited. So excited. I thought I was finished with that chapter of my life, but God had other plans. My husband was out of town when I got the email for the gender of the baby. I, being who I am, ordered like 3 different gender reveal ideas because I didn’t know which one I wanted. Also, I’m horrible at keeping surprises so I needed to have it right away so when I found out I could surprise him!
The email came, I filled the balloon (this is the one I ended up using) with the correct color confetti. I anxiously waited for him to be available and FaceTimed him. I set it up in the hallway and grabbed something to pop it with. I popped the giant black balloon. IT WAS A BOY. A sweet little boy. We couldn’t have been more excited.
When he got home a week later we decided to surprise the kids. It was a Wednesday. We got another balloon (yes I ordered another one ASAP). I filled it up. We sat the kids around the kitchen table. My husband and I stood side by side as we popped the balloon. The kids faces were full of smiles. “I knew it was a boy!” They yelled.
Excited, happy, joyous. Everyone was just gleaming.
We had our 16 week appointment the next day. The day I don’t think any of us will forget. As usual, my amazing hubby came with to my appointment. We were still flying high from breaking the news from the kids the day before.
We walked into the room for our regular check in. The nurse led us back. She took my blood pressure, we joked and laughed. We were excited to be able to hear the baby’s heart beat on the doppler this time around.
She places the doppler on my growing belly. She searches for a few moments. She moves the doppler to another spot and listens again, still silence. She tries a few more times. We start to get a little nervous. She says she will go grab one of the doctors, so they could help her find it. She was still fairly new.
The doctor comes in. She does the same routine as the nurse. Still no heartbeat. She asked the nurse to grab the portable Ultra Sound machine. She goes over my belly again. This time though they can see. I can’t honestly remember what she said, but his little heart was no longer beating. We had lost our baby. He was measuring last at 15 weeks and 5 days.
We had already decided on a name the week prior. Archie. Baby Archie.
My only baby bump photo from this pregnancy
Since I was so far along I would have to have a procedure to get him out. The doctor gave us all the information and we had to call and set it up.
We left the doctor pretty much still in shock. We drove home in this strange trance. It was just pure shock. I don’t even think I had a thought the whole drive home.
This is the just the beginning of a long, long week for us.
We had to go home, make appointments, tell the kids, and still do all the regular life things. It honestly felt like the longest day of my life.
We finally made it made it home, completely devastated. I honestly can’t remember exactly what happened but I called my mom at some point. The first thing she did was rush over. She offered to take the kids to a movie so we could have time to start and process it all.
We also now had to tell to the kids, to figure out a way to break the worst news to our kids when a day earlier we had given them the best news.
We did it. There were lots of tears and lots of sadness as they took in the news. There is nothing more devastating than having to break your kids’ hearts.
The weekend was just beginning. I still had to make an appointment for my procedure. I had to get a special ultra sound at a separate place to make sure my scar tissue from my prior three c-sections wouldn’t be an issue during it all. By the time I got that scheduled and done, I couldn’t get in until the following week, which ended up a little more traumatizing than I thought. I had to now go all weekend with our sweet little boy who had no heart beat and just walk around and try not to think of it that way {which is nearly impossible).
I did my best to continue the weekend. My middle daughter was mutton busting at the rodeo that weekend. I couldn’t not go and show up for her. So I carried on with the things I couldn’t miss that weekend. Im a mom, thats what moms do.
I mostly spent the weekend in my room, bawling my eyes out every waking moment. Going out in public kept me from constantly weeping.
May Mutton Busting
Eventually the weekend ended. I finally could get an appointment to have everything removed.
That experience just added more anxiety and trauma to it all. My normal OB didn’t feel comfortable doing it. Why, I’m not sure, maybe I should have asked more questions. So I had to go to someone who was more experienced with this kind of removal of a bigger fetus. I was now too far along for me to pass him on my own.
I’ll spare the crazy experience of this event. I had it done and then I had to wait in this room for 30 minutes after to make sure I was okay to go home. The cramping was unbearable. It was again another sad, tearful, quiet ride home.
Somehow I had nothing scheduled work wise for the week. We were supposed to drive up to Wyoming for an event but clearly that wasn’t going to happen.
That week I hurt, I cried, we mourned. I wish I could say it only last a week but Im crying as I write this. It was awful.
The emotions, the sadness, the pain, the guilt. I cant even name all of the emotions. I just became numb for sometime after that. Just going through the motions of life. Trying to appear happy, but crying myself to sleep.
This was our baby Archie story. Archie’s story was known more by our friends and family. This next one not many people even knew about.
My sweet friends who hung out with me during the rodeo. Trying to keep it together and act like my whole world wasn’t falling apart.
Our sweet Tortoise that my husband got me. He was trying to get me out of the house and to do something in hopes I would find some happiness in anything.
Fast Forward 6 months. It was around Christmas time. I didn’t get my monthly visitor. I panicky peed to the fancy sticks hoping it would tell me why.
Turns out I was pregnant again! Still processing my emotion I exited the bathroom and threw the pregnancy test at my husband. I think I threw it at him in this confused, excited, but scared shitless kind of way. Like YAY, but also fuck. We had just been through one hell of a year and we were both still healing from it all.
It was super early still so we had to wait until after the holidays to make our first appointment for 6 weeks.
We head into our ultra sound appointment. Excited but also still kinda of numb from our loss. We weren’t in there long. They couldn’t find a heartbeat. This was our second loss in the last 6 months.
I wish I could say were shocked and sad but we were still shock and sad from losing out first baby just months before.
This time I could take some medication to help me do it all at home. This was kinda hard because you have to take this medication and wait…it could take 24-48 hours for it to work….
Again another story that I will spare all the details. It was a long night. I was crampy and basically in labor. Mind you I have NEVER been in labor before. It was a lot. It was painful, my back was on fire, I was in every yoga position trying to not be in complete pain. After 4 hours my body did what it was meant to do.
I called my doctor to let her know.
My doctor wanted to still going in after the mediation as well to make sure everything got out. So we did that. This time she did the procedure so it was a little less stressful. I spent a lot of my days in 2021 at doctors and hospitals. It was exhausting.
And that was our second miscarriage in 6 months. This is our story of loss.
This is our heart ache and missing piece. I am 1 in 4.
I share this in hopes that those who have lost babies knows they are not alone. These are our stories. Our painful, heart wrenching real stories.
