there was no heart beat...
on the cold day that my now husband and i got engaged i remember being more emotional than normal. i couldn’t quite put my finger on why the moments leading up to him proposing to me had me so easily on edge (our real proposal story is for another time). a week after our engagement i found out why..
i was over at a friend’s house who happened to live down the street from ours. she was newly pregnant and offered me one of her extra pregnancy tests. it was more of a “just to make sure that i’m not” thing. i ended up taking the test home and hiding in the bathroom to take it. when the test came up positive, i ran out of the bathroom and lied to my soon to be husband that i had forgotten something for school at her house and that i would be right back.
i quickly ran down the street and my eyes were stinging as i held my tears in until the moment i stepped in her house. i broke down. i didn’t actually think that i was pregnant. i was just taking the test as a precaution. i had just started planning our dream wedding and had just gotten my acceptance letter into nursing school.
i couldn’t be pregnant. i wasn’t ready.
after some time of her and her husband calming me down, i finally made my way back down the street to our home. i walked in the front door and for some reason he had our mailbox in the oven. don’t ask me. i have no idea why men do the things that they do. he turned around and looked at me and immediately realized that something was wrong as he saw my red swollen eyes.
i started crying again as i lifted the positive test out of my pocket. he just smiled, wrapped his arms around me and said “everything is going to be okay.”
he has always had a way of seeing the bigger picture. he was so excited to be a dad and i knew that he would be the best dad.
i didn’t believe him when he said that everything was going to be okay.
i wasn’t ready to be a mom.
i thought that my life was over.
a few weeks went by and i gradually started to get excited.
i started picturing myself as a mom.
we started telling all of our friends and family, even though you’re not “supposed” to do that until you’re out of the first trimester.
we started thinking about names.
we started going over nursery ideas.
fast forward a few more weeks and i was 10 weeks along, almost out of the first trimester.
we were both so excited for our first real doctor’s appointment. we would finally get to hear the sound of our baby’s beautiful heartbeat.
we waited in the waiting room by all of the glowing pregnant mamas that were showing way more than i was and i remember thinking that i couldn’t wait to get though the all day sickness phase and have a cute bump like them.
i practically jumped up on the table when the doctor told us that it was time to listen to our baby’s heartbeat.
the doctor searched for what felt like a really long time and finally said “sometimes i have problems with this doppler, i’ll go get a different one”
she brought back a beside ultrasound machine but still couldn’t find our baby’s heartbeat. “it may be too early to detect the heartbeat, i’m going to have you go get an internal ultrasound.”
no this isn’t right, i thought. i knew my dates. everything that i had researched had said that we should definitely be able to hear a heartbeat at this point.
we silently walked hand in hand through the lobby as we passed by more glowing pregnant mamas on the way out.
the ultrasound tech refused to tell us anything. i knew she wasn’t allowed to.
the expression on her face gave her away.
we knew something was wrong.
“you’ll have to go back upstairs and the doctor will go over the ultrasound with you,” she said.
we had to sit next to all of the glowing pregnant mamas in the lobby again but this time we just put our heads down.
the doctor came into the room and confirmed our worst fear. “there was no heart beat” she said. she began rambling saying that my dates could be off and if they were there was a chance that our baby was okay.
“there was no heart beat.”
my mind started racing as i thought back to my initial reaction to being pregnant.
i was so ungrateful.
i wasn’t happy.
i was selfish.
this was my fault.
the rest of the appointment was a blur and the only thing i remember was the doctor telling us to come back in a week to recheck.
recheck? recheck what? that our baby was gone?
i was sure of my dates and i couldn’t fathom why she would want us to go through this same experience all over again.
we came back a week later only to hear the same thing.
this doctor was new. he was cold and unapologetic.
“your baby still shows no sign of growth.”
“there is still no heart beat”
he gave us two options. we could either go home and wait for me to miscarry naturally (he was unsure if this would happen since i hadn’t had any cramping or bleeding) or i could take a medication called cytotec which would cause me to miscarry.
i just wanted it all to be over.
i took the first pill later that evening while we were watching movies on the couch.
i felt numb as i pretended to watch the movie playing in the background.
some time went by and i had some cramping and minor bleeding, but it wasn’t unbearable.
around three hours later i took the next pill and was not at all prepared for what was to come.
the pain was excruciating.
i remember rolling around back and fourth on the ground in the fetal position, almost in tears.
the bleeding was intense but i thought that it was normal.
i couldn’t stand being awake any longer, i thought that if i just tried to go to sleep when i woke up in the morning it would all be over.
i was wrong.
i began getting up frequently because i was bleeding through the pads faster than i could even change them.
i started getting lightheaded, the room started spinning and i thought that i was going to pass out.
i was able to crawl from our bathroom to our bedroom which was only a few feet away.
i woke charlie up and said “i think we need to go to the hospital, there’s so much blood.”
he frantically sped to the emergency room and they immediately took us back.
i was hemorrhaging.
before i knew it they were wheeling me in a wheelchair to small cold room.
the nurse helped me up onto the bed and put my legs in the stirrups.
as my legs are wide open in the stirrups, two people in scrubs followed behind the doctor. they were students and were mumbling something about me being okay with them being in the room.
thinking back i honestly don’t even think that i answered them.
the doctor started pulling out massive clots trying to figure out what the problem was. `
after feeling like he had gotten most of the clots, the nurse wheeled me back to the other room.
it was decided that i would need surgery- a dilation and curettage in which they would dilate my cervix and remove the rest of the leftover tissue that my body could not pass on it’s own by scraping and scooping.
i just wanted it to be over.
why couldn’t my body just do what it was supposed to do?
perforation of the uterus, scarring of the uterus or cervix, laceration or weakening of the cervix, they went over all the risks before the surgery.
the risks.
what if they perforated my uterus?
what if i could never stay pregnant and all of my future pregnancies ended in the same heartbreak?
what if i had just been happy and excited when i found out?
while i am a nurse and i am aware that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, my circumstances felt different somehow.
it was my fault and i just knew it.
it was my fault and i just knew it.
it took me a really long time, a handful of therapy sessions and writing this post to completely process all of the overwhelming guilt i felt about loosing our first baby.
the month of October is pregnancy loss and awareness month and i just want you to know that you’re not alone and it is not your fault.
dear angel baby, we never got to hear your heart beat, i never got to feel you kick, we never got to see your face. we will never get to see you graduate or get married. i hope that wherever you are in heaven, you know how loved you are and that we cannot wait to meet you someday.
xoxo,
