loving through loss

What if I never see my son’s smiling face again?

Everything will be fine. You’ll wake up. Don’t worry.

There was a feeling of peace that came over me. It washed away the fear that raced around inside my mind.

I laid in the hospital bed in a state of shock and disbelief as doctors and nurses walked around me. The grieving process had already begun 17 hours before when I had awoken at 3am and still found blood dripping into the toilet.

Maybe there’s still hope.

I grasped the thread of connection as tight as I could, not knowing that it was slackening with every second, minute, and hour that passed.

We could still do this. It’s not the end. It can’t be.

This is what we really wanted.

It felt like it took forever to fall asleep that night. My husband slept soundly beside me as I worried about the creation of a life inside of me. One that I hadn’t even known existed less than 24 hours before.

There was still a chance of a miscarriage. There was still a chance of things going wrong.

And I felt all that wrong was going to be reality. I was still bleeding. Pain still plagued the right side of my pelvis. But hope– I held onto reigns, tightening the slack as much as I could as if conjuring a remedy to fix the malfunction inside my uterus. I was inside my head begging God to find an antidote to the poison that coursed through my system, attacking the very thing I had been so hoping for.

I drifted to sleep in worry, and tears soaked into my pillow.

I did not dream of the child I was losing.

_

We were happy.

I sat on the bed in the ER smiling back at my husband who played with our almost two-year-old son on Facetime.

I had read positive HCG results of my blood test before the doctor had even announced them to me. His words weren’t a surprise when he told me I was pregnant, instead, it was the confirmation I needed.

I had a UTI that unveiled my pregnancy. It was still too early to be detected by transvaginal ultrasound. But they weren’t worried that I was having pain on my right side. Instead, I was to get an IV and then pick up antibiotics at CVS for my UTI. Though there was still a risk of miscarriage, I was instructed to come back in two days for another blood draw to see if the HCG levels rose confirming the pregnancy was developing normally or not.

Just two days. Hold on for two days my dear.

Please.

“So, I’m pregnant,” I told my husband whose face lit up in surprise and happiness. “But…”

I explained it all and ended with hope. He hoped too and I imagined our son interacting with his sibling.

I was jumping ahead of myself, envisioning that everything was going to be okay.

_

They didn’t make it to two days. Didn’t make it a day later.

I was writhing in agony by 8pm the next day. A pain that made it difficult to walk. One that had me shifting from foot to foot in the ER waiting room, confirming the bad news I had been telling my husband throughout the day. Our son was oblivious to what was happening, instead recovering from his own sudden sickness.

At least I still had him. Had his smiles and laughter lighting up the grim events that were taking place.

Little did I know that after being omitted to the ER and waiting for so long that the events unfolding would get worse.

HCG had decreased by a single digit.

My husband had gone back home to put our son to bed by the time the tech got in so I could get another ultrasound.

And then the chain of events escalated upon the results.

“The ultrasound showed that the pregnancy was ectopic. Your right fallopian tube ruptured, so the pregnancy was non-viable. We have an ambulance on the way to take you to Eastside for surgery. Sorry for your loss.”

I blinked and found myself in the back of an ambulance en route to the bigger hospital in town. I blinked again and suddenly was getting told surgery procedures, signing paperwork, frantically calling my husband to get to the new hospital, and mulling over the possibilities of the outcome.

“Sorry for your loss,” was repeated to me over and over.

The words deflected against my exterior. I laid there an emotionless pit, faces blurred. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t. I was still holding on to that thread, even though it was too late. They were gone.

No.

Dilation and curettage. Laparoscopy. Removing right fallopian tube. Anesthesia. One-hour procedure. Please sign here, here, and here.

“Don’t worry, many women I’ve performed this on have gone on to have successful and multiple successful births with one fallopian tube.”

_

I woke up disoriented and angry, still in disbelief.

_

“Did you have any idea you were pregnant?” The doctor asked me the first day I had been admitted to the emergency room.

“I didn’t think I could get pregnant because I’m still breastfeeding,” I responded.

“Well breastfeeding isn’t exactly contraception,” he explained.

“No no no, I was told I couldn’t,” I wanted to say. I had been told that two weeks before, even though I had taken progesterone months before to start my menstrual cycle again. But I stayed silent because I was happy.

_

Nothing prepares you for the trauma of giving birth, the postpartum blues, the development of postpartum anxiety or depression and the existential crisis that develops. Nothing prepares you for the tears you cry while sitting in the bathroom thinking, “What have I done?” because suddenly you’re someone’s whole entire world. And that life you created grows bigger and develops their own personality and then you want another because you’re so in love.

But nothing also prepares you for unexpected loss and the cocktail of confusing emotions that come with it. Nothing prepares you for the anger you feel because as a woman everything is on you.

I carry these scars which are a constant reminder of my body creating and losing life, I am plagued with the constant reminder and must heal from not only the physical wounds, but the emotional and mental ones as well and I have to just pretend that I am okay.

I am not okay.

It was one thing to find out I was pregnant and then another finding out I lost the pregnancy the next day. I look at others having multiple subsequent pregnancies without complications and can’t help but feel jealous.

_

Then there was guilt.

How can I grieve over an unborn child that was barely even formed? They were nothing but a mass of cells. How could I grieve for a loss that felt so insignificant in comparison to other things going on in the world? Of mothers who lost their babies at later weeks, or ones who gave birth to a stillborn baby.

How could I have hoped and loved for something that was? Something that hadn’t even... Something that… something that was… lost.

_

I hoped and dreamt of you maybe.

Were you the child who looked like your brother but with dark hair?

Or maybe that was a child of my future.

Have I dreamed of you?

Why did you leave?

Why did my body fail?

I’m sorry. I miss you.

I wish I could have gotten to know you.

Do you visit your brother in his dreams?

_

I have learned that anger and jealousy are okay. They are normal human emotions. Accepting those feelings helps us process them. Stifling those emotions hinders our grieving, which in turn hinders our healing.

You can love a life you lost. A life you never met.

_

I let the feelings of sadness and depression consume me. I held onto my son tighter, craved his physical touch, soaking in the moments of his toddlerhood that I would miss in the future. I only wanted to be around my husband, son, and dog.

I looked back on the past. Thinking if only. If only I had gone to the ER sooner. Could I have saved my baby?

It has taken time and therapy sessions to sort through the emotions and accept that it was okay to grieve. Because it was traumatic to me doesn’t make it less important. Nor the number of weeks my baby had been. I had to reframe my thinking, realizing that if a friend had revealed something similar had happened to them, I wouldn’t think that they were being dramatic and that their pain and sadness was valid. I realized I had a habit of downplaying my feelings and traumas that happened in my life, and it wasn’t fair to myself.

I’m still getting through it. Even while writing this, it still hurts. While the wound isn’t as fresh and my surgery incisions are now scars, it will live with me forever.

But I will always love through this loss and hold my son and husband even closer to me. Their love is what makes me thrive each and every day.

_

“I don’t see it as a loss. I see it as a gain. We still have you.” - My husband