I had another baseline ultrasound this morning with Dr Landay. Several things happened.
First, she confirmed that the nonsense over the weekend with my HCG being 5…then 1.5…was, in fact, miscarriage. All of the leftover trigger shot HCG should have been long gone from my system.
Chemical pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, miscarriage, whatever you want to call it, it happened.
It sucks.
I thought I was okay. I mean, I knew what it was; the confirmation from Dr Landay didn’t really change anything except prove that we really, really did get close this time, which is something to celebrate. I understand this, so intellectually, I thought I’d be okay. This kind of thing happens, more often than people realize. 1 in 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage, and most of those are chemical pregnancies, happening before the mom realizes what’s going on. I know that, in my head. I accepted this Saturday, had a good cry right there in the Cheesecake Factory, and drowned my sorrows in an entire slice of Godiva chocolate cheesecake. Calories be damned. It was medically necessary.
But that was Saturday. This is Wednesday.
I was okay Sunday. Then I got my period Monday. No cramping, no spotting first, just walking into work and hello, Aunt Flo. I’ve been here before. I knew what it was.
But it turns out that reaching a conclusion in your head and then having a doctor confirm your suspicions are actually two separate things. I’m not doing very well today. My heart is aching for another child that will never be, and I’m at the very lowest valley in my roller coaster. I’m a wreck.
I want to go home. I want to close myself in my office and just cry for days. I’m smarter than this; I know these things are common, but knowing how common they are doesn’t take the sting away. That’s the one thing that always gets me when friends talk about miscarriages.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, but you know this is actually really common.”
You know what? Car accidents are common. Cancer is pretty common. That doesn’t diminish the pain that comes with loss of a loved one when they’re in a fatal crash or lose their battle with cancer. It still freaking hurts.
Please stop telling us that they’re common. We know this. Does that mean we’re not allowed to feel the loss that comes with this “common” occurrence? Of course not.
Sorry. I told you I wasn’t doing well today. This was way worse than last month. And the month before that. Two months ago, I had no hope. I never got a positive home test, I never had any inkling I may have been pregnant. Then last month, I had the beta test at the doctor’s office and it was a big fat zero. No hope at all. It still stung a bit when I got my period a few days later, but I was expecting it.
This month I had hope. I was super tired, but I thought that was all the progesterone I was on. I was battling a runny nose and sore throat the entire week, but I figured that was just my allergies acting up from all the wild fires in the area. I felt off, but with all the hormones, I have no idea what my normal is any longer.
And then Dr Landay called me last Thursday with a technically positive beta test…I was allowed to hope. 5 is low – it’s the lowest possible level they’ll consider pregnant, but it wasn’t a negative. Those were her exact words. It’s not a negative.
And now this.
I would have much rather had no hope and get on with my life than to go through these last few days. Today is an exceptionally bad day. When hope is there, and that hope is gone, it’s worse than having none to start with. I would rather have no expectations than to have my expectations crushed. But maybe that’s just me.
So, anyway. That happened.
My Stork Got Lost 