Disclosure: This story was hard to write. Therefore, it is quite blunt, and very little proofreading was done after it was written. I encourage you to proceed with caution if you have recently experienced loss yourself, and stop reading if it becomes too much for you. My feelings will not be hurt in the slightest.
My Story
When my husband got transferred back stateside, we decided it was time to start thinking about having a family. I had been experiencing severe baby fever for years, but knew it had not yet been the right time. Now I had an appropriate amount of time left on my contract, so they could not try to deploy me even after the baby had arrived, and we would be stuck trying to figure out who would take care of the child.
Two months later, we found out we had been successful. I was elated, but cautious. I keep feeling like God was trying to prepare me for disappointment. I think I read every time the word “miscarriage” or “stillborn” was used in the entire Bible. All of a sudden, the people I would watch on YouTube or listen to on a podcast were talking about their miscarriage experiences. I prayed I was wrong. I prayed that I was just being hyper-aware because I was now pregnant myself. Thursday, October 10, 2024, I started bleeding.
I had a full-on panic attack while on the phone with my mom, trying to figure out what to do. I knew spotting happened during pregnancy. Was this normal? After she calmed me down a bit, I called the nurses’ hotline to see what I should do, and the kind lady encouraged me to go to the emergency room, though everything was probably fine. By this point, I wasn’t even getting any blood when I wiped.
I went to try to ease my mind and to hopefully see my baby. I did not. When they did the ultrasound, all that they could see was the yolk sac. There was no sign of bleeding anymore. The doctor told me that I was probably just not as far along as I thought. She guessed 6 weeks. That was impossible, I knew, because I had received my positive test 7 weeks ago. I had to be at least 9, if not the almost 11 I thought.
I went home and prayed. I sat on the couch like a potato and did nothing but pray some more. I spotted off and on for the next couple of days. Come Monday, it was a bit more consistent. A bit heavier. Wednesday night, I started cramping horribly. I was bleeding a lot at this point, losing massive clots. I sat on the toilet and called my mom to try to figure out what I should do while trying not to panic.
Then I heard the worst noise I have ever heard in my entire life. A pluck that I will never, ever forget. I knew at that moment that my baby was gone. I couldn’t see anything due to the various bodily byproducts in the toilet at that point, and I am still not sure if I wished I could or not. I debated for a long time what to do. The cramping died down, and I eventually flushed.
The next day was my first official doctor’s appointment. She told me it didn’t look good, but I would need to come back the next day for an ultrasound. There was nothing there but an empty uterus.
There are no words to describe the feelings and emotions that come from the loss of a child, especially when they are mixed with postpartum emotions. A time that is hard enough when you have a cute little baby to snuggle.
My anxiety skyrocketed. I couldn’t think about going back to work without having a panic attack. The number of times I would show up sobbing and shaking and get sent home immediately is numerous. I felt like I couldn’t function. I have always been a relatively high-anxiety person, but never to this extent.
My first period after that was horrible. It was like turning on a faucet. I spent two days bleeding through a menstrual cup every hour before things slowed to a more usual pace and stopped. (As an interesting side note. Medical professionals only judge the severity of your bleeding via how many pads you go through. It doesn’t matter that you can tell them that you are losing more than two tablespoons of blood an hour, if it’s not in a pad, it doesn’t count.)
December was somehow even worse in the fact that it was two weeks overdue. A horribly long time when you are trying to figure out why the pregnancy test isn’t positive if you are not bleeding. January’s was right on time, as was February’s, which struck at 0200 while I was on watch, on Valentine’s Day. Needless to say, it was not our most romantic Valentine’s Day, but sure enough, come March, I was pregnant once more.
Conclusion
I hope and pray that my story has been a help to you. I hope you were able to find some comfort and hope. While a horrible thing that I so wish never happened to me or to anyone else, God has been so good to me through the whole situation. I am glad that I have been able to help others through their own miscarriages, and it has provided so many opportunities to be able to share God’s goodness with people who might not have otherwise heard.
If you are walking through loss right now, I want to reassure you that you are not alone. Click here to read my tips for how to make it through this trying time for both the person who lost and for someone who is trying to help, but has never experienced it for themselves.
I would love nothing more than to pray for you as you walk through this. If you would like to request prayer, you can leave a comment below or message me personally at [email protected]. I would love to help you through this and be a digital shoulder to cry on.