Miscarriage changes your view

I had to take some time off and focus on the rest of my life. I concentrated on getting my house in order (didn’t stay that way for long). And I played with my kids. Things were going along fairly well. I still got sad occasionally (and still do). I thought about trying again when August came (the first month we were allowed to start TTC again). I wasn’t sure though. We got carried away (I guess you could say) one night. I didn’t even think I had ovulated that month and nothing was timed to be prefect like we’d always done. I didn’t think anything would come of that night. I realized I was late. I waited a few more days and still nothing. I tested. BFP. I wasn’t excited. I’m still not. I just can’t seem to get excited. I guess I’m afraid to. I’ve taken a few tests and the test line is way darker than the control line (it wasn’t before). I’m exhausted and nauseous. I wasn’t last time. So maybe that’s a good sign. I haven’t even called my doctor’s office yet. They require a blood test before they make your first appointment. They don’t see you until nine weeks. I guess I’ll call in two weeks when I’m eight weeks along, if I get that far.
This is going to be our last child. I really wanted to remember my last pregnancy fondly. I want to be happy and excited. I want to be able to connect to this little one. I don’t even really think of myself as being pregnant. Miscarriage really messes with the way you think about pregnancy. Being pregnant no longer means I’ll be bringing a bay home anymore.
I’ve spoken to others on http://thespeakeasyboards.com. I guess it’s normal to feel this way. Others have felt this way and have later been able to enjoy their pregnancy and look forward to their baby. I think maybe I’ll feel better after I see the baby on the ultrasound and see that everything is going fine. I’m just too afraid to get excited.
We’re not telling anyone. I don’t even feel the urge to tell anyone. My wonderful husband wants to tell. He’s excited. I wish I could feel that way. Eventually, I will. I’m hoping. I really do want this baby, I’m just to scared to get attached I guess.

It affected me more than I thought

Tomorrow I would have been sixteen weeks along, almost half way through. I am still so bitter and angry and sad. I’m just a mixed up mess of emotions. I really thought I was beginning to be mostly alright. I’m finding though that I hate seeing pregnant women. Last weekend my husband and I had a date (the kids were at my mom’s house for the weekend). While we were eating, a very pregnant woman came in complaining that the baby just needed to come out now. I didn’t want to hear that because I’d love to be pregnant. I wouldn’t care if I was hot and miserable as long as I was pregnant. I wanted to walk over and tell her to enjoy her pregnancy and not to wish the baby out. I wanted to say to her that just because she is pregnant now it doesn’t mean she’ll be bringing home a baby. Pregnant does not equal baby. I will never think that again. I didn’t say anything, but my wonderful husband sensed the change in me and asked what was wrong. I said, “Nothing.” I didn’t want to ruin his night, but he knew. He asked, “The baby?” I still said I was fine. He quickly paid the bill and got us out of there. I love him so much.
I can’t stand seeing the belly grow on the mother of the little boy I watch. She’s due a month before I would have been. I’m supposed to start watching her new baby boy in January. I’m not sure how I’ll handle that. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to sell our 12 acres of land and move too far from her for me to babysit for her by then. I really don’t see that happening, but I can still wish for it.
I am now babysitting a twelve week old baby boy. It’s been difficult, but I’m getting through. My arms ache to hold my own little baby.
Another added concern now, I think I might have upset my pregnant friend. Short background: she was trying for over a year (I didn’t know) to have a baby. One of her friends knew and was also trying and having problems. This friend of hers had a miscarriage two years ago. Well I guess basically what happened was this friend of hers asked how she was doing and she was having a bad day and was telling her she was feeling sick and other such pregnancy stuff. This friend of hers told her not to whine to her about it. (Hopefully, you understood that.) I think that was really rude since she did ask and she also knows what they went through to get pregnant. My friend was talking to me about it and said, “it’s been two years shouldn’t she be over it? I would be.” I told her that she couldn’t know how she’d be. I’ve talked to women online that are still grieving years later. I don’t think that I’ll ever forget my baby.) She said right after that she’d let us get going (we were on our way to pick up my kids from their grandma’s house). I’m wondering now if I didn’t upset her and make her think I was taking her friend’s side. I’m taking no one’s side. I can just understand both sides now. I guess I’ll have to call her and make sure she’s not upset. She does have the raging pregnant hormones going on now.
I’d tell her how I’m still feeling; if I thought it would help. I don’t think it will. I’ve come to discover that unless you’ve had a miscarriage you really can’t understand. I also don’t want to worry her about her pregnancy. She’s already had one bad dream about it.
Today I am feeling really sad and depressed. I really want to try again in August. I am terrified of another miscarriage though. Yes, my doctor said he believed we’d be fine with another pregnancy. I have no risk factors. However, the thought and worry will still be in my head now. I don’t know how I’d get past that and be able to be happy.
Maybe I won’t even have to worry about that though. My cycles now seem to still be messed up. I am spotting during the middle of my cycle, right before I ovulate now. I never had that before. Maybe I’m completely messed up now and can’t even get pregnant again. This is just a side worry I wonder about now and then. I really am not planning on being pregnant again. I thought that I would really be yearning to try again every month when I started ovulating, but I don’t have an urge at all to try. I guess this miscarriage affected me more than I thought.

Keeping Busy

It’s been a few days since I posted last. I’ve been trying to keep myself busy. It seems to help to having something to do. I have less time to just sit and think about our lost baby. I decided to call the baby Riley. It’s a neutral name and it helps me. I really hated calling our little angel “it”. I also bought myself a necklace to wear to always remember our angel baby.
I am planning on having a yard sale this weekend to clean out a lot of stuff we don’t use. If we haven’t used it in over a year then we probably don’t need it. The kids have way too many toys so I’ve thinned them out as well. There are a lot of clothes they’ve grown out of that I’m not keeping. I only keep my favorites in case we do decide to try again. I’m also getting rid of a lot of maternity clothes. They are mostly summer clothes and I won’t need them.
We are planning a trip to Ocean City, MD the first weekend in June so I’m getting stuff ready for that as well. There’s not a lot of time before we need to be ready for that. Then in August is Nert’s birthday so I’m trying to plan what we’re going to do for that. I don’t know what I’m going to do to occupy my time after everything is done. I guess I’ll think about that when I need to.
I finally talked to my friend who is pregnant. I found out that they have been trying to get pregnant for about two years now. They just didn’t tell anyone. I am truly happy for her. I guess I’m starting to heal if I can be happy for her. I do admit that I’m jealous. I would love to be pregnant still with my angel. I feel bad though because my friend is worried about getting out of the first trimester. I hope what happened to us isn’t making her worry about it happening to her. I’d feel really bad knowing that our loss is stopping her from feeling secure that her baby will be fine.
I do so miss our little angel baby. I would have been almost twelve weeks today. Twelve weeks is when the miscarriage rate drops. It is also when we told everyone about our first two. We told early this last time. I don’t know why. I guess we just thought everything would go along good like the first two times. I would really like to try again for our third baby in August, but I don’t know how I’d get through the first twelve weeks. I really don’t know how I’d get through the first eight weeks, up to the point when we lost this last little one. I know I’d be so afraid the whole time. Do I really want to spend what would be my last pregnancy afraid? I’d really like for it to be a happy occasion. I do really want one last baby though.

What People say hurts

Tuesday was a very bad day for me. First I received those tiny little newborn diapers in the mail. Then I had a neighbor congratulated me. I hadn’t known my husband had even told her we had been expecting. Luckily, Donn was there and gently steered her away from that topic until I was out of earshot. I then went to my sister-in-law’s house. All was fine there for a while. Nert is potty training and likes to follow everyone to the bathroom. He kept following my sister-in-law in and at one point she yelled out, “You need to have one (baby) every two years until I’m dead so I can always have one in here with me.” I know she was joking but I just wanted to say, “Well we tried but it didn’t work out.” What I did say was, “you’ll have to find someone else to have them because I think we’re done.” At that point my mother-in-law chimed in with, “oh no, you can’t stop now. You need to have more……” I tuned out the last of what she said.
Everyone expects me to be over it already I guess. Everyone goes on about their day, but I still feel the loss. They just think that we can have another to replace the one we lost. I pretend to be doing just great and moving on with most people. I know they don’t want to be bothered by my sadness.
I am actually doing okay today. I’m sad but I’m dealing today.
Nert’s potty training is going well. I put him in just underwear and a t-shirt and he asks to sit on the potty when he needs to. We’ve been doing this since Monday and he only had a couple of accidents the first day. He would start going and realize it and then stop and say he had to sit on the potty. Yesterday he had one accident when he was distracted playing. Today he hasn’t had any. I do still put him in diapers to sleep in. He doesn’t wake to go yet so I figured I’d just get him day time trained for now. That will still save us a lot of money.
Sweet Pea is learning more words every day. She is such a happy little girl. Her hair is waving more as the temperature outside goes up. Her hair is finally long enough in the back to have ringlets in it.
The two of them have some battles over toys. If one has a toy then the other wants it. If one is sitting on my lap then the other one wants to be there. And of course they can’t share.
I mentioned to Donn about wanting to name the baby we lost. He doesn’t want to. He thinks that will just make it harder on me. I tried to explain to him the reasons that I wanted to do it and that I feel that it would make me feel better. He doesn’t want to use the names we had picked out. I agree but not for the same reason as him. He wants to keep them to use later for another baby. (I think he really wants to try again.) I’m not even sure I’d want to use them again. I want a gender neutral name since we don’t know what gender our lost baby was.
I’m still unsure of whether I want to try again or not. I was really sure at first that I wanted to try again as soon as possible. Now I go back and forth between wanting to try again and not wanting to.

Not doing so well today

I’m not doing so well today. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant I signed up on the baby web sites. I’ve unsubscribed to them, but some of the mailings had already gone out. Today I received a sample package of newborn diapers. I couldn’t help myself, I cried. Luckily, the kids were taking their naps. Seeing those tiny diapers was just too much for me, even now I can hardly bare to think of them.
I’m just too emotional to write more today.

Mother's Day Weekend wasn't so bad

It was so nice to have Kelly and her family here. We got a sitter for the kids and the four adults went out. I drank and drank, played pool, and drank some more. I drank more than I probably should have, but I smiled and laughed. I haven’t done that for a week and a half. I was able to talk about the miscarriage without crying. Kelly didn’t make me feel as if she didn’t want to hear about it. She is such a good friend. The only bad part of the night was when a woman came in and yelled across the room to a group of her friends, “We had our baby!” Then the emotions hit. I didn’t cry. I was angry, angry that she would be in a bar instead of at home with her infant! Those feelings passed and I was still able to enjoy my time out.
The next day we talked about old times in high school. We looked at our old year books. We went out to eat for Mother’s Day. A day I had been dreading because I thought it would be so hard to get through even with having two perfectly healthy children. We even had ice cream cake. It was a good weekend.
I dreamed about the miscarriage for the first time. I didn’t wake up in tears. I thought maybe I was beginning to work through things.
Donn so badly wanted to be close to me; to hold me and make love to me like before all of this happened. I wasn’t sure I was ready. The bleeding had stopped with just occasional spotting here and there, but nothing much. I figured he needed the closeness to start to heal more himself so I figured we give it a try. My body responded the way it always has, but emotionally I was a wreck. I just kept thinking about the last time we had made love, the day before the spotting started. I cried, but I didn’t let him see. I think he knew though. He asked if I was alright. I said I was. I don’t want him hurting. I’m not sure when I’ll really want to do that again though.
Today a neighbor stopped by to drop of some boxes of clothes for Donn to go through. This neighbor didn’t know we had even been pregnant again. I mentioned wanting to have a yard sale over Memorial Day weekend to clean out some stuff in the attic. I mentioned I had some baby stuff to get rid off in case he knew anyone who’d need it, because I had thinned out some of the stuff I was keeping. He said to me, “well you already have a boy and a girl there’s no sense in having anymore.” I wanted to tell him right then that we had been expecting another, but I didn’t. But really, it’s no one’s business but ours how many children we have!
I have been reading a miscarriage web site (http://www.pregnancyloss.info/how_to_cope.htm) while the kids slept. It has a lot of information on it about healing and coping. It talked about naming your baby. I think I would really like to do that because I hate saying “it” all the time. “It” was a very much wanted baby who should have a name. I plan on talking to Donn about this tonight.
What has really helped me a lot it my blog. I know not many people will read it and most wouldn’t care to or want to. I just need to have some place to go to talk about what I’m going through. It is so hard to keep everything inside. I know that some friends don’t want to talk about it and some I worry that they’ll try to be sensitive and say something that will be hurtful. There are some things I can write in here that I know I don’t really mean, but my friends may be hurt by what I say. I know that I have gotten snippy in my thinking. I think mean things a lot of the time now. I also know I don’t really mean it. I don’t want to say something to my friends that I’ll have to take back later. I know my friends are just trying to be sensitive even if it doesn’t come across that way.
Something else that has helped is talking to a woman on http://www.misdiagnosedmiscarriage.com/. I first posted on there after I found out my baby was measuring three weeks behind what it should be. She had a miscarriage too and we have been posting back and forth to each other. It helps to be able to talk with someone who is feeling the same things that I am.
Today I have felt guilty that I am so sad over losing this one baby while so many other women have lost more than one. But then I realize that no matter how many you lose the grief is still the same. Your child is gone, ripped from you before you even had a chance to get to know him or her. I find I think about what this little lost angel would have looked like. Would this one have looked like my other two with the blond hair and blue eyes of their daddy? Or would this one have my hair color and my eyes? I’ll never know. I have three pictures of this child in my head, the baby measuring three weeks behind with a tiny little flickering heartbeat on the screen, the baby measuring 5 weeks 3 days with no signs of life on the screen, and the large clots that came from within me sitting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. How can I get past the gut wrenching images in my head? That is what I’m battling with today; two weeks after the miscarriage began.
I’ve read that it can take most women up to three months to deal with the grief of a miscarriage. I guess that’s why most doctors want you to wait at least three months to try to conceive again.
I haven’t cried today. I’ve done some laundry and I’m going to clean my kitchen as soon as I post to my blog. I may even make it to my mother-in-laws house tonight with my husband, but I’m not sure on that one.

Socializing Again

We went to visit some friends of ours that we haven’t seen in a while. They have a six month old daughter. I wasn’t sure how I would handle it, but we went anyway. I figured I needed to start getting out and interacting with people again.
Of course the thing I dreaded the most happened. They didn’t know what had been going on with us. I knew they would ask when we were going to have another. I just knew it. I was right. We hadn’t been there five minutes before they asked. My wonderful husband fielded the question. He told them not for a while and then told them we had just lost one. They of course told us the standard, “I’m sorry.” T. (the father of the baby) didn’t say anything more about it. N. (the mother of the baby)had to tell me about a relative of hers that has had three miscarriages and the doctors can’t find a reason for any of them so they just don’t tell anyone when they’re pregnant now. That really helped me a lot! I know she meant well and probably just didn’t know what to say. I guess no one really does. But please don’t tell me about someone having more than one miscarriage. That is so not what I want to hear right now, especially since we haven’t decided if we even want to try again.
Donn says he’s not sure if he wants to try or not. He really likes the idea of having another one. He says that it’ll be up to me to decide. He says it’s my body and we’ll do what I want. We have a while to think about it. We couldn’t start trying until August any way.
I’ve been debating over whether or not I should call my friend who is newly pregnant. I’d like to let her off the hook of having to try to figure out how to break the news to me. But I worry that maybe I shouldn’t call. She’s not past the twelve week mark yet where the chance of miscarriage is greatly reduced. I don’t want it in her head that there’s a chance she won’t be bringing her baby home. Should I wait to call for a few weeks or go ahead and call so she doesn’t worry about how to gently tell me about her pregnancy? I did decide to try calling. I felt I could handle it. She wasn’t home.
My friend Kelly and her family are coming to visit this weekend. I think that will help me to get through the weekend. I don’t mind being around her. She still talks to me the same for the most part. I don’t feel uncomfortable talking with her. It’ll be a good distraction.