I’m sitting in my dark bedroom relying on my laptop battery to make it as long as I can feel this tonight. It’s been one of those days, where everyone is sick and grumpy and we haven’t left the house and its getting close to bed time and I have to go back
to work tomorrow. Weekends are slipping away too fast lately, it seems like we go to football, clean up the house, go to church and maybe catch a show or two on TV. It really makes me miss staying home. But thinking of staying home makes me think of feelings that I am afraid of…
I had made it through the physical part of the miscarriage. I was on the uphill climb of things but I was at the base of Everest. With no experience in rock climbing. And no rope to reach the summit. It’s a pretty tough thing to lose 5 pints of blood. When you donate blood, they take 1 and they tell you to take it easy for a few days and won’t let you donate for 30 days after that. So losing 5 in a matter of 10 days takes a toll on your body. A big one.
Walking up and down the stairs was enormously difficult. Washing the dishes was now a three part job: unload the dishwasher, rest for 20 minutes, rinse off the dishes, rest for 20 minutes, load the dishwasher, rest for 20 minutes. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the kind of person who sits around and watches TV for the majority of the day (unless it’s Greys Anatomy) but I found myself sitting and watching TV for more than ¾ of my day. It only took about 2 days of watching pointless TV shows for me to lose it and beg Kevin to take me to Wal-Mart (I was not allowed to drive for 2 weeks) to get something I could do while recovering. He kept telling me to give him a list and he would get it for me, but I think the going part was what I wanted most. I just needed to get out of the house for a while. So reluctantly he took me. I think I picked up 5 or 6 things of yarn for crocheting and some fabric for sewing and, of course, any and every high iron food that was known to man. We were there for about 15
minutes and I was toast. I was spinney and lightheaded and out of breath and exhausted. We could walk about the length of one isle and I had to stop for a few minutes. Kevin was not happy with me; this is why he wanted me to stay home. We made it back home and I ended up falling asleep at about 7 pm that night. But at least I had some things to do for the upcoming days.
I had a thought-likely from an angel who needed a little earthly help- to make a scarf for my mom. A bright pink one, with a
heart charm sewn into it. It was a hug for my mom from Baby Sister. It felt inspired. And then I went crazy making hats, I think I made half a dozen of them all kinds of different patterns. I then I moved on to head band type ear warmers. Half a dozen of those. It was a low energy activity that I could do and still feel like I was accomplishing something. My mom came down about a week into recovery; she had not seen me since the funeral and the first thing she said was that I had no color in my face at all. It wasn’t the first time that I had heard that. It was true,too. I would put my make on in the morning and it wouldchange the color of my face rather than blend with the color of my face. My lips were pale and my eyes were sunken in. I looked like a zombie.
The physical limitations that I had were just a constant reminder of what I lost. I wanted to get out and do something, but walking to get in my car was too much for me to handle. It was as if something was forcing me to stay cooped up in my house and feel what I was trying so hard not to feel. I would get really down and have the urge to leave, to actually physically leave
those feelings and get my mind on something else. Then 15 steps out my door I was exhausted and knew that I had to go back
in. It was torture.
Low iron has a side effect of depression, that mixed with actual depression from losing my baby was putting me into a pit. There were a few days that I would sit around and feel it, days that I would push it away and days that I would refocus it into something else. More times than not I would refocus it into planning for the next pregnancy. I researched reasons people had multiple miscarriages and see if there was any similarities to mine. I would look up anemia signs and symptoms and see what whoever had a keyboard was doing to combatting them. I made appointments to see doctors and specialists and took supplements and pretty much tried witch craft. I was filling my hole. I could deal with this hurt and loss if I had a hope of a new baby. That was my answer: get pregnant again.
So I went to a specialist; one that my doctor recommended to me. I think the first time I saw him was the day before Thanksgiving. I walked in to a waiting room filled with pregnant people, very pregnant people and I hated every one of
them. Instantly. They were what I wanted to be. Well, maybe this was a good sign- if there were so many pregnant people in his waiting room then surely he has good success. I finally got called back to a room after about 30 minutes of waiting. Then waited for another 30 minutes to finally meet the doctor. He seemed nice; soft spoken, empathetic, took a very detailed history.
Then told me where we go from here: first a physical exam, then an ultrasound, then after a month of being off birth control, blood work. Then we meet again and discuss diagnosis and treatment. Okay; 40 days and we will have a solution. Doable.
Reachable. The end might just be in sight.
The physical exam shows nothing, which he thought it might since I had 3 successful pregnancies. The ultrasound found a few rather large cysts, but I had been dealing with those since I had Anderson, so it was nothing new. One in particular was actually larger than my ovary, which the tech thought was a little alarming, but nothing that would cause a miscarriage. Then we make it the whole month and go in for the blood work. I was finally off the severely anemic list and moved to the just anemic list…until they took the 7 tubes of blood for the multiple blood tests they needed to run. But it was alright this time. We are getting answers. We were almost to the summit. Now I just need to wait for the nurse to call me to schedule my follow up appointment after they got the test results back.
Meanwhile, an opportunity looms. A very good friend of mine calls me one day, right around Christmas and tells me that there is an opening at her work for a part time temp in the mortgage department of UCCU. I really hadn’t thought about going to work;
getting pregnant was my goal. Work would put a definite kink in my plans. But it was just a temporary job and we could use a few extra dollars. So I talk to Kevin about it and he thinks it will be good. So I apply. I really don’t think I am going to get this job. I have no experience, haven’t really worked outside of running our construction company for the past 10 years. I am anything but
qualified for this job. But hey, I’ll take a shot I the dark. I get called in for an interview; I think mostly in part from my friend talking me up. I am certain after meeting with them that I will be placed in the “never going to hire pile.” But it sure would be nice to have a distraction.
A few days after Christmas I get a call; I’m hired. I’m also in a bit of shock. Did I hear that right? Did she really just say that she would like to offer me a job? Yup. Starting at the first of the new year. Right when the kids go back to school. There is a little bit of excitement mixed in with a whole bunch of stress. I can do this. It will be fun, challenging; most importantly it will be more adult conversation than I could dream of. It took my mind off of pregnancy and miscarriage and anemia. And that was good.
About two weeks into my new job, I came home one day and had a nagging pain in my abdomen. One that I knew all too well. That huge cyst was bursting. I was in for a few hours of awful pain, it was about 8:30, the kids were getting ready for bed, Kevin was out in the garage working, I just figured I would take a pain pill, get the kids in bed and go to sleep myself. I walked downstairs to get the kids moving and it got much worse than any other time and came on much faster than I remember too. I was hunched over in pain. I grabbed my meds, swallowed it down and told Logan to go get dad. I managed to make it back up the stairs and got into bed and that was it for me. This was way worse than I remember, but the ultrasound did show that it was larger than my ovary, so that must be why. Kevin came in, made sure I was okay and then put got all the kids in bed and went back out to work. The pain pill knocked me out and the next morning I woke up feeling just as I always had; a little achy, but I was fine. I went to work and didn’t think twice about it. Until 2 weeks after that. It was time for my cycle and it came on strong and hard. Pretty unusual for me. It wasn’t until I was passing pretty big size clots that I put the two together: I was miscarrying again. Just like the first one I had that was suspected as an ectopic pregnancy. I called my doctor on my way to work and made an appointment for that afternoon. I was going on day 8 of bleeding, which was not normal for me either. I got to my doctor’s
appointment, told him what I thought was going on, ran a few tests and got confirmation. My doctor asked what the specialist said about the problem, which reminded me that he had not actually told me anything. He told me that he needed to see me the next day to run an iron test to see where my levels were and also ensured me that he would tell the specialist to contact me.
I went in the next day to get an iron test and it as dropping, but not dangerously yet. He asked what the specialist said and I told him that he still had not called me. I have been going to this doctor for 11 years now. He delivered all three of my babies, and was the doctor for all three of my babies, I saw him enough that when I called to make an appointment, the nurses recognized my voice. In all the times that I had seen him, I have never seen him mad. Until now. He said that he called the specialist and that the specialist told him that he would call me right away to discuss my test results. He had me stand there for a few minutes while he sent an email to him. It was promptly after that when the specialist called me. They fit me into their schedule for the next day. When I made it to that appointment, I could tell that he was not happy about seeing me. He was cold and very matter of fact. He told me that the tests revealed nothing unusual. He said that I had one hormone level that was low but still within the normal range. He said that he had no advice to give me to get pregnant and stay pregnant. He didn’t seem like the same specialist that I saw 2 months before that. I left feeling more hopeless than that morning in October. I had to go
back to work that afternoon to finish a few things up; which was probably a good thing because I had to keep it together. And by the time I got home the 5 alarm fire had turned into smoldering ashes.
I went back into my regular doctor a week later to get another iron check and told him that I did not want to see the specialist any more, and if he felt comfortable with it I would like to just see him about the solution. He told me that he would consult the OB’s within their practice and we would come up with something. He gave me a call a few days later and told me that he wanted me to try taking a baby aspirin and drinking a caffeinated drink each day to thin my blood because there is a suspicion that my blood may be too thick and creating clots, cutting the blood flow off to the fetus and causing me to miscarry. And he recommended to reduce any stress that I could. It was something; and I needed something. So I ran with it.
By now it was February, I was an aspirin popping, Pepsi drinking Happy-to-see-my-husband kind of girl, if you get my point. My hole had grown just a little bit and I was trying desperately to fill it. With anything and everything. I started on this house decorating thing. Started making table runners and wreaths for every month of the year- and if you know me, you know that I am
not at all the kind of person that does that. I started putting my eye on family size cars. Ones that made room for the baby I was certain that I was going to have. I started tucking money away for an extravagant vacation that was going to make the summer a great one. I started timing things like ”if I got pregnant this month, I would have a baby in November”
That hole was nuisance and I wanted it gone. I just needed one thing to fill it. Anything. It was overwhelming me, sneaking its way into everything in my life. People would tell me that they were pregnant and I wasn’t happy. I hated them a little bit. I would see babies, adorable babies, babies that normally I wanted to pick up and snuggle and squish and I wanted nothing to do with them. They were what I didn’t have. The hole had to go. A month passed; no luck. Two months passed, nothing. Time to reduce stress. Maybe that will be the trick. So I do what I really don’t want to do and give notice to my bishop. I really loved being the primary president, but if I wanted a baby, then I knew I had to give something up. It broke my heart a little, okay a lot. But I kept my eye on the prize: Squishy new baby. May was coming and there was a replacement for me as primary president and a rekindled effort to get pregnant fast. This was it. I reduced stress, my blood is thinned out, I was no longer anemic, all signs point to go. The sad day came that I was released and all that energy that I put into primary was now put into baby making. Kevin and I found that rare moment when there was no kids to interrupt and I told him all about the game plan. His response: “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t think that you should get pregnant right now.”
That hole, the one that was slowly getting filled is now taking over everything. I don’t have anything to fill it with, I don’t know how to deal with it, I don’t want to feel it. Gaping wide and getting wider. Now what do I do?
to work tomorrow. Weekends are slipping away too fast lately, it seems like we go to football, clean up the house, go to church and maybe catch a show or two on TV. It really makes me miss staying home. But thinking of staying home makes me think of feelings that I am afraid of…
I had made it through the physical part of the miscarriage. I was on the uphill climb of things but I was at the base of Everest. With no experience in rock climbing. And no rope to reach the summit. It’s a pretty tough thing to lose 5 pints of blood. When you donate blood, they take 1 and they tell you to take it easy for a few days and won’t let you donate for 30 days after that. So losing 5 in a matter of 10 days takes a toll on your body. A big one.
Walking up and down the stairs was enormously difficult. Washing the dishes was now a three part job: unload the dishwasher, rest for 20 minutes, rinse off the dishes, rest for 20 minutes, load the dishwasher, rest for 20 minutes. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the kind of person who sits around and watches TV for the majority of the day (unless it’s Greys Anatomy) but I found myself sitting and watching TV for more than ¾ of my day. It only took about 2 days of watching pointless TV shows for me to lose it and beg Kevin to take me to Wal-Mart (I was not allowed to drive for 2 weeks) to get something I could do while recovering. He kept telling me to give him a list and he would get it for me, but I think the going part was what I wanted most. I just needed to get out of the house for a while. So reluctantly he took me. I think I picked up 5 or 6 things of yarn for crocheting and some fabric for sewing and, of course, any and every high iron food that was known to man. We were there for about 15
minutes and I was toast. I was spinney and lightheaded and out of breath and exhausted. We could walk about the length of one isle and I had to stop for a few minutes. Kevin was not happy with me; this is why he wanted me to stay home. We made it back home and I ended up falling asleep at about 7 pm that night. But at least I had some things to do for the upcoming days.
I had a thought-likely from an angel who needed a little earthly help- to make a scarf for my mom. A bright pink one, with a
heart charm sewn into it. It was a hug for my mom from Baby Sister. It felt inspired. And then I went crazy making hats, I think I made half a dozen of them all kinds of different patterns. I then I moved on to head band type ear warmers. Half a dozen of those. It was a low energy activity that I could do and still feel like I was accomplishing something. My mom came down about a week into recovery; she had not seen me since the funeral and the first thing she said was that I had no color in my face at all. It wasn’t the first time that I had heard that. It was true,too. I would put my make on in the morning and it wouldchange the color of my face rather than blend with the color of my face. My lips were pale and my eyes were sunken in. I looked like a zombie.
The physical limitations that I had were just a constant reminder of what I lost. I wanted to get out and do something, but walking to get in my car was too much for me to handle. It was as if something was forcing me to stay cooped up in my house and feel what I was trying so hard not to feel. I would get really down and have the urge to leave, to actually physically leave
those feelings and get my mind on something else. Then 15 steps out my door I was exhausted and knew that I had to go back
in. It was torture.
Low iron has a side effect of depression, that mixed with actual depression from losing my baby was putting me into a pit. There were a few days that I would sit around and feel it, days that I would push it away and days that I would refocus it into something else. More times than not I would refocus it into planning for the next pregnancy. I researched reasons people had multiple miscarriages and see if there was any similarities to mine. I would look up anemia signs and symptoms and see what whoever had a keyboard was doing to combatting them. I made appointments to see doctors and specialists and took supplements and pretty much tried witch craft. I was filling my hole. I could deal with this hurt and loss if I had a hope of a new baby. That was my answer: get pregnant again.
So I went to a specialist; one that my doctor recommended to me. I think the first time I saw him was the day before Thanksgiving. I walked in to a waiting room filled with pregnant people, very pregnant people and I hated every one of
them. Instantly. They were what I wanted to be. Well, maybe this was a good sign- if there were so many pregnant people in his waiting room then surely he has good success. I finally got called back to a room after about 30 minutes of waiting. Then waited for another 30 minutes to finally meet the doctor. He seemed nice; soft spoken, empathetic, took a very detailed history.
Then told me where we go from here: first a physical exam, then an ultrasound, then after a month of being off birth control, blood work. Then we meet again and discuss diagnosis and treatment. Okay; 40 days and we will have a solution. Doable.
Reachable. The end might just be in sight.
The physical exam shows nothing, which he thought it might since I had 3 successful pregnancies. The ultrasound found a few rather large cysts, but I had been dealing with those since I had Anderson, so it was nothing new. One in particular was actually larger than my ovary, which the tech thought was a little alarming, but nothing that would cause a miscarriage. Then we make it the whole month and go in for the blood work. I was finally off the severely anemic list and moved to the just anemic list…until they took the 7 tubes of blood for the multiple blood tests they needed to run. But it was alright this time. We are getting answers. We were almost to the summit. Now I just need to wait for the nurse to call me to schedule my follow up appointment after they got the test results back.
Meanwhile, an opportunity looms. A very good friend of mine calls me one day, right around Christmas and tells me that there is an opening at her work for a part time temp in the mortgage department of UCCU. I really hadn’t thought about going to work;
getting pregnant was my goal. Work would put a definite kink in my plans. But it was just a temporary job and we could use a few extra dollars. So I talk to Kevin about it and he thinks it will be good. So I apply. I really don’t think I am going to get this job. I have no experience, haven’t really worked outside of running our construction company for the past 10 years. I am anything but
qualified for this job. But hey, I’ll take a shot I the dark. I get called in for an interview; I think mostly in part from my friend talking me up. I am certain after meeting with them that I will be placed in the “never going to hire pile.” But it sure would be nice to have a distraction.
A few days after Christmas I get a call; I’m hired. I’m also in a bit of shock. Did I hear that right? Did she really just say that she would like to offer me a job? Yup. Starting at the first of the new year. Right when the kids go back to school. There is a little bit of excitement mixed in with a whole bunch of stress. I can do this. It will be fun, challenging; most importantly it will be more adult conversation than I could dream of. It took my mind off of pregnancy and miscarriage and anemia. And that was good.
About two weeks into my new job, I came home one day and had a nagging pain in my abdomen. One that I knew all too well. That huge cyst was bursting. I was in for a few hours of awful pain, it was about 8:30, the kids were getting ready for bed, Kevin was out in the garage working, I just figured I would take a pain pill, get the kids in bed and go to sleep myself. I walked downstairs to get the kids moving and it got much worse than any other time and came on much faster than I remember too. I was hunched over in pain. I grabbed my meds, swallowed it down and told Logan to go get dad. I managed to make it back up the stairs and got into bed and that was it for me. This was way worse than I remember, but the ultrasound did show that it was larger than my ovary, so that must be why. Kevin came in, made sure I was okay and then put got all the kids in bed and went back out to work. The pain pill knocked me out and the next morning I woke up feeling just as I always had; a little achy, but I was fine. I went to work and didn’t think twice about it. Until 2 weeks after that. It was time for my cycle and it came on strong and hard. Pretty unusual for me. It wasn’t until I was passing pretty big size clots that I put the two together: I was miscarrying again. Just like the first one I had that was suspected as an ectopic pregnancy. I called my doctor on my way to work and made an appointment for that afternoon. I was going on day 8 of bleeding, which was not normal for me either. I got to my doctor’s
appointment, told him what I thought was going on, ran a few tests and got confirmation. My doctor asked what the specialist said about the problem, which reminded me that he had not actually told me anything. He told me that he needed to see me the next day to run an iron test to see where my levels were and also ensured me that he would tell the specialist to contact me.
I went in the next day to get an iron test and it as dropping, but not dangerously yet. He asked what the specialist said and I told him that he still had not called me. I have been going to this doctor for 11 years now. He delivered all three of my babies, and was the doctor for all three of my babies, I saw him enough that when I called to make an appointment, the nurses recognized my voice. In all the times that I had seen him, I have never seen him mad. Until now. He said that he called the specialist and that the specialist told him that he would call me right away to discuss my test results. He had me stand there for a few minutes while he sent an email to him. It was promptly after that when the specialist called me. They fit me into their schedule for the next day. When I made it to that appointment, I could tell that he was not happy about seeing me. He was cold and very matter of fact. He told me that the tests revealed nothing unusual. He said that I had one hormone level that was low but still within the normal range. He said that he had no advice to give me to get pregnant and stay pregnant. He didn’t seem like the same specialist that I saw 2 months before that. I left feeling more hopeless than that morning in October. I had to go
back to work that afternoon to finish a few things up; which was probably a good thing because I had to keep it together. And by the time I got home the 5 alarm fire had turned into smoldering ashes.
I went back into my regular doctor a week later to get another iron check and told him that I did not want to see the specialist any more, and if he felt comfortable with it I would like to just see him about the solution. He told me that he would consult the OB’s within their practice and we would come up with something. He gave me a call a few days later and told me that he wanted me to try taking a baby aspirin and drinking a caffeinated drink each day to thin my blood because there is a suspicion that my blood may be too thick and creating clots, cutting the blood flow off to the fetus and causing me to miscarry. And he recommended to reduce any stress that I could. It was something; and I needed something. So I ran with it.
By now it was February, I was an aspirin popping, Pepsi drinking Happy-to-see-my-husband kind of girl, if you get my point. My hole had grown just a little bit and I was trying desperately to fill it. With anything and everything. I started on this house decorating thing. Started making table runners and wreaths for every month of the year- and if you know me, you know that I am
not at all the kind of person that does that. I started putting my eye on family size cars. Ones that made room for the baby I was certain that I was going to have. I started tucking money away for an extravagant vacation that was going to make the summer a great one. I started timing things like ”if I got pregnant this month, I would have a baby in November”
That hole was nuisance and I wanted it gone. I just needed one thing to fill it. Anything. It was overwhelming me, sneaking its way into everything in my life. People would tell me that they were pregnant and I wasn’t happy. I hated them a little bit. I would see babies, adorable babies, babies that normally I wanted to pick up and snuggle and squish and I wanted nothing to do with them. They were what I didn’t have. The hole had to go. A month passed; no luck. Two months passed, nothing. Time to reduce stress. Maybe that will be the trick. So I do what I really don’t want to do and give notice to my bishop. I really loved being the primary president, but if I wanted a baby, then I knew I had to give something up. It broke my heart a little, okay a lot. But I kept my eye on the prize: Squishy new baby. May was coming and there was a replacement for me as primary president and a rekindled effort to get pregnant fast. This was it. I reduced stress, my blood is thinned out, I was no longer anemic, all signs point to go. The sad day came that I was released and all that energy that I put into primary was now put into baby making. Kevin and I found that rare moment when there was no kids to interrupt and I told him all about the game plan. His response: “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t think that you should get pregnant right now.”
That hole, the one that was slowly getting filled is now taking over everything. I don’t have anything to fill it with, I don’t know how to deal with it, I don’t want to feel it. Gaping wide and getting wider. Now what do I do?
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