This is something I wish I never had to write. But here I am 9 days after we heard the
most devastating news of my life....
"This isn't what I want to see, I am sorry there is no heartbeat"
But let me take you back to a few weeks prior....
On June 14th we started our second round of IVF, this was 2 1/2 years after we started trying to have a baby. We felt nervous to be doing this again, because we knew from our past round of IVF, IVF doesn't equal a baby. But we were still very hopeful that this would be our time. This round of STIMS went by very fast and 9 days later we were already having our egg retrieval, where it felt a little deja vu, because like the first time, we again got 10 eggs. But this time 5 days later we got to transfer a perfect grade 5 day embryo and we were sooooo excited and felt so good. But like everything with infertility and IVF it always feels like good news comes with bad and a day or so later we found out that none of our other embryos had made it. So this little embryo we transferred was our one and only.
And we were holding on to that hope!
Well 5 days after we transferred our one and only embryo we got the best news ever when I took an at home pregnancy test. For the first time EVER we saw two pink lines. WE WERE FINALLY PREGNANT! I wish I could go back and bottle up that joy and excitement we got to experience on that day. Sure we were still a little nervous because we knew it was early, but to see those two pink lines was the best thing ever. And good news kept coming, we did three beta blood test and they all came back perfect. We got to tell some of our closest friends,
and family that we were pregnant.
And of course with good news, it always comes with bad, and at close to 6 weeks I woke up one morning and I was bleeding. And it felt like the earth was breaking up under my feet, I was so scared. We had to wait a painful couple of days before my clinic wanted us to come in for an ultrasound, those couple of days felt like eternity....but on July 21st we went in for our first ultrasound and walking into that appointment I felt like I was going to puke because I was so nervous, BUT everything was okay and we saw our perfect little baby! It was still too early to hear the heartbeat, but we could see it on the ultrasound and we were ecstatic! We really felt like it was all going to be okay. My doctor wanted to watch me, because of the bleeding (that only lasted a half day) and said to come back the next week to have another ultrasound. So at 7weeks 1 day we went back, and again everything was perfect and we got to hear our sweet baby's heartbeat! And we were even more sure that everything was going to be okay. Even my doctor thought so and even offered to let us graduate that day from the fertility clinic,
but I said maybe we can do one more visit, which he agreed to for two weeks later.
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In those two weeks everything felt like it was suppose to feel, my boobs were hurting, getting bigger,
I was very very nauseous pretty much 24/7, nothing at all felt off.....
And on July 12th we went in for what was suppose to be our very last appointment at our fertility clinic, we both felt very confident that everything was good, we even joked going up the elevator about never having to come back here again, or walking back to the room the nurse said something and I said, these appointments are a lot more fun then others. And I just hate that we felt so confident, I hate that nothing felt off, and I hate that we thought everything was going to be okay when our baby was already not with us. And then minutes later my world was turned upside down. Evan was standing next to me, we were both watching the screen, him recording the screen with his phone so we had on video our sweet baby, who at this point we knew was going to be bigger and even be able to see little arms, and then I think this moment will be engraved in my brain forever when the doctors voice changed, and he said "oh no, this isn't what I want to see.... I don't see a heartbeat" and I remembering looking at Evan as he stopped recording, hoping I was hearing the doctor wrong, hoping he was just missing something. And the doctor kept looking and talking, and I remembering hearing myself start to cry, it was almost an out of body moment where it was like I was hearing someone else cry. And that crying lasted for days. I remember telling my sisters and best friends, I just want to stop crying, like the sadness and grief I can handle, but I just don't want to cry anymore.
And if you are going through a miscarriage right now, even 8 days after finding out about ours, while I still shed tears,
the non stop crying does stop, that part gets better.
After leaving the doctors that day, we were given all the options on what we could do next, but they also said if I needed another ultrasound for some closer, they were happy to do that. So once we were home and I could semi collect my thoughts I decided I needed that ultrasound, there was definitely some hope I was trying to hold on to in that moment, that maybe the doctor was wrong, even though I KNEW deep down that there wasn't any hope to hold on to, but I needed to do it before making the next steps. And I won't lie, the next few days were really hard. I remember waking up the next day, before even opening my eyes thinking, PLEASE let what I think was the day before be a REALLY bad dream, PLEASE let me still be pregnant, and before I opened my eyes I already knew that it wasn't a bad dream, because my eyes hurt so bad from all the crying. For me having to wake up and remember it all again was really hard, and to be honest it is still the worst part of my day. I have had a hard time falling asleep at night, because I think I don't want to go through the pain of having to remind myself when I wake up that it really did happen.
But we went back to the doctor 3 days later, to the same room that we were in a few days ago, with the same doctor, and we again got the same bad news, but this time I didn't cry, instead I just felt numb. And at that appointment we talked about next steps, I decided that I wanted a D&C, because for me it was just the best choice, I didn't want to wait for it to happen at any moment, and I didn't want to have to go through that trauma in our home. So we scheduled the D&C for two days later.
And looking back what was just 5 days from finding out, to our D&C felt like weeks, and living in this weird limbo of time where my body still thought I was pregnant , but I knew I wasn't was a REALLY hard thing. I just kept thinking of our baby, who days ago I was so excited about, to knowing that the baby was no longer alive but inside of me still was hard to deal with. And even though I knew the D&C was what I wanted to do, I still was very anxious about it, and truly I didn't even realize how much anxiety I had around it till it was over and there was this weight lifted off of me. I think I was fearful of what the D&C was going to physically be like, and how pain would be like after, plus how I was going to feel mentally after it was over. In my head I thought I would feel empty, like a piece of me was missing. But in reality that piece (our baby) was gone the day we found out there was no heartbeat. So I was "happily surprised" that the day of our D&C, other then some mild cramping I felt good both physically and mentally.
But our baby was gone, and I now had to pick up the pieces of how to move forward after this.
And the thing about infertility is you still have this STRONG desire to be a mom, and while I know I need time to grieve and let my body get back to a place where it can grow a baby again, I just want to be able to try again. As painful as it might seem I am just so tired of waiting...
So here's to hoping our waiting doesn't last long. 🤍
-Sara
A week after we found out the devesting news I wrote this to our baby...
I wish we had longer
with you. I wish we got to celebrate your gender reveal party, got to
feel you kick inside of me, see the sweet ultrasounds of your face, got
to see my belly grow with you you inside of me, celebrate you with a big
party with all our friends and family and most importantly have gotten
to hold you in our arms. But we didn’t get any of that.
But what
we did get was a few short weeks of being so happy to finally find out
we were pregnant with you after trying so so very hard. You will always
be our first, the first time I saw two pink lines, the first time I got
to tell your dad it was happening, that we are having a baby and the
first time we got to tell our friends and family about our greatest joy.
I don’t know that I have ever been so happy in my life to finally know
about you, and to finally make plans of all the things I have wished
for, for years now.
I wish life wasn’t so unfair, I wish you
were still growing inside of me, but I am so grateful for a few short
weeks of being your mom! 🤍
