Our second loss

As I struggle to know where to begin this post, my husband is returning the stroller we bought for our baby that we lost last week. The only reason we bought it so early is because it was an incredible deal and those of you who know me well will know I couldn't resist. My husband is embarrassed to return it, embarrassed that our excitement got the best of us and we ignored the thought that was lingering in the back of our minds the entire time we were looking and purchasing it, and embarrassed that we had our second miscarriage. I'm embarrassed that I didn't strength to go with him.

What happened this time? Well we found out we were expecting again on Feb 10. What an amazing feeling. I had all these plans on how to tell my husband but it didn't go the way I expected it to go at all. We were due Oct 20, 2013.

Yes, I already had a little baby bump! I miss it already.

This is how I told my husband. It was waiting on the table when he got home from school. 

I was having constant cramping starting two days before my positive test. After visiting my doctor four days later, we were referred to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit here in London. After two sets of blood work and an initial ultrasound where another Dr had to be called in, we were told there was no way this was a viable pregnancy. I couldn't hold it together this time. I started sobbing right there on the ultrasound bed. How devastating. I wasn't bleeding at all. We were so confident we were going to carry this baby to full term. If it wasn't for my previous miscarriage I wouldn't have thought anything was wrong at all.

They were worried it was ectopic as they couldn't find my baby, left ovarie. All my cramping was from my left side. We had another apnt two days later, along with more blood work to figure out where this baby was and if it was still growing inside me. The next morning after a wonderful friend took me to get another set of blood work done, the bleeding started. I don't think there is a worse sight then the first time you see blood. I still had the hope they might be wrong. They weren't. Paul was in mandatory classes and I had no way of contacting him. My friend that took me to the blood work only 10 mins earlier came with her 4 month old baby only minutes after me calling her. I will forever be grateful for her and her husband's support throughout this very difficult time. I couldn't drive myself because I had a hard time driving after all the blood work I had been going through. Her husband is in Paul's class and was able to find Paul and bring him to the ER. At this point, we were worried about a ruptured ectopic pregnancy which can be very serious for my health. We never were able to determine whether it was ectopic or not, if it was I was passing it on my own which I was very thankful for.

We've now been referred to a fertility specialist to further investigate why this has happened to us twice. It was such an easy decision for us. My husband is in medical school and we believe God has provided the medical knowledge and are very comfortable looking into what the problems are with me being able to carry a pregnancy. We are hopeful that we will be able to get an apnt with this Dr soon and that we will get some answers with regards to moving forward with our next pregnancy soon. We are so very thankful for our short days we had with this pregnancy and we cherished each one as that was something we had learnt from the previous miscarriage.

Thank you to all our family and friends for the support through this extremely difficult time and a special thank you to Katlyn and Nathan- God showed his love and support through the two of you.

More details to come at a later date since this post is long enough already and all over the place.

Letters to myself

Yesterday my husband and I were eating dinner and I went on an all out venting rant to him. Not about him, but about my anxiety about my life changing so much once we do get pregnant. All of my friends have children and I've watched the transformation many times over the last few years. Some seem to keep more of their old lifestyle than others, some are more bound to a schedule than others, and some get more sleep than others. As we get further and further into this journey of trying to conceive  the more I find myself getting anxious. I don't want to be one of those parents that can't do things because my children have to be home at 5:47 pm sharp to lay down for a nap. I understand that I have no idea what it is like to have children, but I've seen nap time completely transform lifestyles and I am scared of that. The other day as I slept in until 9:30 I thought to myself, "there's no way this will happen for at least 13 years once we have a child". It scared me. I like my lifestyle. My husband and I have a wonderful relationship and I can't help but think that once we have a child our time together will be stretched and become all about changing diapers, feedings and who gets to sleep that night. 

As I'm venting this all out to my husband he simply said, "write your future self a letter reminding yourself of all these things and if you ever get stuck in these things I will tell you to read the note". It was a light bulb moment for me. I'm now in the process of writing two letters to myself, one about how much we long to have a baby and the struggles we are dealing with daily trying to conceive and the other about how much I don't want to be a scheduled mom. Both will get tucked away somewhere special for when the time comes when I may  need to read them. Just the process of writing the notes is making me feel better about things. This technique could work for so many situations in life. I remember writing down why I wanted to be a dental hygienist on our first day of classes. I went back to that tiny piece of paper in the front of my binder numerous times throughout school. I hope these notes will come in handy someday too!