Vincent

It’s funny the things I was tearful over just a few days ago. Here I was, just about 6 weeks pregnant, but I had somehow already gained ten pounds. I tried to tell myself it was blood volume and water, or from the hormones I was supplementing with. I was crying because I had worked so hard to lose weight before we became pregnant, to try and avoid gestational diabetes. I started my pregnancy a full 30 pounds less than I started my pregnancy with Aidia. And yet, already a 10 pound weight gain.

I cried because my belly popped right out in the 5th week of pregnancy. I know it’s mostly a bloat that comes with the hormones, and the way my muscles had relaxed. I know it’s because that’s what happens when you are on your 9th pregnancy. And still it was difficult to hide. I had a patient at work congratulate me on the baby when I hadn’t said a word. Coworkers knew. I couldn’t even keep these first two months private. Kevin was encouraged by it however, it looked like things were working as they should. So a few days ago, I broke out my tote of maternity clothes, and the relief was immense. So comfy and wonderful, and the clothes gave me all the warm fuzzy feelings.

                                                    

.

Each day was so painfully slow as it passed, as I tried not to agonize over every symptom (or lack thereof.) But as we neared our ultrasound coming up on Thursday, we started to just feel pure joy. We were going to see our baby’s heartbeat, and nothing had even gone wrong yet. Truly after our Aidia, our rainbow, we knew now that Kevin's surgery must have fixed our most major problem. I was still treating my thyroid, blood, and folate disorders. And I was supplementing with hormones. But I did all of those things with Aidia and they worked. We let ourselves be happy. And I guess trying to get back to that place of innocent hope jinxed us.

Then that afternoon straight from hell began. I was home with Aidia, and ran in to try and pee in record time before she caused some sort of havoc. To my absolute shock, I found some blood. Not much, just spotting. Tell that to my PTSD though, which started in full swing. I could not stop shaking. I called my OB, and said I just needed to have a scan to make sure the sac was in utero, rule out ectopic, check the length of the fetal pole, and honestly that nurse could not have cared less. She tried to explain all these things to me that I already knew. I reiterated how many times i have done this. How desperate I was to check on the baby. She said something about the doctor not even coming in during the afternoons, maybe she could call me back tomorrow. I told her through tears how extremely difficult this is for me, as I cannot afford the ER and I just need some resources. It was all for not. Perhaps "small time" is not the way to go after all (see previous post.)

So I called my former OB office, the one that has real resources at multiple hospitals. I had to leave several messages with several people. I said whatever I had to in attempts to get their attention, I just needed the Dr to order an outpatient vaginal ultrasound at the hospital so I could go check on my baby. I didn’t even need to be seen.

While I’m pleading my case over the phone, my darling 2 year old found my nice foundation (the only expensive makeup I have ever purchased for myself, a recent purchase at that) and in a matter of minutes, used the ENTIRE bottle. On her face, clothes, every item I had in the bathroom drawers, the cupboards, her toys. I could not believe the carnage. It was enough to make me cry with the added stress of waiting for answers.

The bleeding stopped and I told myself, this is probably an SCH like I had with Aidia, after all, I’m still on the aspirin. My symptoms are strong. Baby is ok. I had to call the office 3 times in 4 hours and they could not get on the same page of which doctor was to call me back. I eventually refused to hang up once it was so close to the office closing. The doctor said she would not do an ultrasound until she saw a quant hCG of at least 3000. Which was frustrating because the fertility clinics do them way before that. But I understood. I was told to go get my blood drawn at the hospital that night, and then go to the office in the morning to get the prenatal and thyroid labs drawn (don’t ask me why they refused to combine them.)

This was turning out to be the longest afternoon ever. I was an emotional wreck. My bathroom looked like a war zone. And of course, Aidia had a poopy diaper and I could NOT find any wipes ANYWHERE in the house. Much later they were all found stashed under her bed. I had to open my gift bag as a congrats for being newly pregnant, and use the sample wipes it came with. For some reason, that little situation was enough to about send me over the edge.

I was calling Kevin and begging him to come home and help. I was not in an emotional state to deal with this fear alone. He was booked back to back to back with evals at work, and, wouldn’t you know it, they had some sort of gas leak at work and he had patients he had to tend to. He was desperately trying to come home but it was out of his hands.

My mom called to check on me, and I don’t think she could stand the sound of my sobbing being at home alone. Like a hero, she took the next day off and immediately started driving down to my house from Idaho.

Just then I got another phone call, and it was Jack’s teacher. I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say Jack had a rough day at school and was definitely going to need some parenting attention that night, despite my medical emergency. Too. Freaking. Much.

The spotting returned. My mother in law had picked Jack up from school and a few hours later, met me at my house to watch Aidia so I could go to the hospital. I drove myself to the lab to get the quant hCG done. Trying not to gag on all the butterflies in my stomach. I kept telling myself it would be ok, this happened with Aidia too. I kept thinking, I ordered two of those welcome baby boxes that you get for free when you sign up for a registry, and they are going to show up this week. I was just trying to outwardly manifest my hope, my belief that my baby would be healthy.

I was headed back from the hospital, putting gas in the van, and told Kevin I would pick up a Little Caesars pizza on the way home so we didn’t have to think about dinner. I didn’t expect the quant to be at 3000 quite yet. With the doubling time I told myself I would be happy with anything from 1000-1500, to assure me that baby was right on track. I checked the results on my phone and saw a quant of 845. I was like, ok, that’s not too bad, good strong number, we’ll give it a few days to double and then that heartbeat should be nice and clear. I took a deep, cleansing breath, texted Kevin, patted my belly and got ready to keep driving, when I suddenly saw the date refresh and realized that result was from early 2016. That was a quant from Aidia, not this baby.

I called Kevin and told him. We said "I bet this result comes back even higher." I headed to the pizza place. I got the right result. It was only 61. This baby had already died and the numbers were dropping fast.

I went in the restaurant and stumbled over my words to get a pizza to feed my kids. I’m sure I sounded drunk. I took 3 or 4 wrong turns on my normal route just trying to make it home. I was in shock. My baby was dead. I felt like the grief might actually fold me in half and kill me. A 7th loss. Impossible.

We knew there was a risk, but after Aidia was born, we believed, and our doctors believed, that our problems had finally been solved. This was like living out my absolute worst nightmare. I loved this little baby. So much. More than I could explain. 2 weeks of prepping everything to try, knowing I'm fertile enough to conceive the first attempt. The 2 week wait where I was pretty sure we had conceived. The 17 days I kept you with me once I knew for sure.

I did so many hard things in preparation for this baby, even just to prepare to try to conceive. It was all a willing sacrifice for love, and it hurts that much more that I'll never hold him.

I have made so many sacrifices. Smaller ones like injections and needle pricks, driving for hours after oral surgery with no pain meds to be sure my baby got the hormone treatment needed.

And the big sacrifices, like wearing my heart on my sleeve and having it obliterated because my babies keep dying

My life suddenly felt so bleak. The year ahead looks so daunting. Easter we were going to announce on Facebook. July is our Oregon trip, I imagined it with my summer maternity clothes that were just unpacked. Nov 6 was my due date. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas will all sting so much

I feel like I've hit rock bottom. How can I ever be happy again? We were worried about not "quitting while we were ahead;" but, tried to have faith that if we felt a prompting from God that we have one more for us, they could be delivered safely. I don't feel like I can do this, because I already know what it entails. It's too hard and I don't know how to keep on living through it. I’ve done it and too many times and the future is too daunting.

I was hoping for a girl, but as soon as I was pregnant, we both thought it was a boy. It was a very strong feeling. We named him Vincent. It means “to conquer.” I thought of the beautiful line that Josh Groban sings in the song Vincent, “ I could have told you Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”





I leaned on my support group of friends, who I talk to every day. We met online when we were all pregnant with our Rainbow Babes. Between the 5 of us, we have 23 losses. And many wonderful, living children also. They understand this brutal reality I’m facing.

I miss my baby already. Just being with me. How will I ever go back to work again and face it? I had told myself to buckle down and deal with the job, even though the hours can feel brutal, because we need the money, but I could quit once the baby came. That hope helped me push through. And now what? I feel so hopeless looking ahead to the future. I was used to this chronic pain for so long, I'm not ready to go back into that suffocating depression. To keep Vincent healthy, I went gone off my migraine meds, my antidepressant, any rescue anxiety meds, my sleep meds...I mean I have really thrown myself for a loop and am in no way ready to deal with a crisis.

I fall asleep here and there in little bits, but when I wake up and remember, it’s so painful that I’m afraid to go to sleep.

I feel so trapped in all our responsibilities, in our finances we're behind on. I've been working through the night at the hospital just trying to keep our heads above water with everything. So many of our bills just increased. But I wish we could just take a vacation. Several months after our 6th loss (Isla) we drove to Disneyland and took Jack for two days. It was so good for my soul. To just feel joy. I crave that. But there's no way in hell we could afford any kind of vacation right now.

Or afford it if Kevin needs surgery once again...it’s not covered by insurance.

The two weeks wait was unbearable on its own because I just knew we were pregnant, I found out in the 3rd week of pregnancy and then started to lose him right as we approached our 6 week mark. Every day was agonizingly slow. I would be worn out from trying to be optimistic, and show signs of hope. Encourage myself. And for what? To make it this much more painful. Also, somehow I will once again have to lose all the weight I just gained. Only now, with no motivation.

I wish I could be like “Well that's it. We're done. No more,” but we feel so much like there's another child waiting to come, which is that much more daunting because...what does that mean for the future ahead? Years more of this? What else could we have missed? Unless Kevin needs another surgery. How on Earth would we pay for that? Was it my body this time? There’s no way to know.

If there is a next time, we'll probably do the HCG draws and go through RCC (my fertility clinic.) Maybe so we know earlier on where the pregnancy is leading. I'm not in for the long haul again, or 5 years of losing more babies despite treatments. I was so thrilled for Aidia to have a sibling only 3 years younger than her. Jack gets so lonely for a playmate.

I fell asleep for a little bit and then woke up and now I want to die all over again.

It's almost more crushing because after Aidia was born I truly did have a new and different kind of hope. Sure I was still swallowing my PTSD but I told myself it was old fear. And it just bit me in the ass.

The physical pain I'm experiencing can't even hold a candle to my broken heart. How did I let myself imagine his sweet little face? Plan out the new dressers and carseats? Should I have known better? Of course not because I HAD to believe in the life of my baby.

And I am now the most empty I've ever felt. But still with the weight I gained which makes me despise my body more. How will I ever muster up the motivation to lose that ever again? I could barely call and cancel the ultrasound that we were looking forward to so much.

Poor little Jack. We were going to surprise him Friday. I had a little fun plan. Instead we had to tell him why Mommy can't stop sobbing. He's so sad.

It's getting to the point where nurses can't even help their faces when they look at my chart. 9 pregnancies, 2 live births. I just want to scream I KNOW. IT'S EXCESSIVE. I'VE BEEN THROUGH HELL. SAY SOMETHING IF YOU WANT.

The problem is, as much as I wish I could be content and done. I know there's a third baby meant to survive and live with us. Why why why. I can't shake it. I know it. Which means I have to buck up and deal with this for who knows how many more years. Again.

We didn't start at the fertility clinic this time even though originally we planned to. I guess we were fools to think we had graduated.

I'm in such pain that it hurts to breathe in and out. And it's invisible to the outside world. My kids still have needs. I still have work. And all along I am suffocating. The pain is physical. Like I think my heart is actually broken. I just need to be sedated for like a month.

I'm wearing depends, just like you do postpartum to help with all the bleeding. And right when the heavy bleeding picked up, the doorbell rang with the first baby box full of congratulations and supplies.

It's been four years since our last lost. The pain and grief of loss has come out and surprised me in many ways over the years, but the really raw impossible part of it was mostly a nightmare lurking in the shadows. And now it's back, with a full vengeance. And it's even more terrifying than I remember. It might actually bury me alive

Tomorrow I will be passing the blood and tissue and have to endure the gutting feeling of having no choice but to flush it down the toilet. The hormonal symptoms are hanging on, making me nauseous, and my breasts tender. But, wouldn't you know it, my belly is already smaller.