Here's the short version:
10.21.14 - We're pregnant! The test was positive, we're thrilled! Baby's estimated due date is 6.24.15 (which also happens to be Michael's birthday). We nicknamed baby "Baby Scout."
10.31.14 - We tell our immediate families the baby news, they are THRILLED obviously!
11.17.14 - 1st appt at the OB/GYN. 8.5 weeks pregnant. Confirmed pregnancy, all labs look normal.
12.5.14 - 2nd appt at OB/GYN. 11 weeks pregnant. Can't find the heartbeat. After 3 ultrasounds, can't see/ hear baby. There was only what appeared to be an empty gestational sac in my uterus. Told to come back for follow up ultrasound in a week to see if our dates were off and maybe baby was just too early in development to see. The following 10 days were grueling.
12.15.14 - Follow up ultrasounds. Not much different, from what we can tell.
12.16.14 - Doctor calls. Baby stopped developing early on. I would have been nearly 13 weeks along by now. She gives me two weeks to see if I'll miscarry naturally.
12.30.14 - Miscarriage begins, goes on off and on for nearly 3 weeks. Brutal, exhausting weeks.
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| {bought this little stocking for baby the week before we found out anything was wrong} |
Here's the long version - part 1:
(*I started writing/ processing while it was all going on...)
December 6, 2014
This weekend has been one I've looked forward to for a while now. On Friday afternoon we had our 11 week check-up at our OB office, where we would finally get to meet our doctor and, hopefully, hear baby's heartbeat! We had Christmas pictures scheduled for Saturday morning, pictures we were planning to use to announce Baby Engelking to the world the following week.
Our weekend didn't really go like that. As I anticipated our OB appointment, I hoped so desperately that we would get to hear baby's heartbeat, and that maybe, just maybe we would get to have an ultrasound. I knew those things would make it all feel even more "real."
We did have an ultrasound that day. Three ultrasounds, in fact. But none of them were for the reasons I'd hoped. When we arrived at the doctor, excited and a little anxious, the nurse checked my vitals, asked lots of questions, and then we waited for the doctor to come in. When our OB arrived, she was very kind and very helpful in assuring me that any symptoms/ questions I had were very "normal" for this point in the pregnancy. She stepped out for a moment so I could slip into a gown and prepare for a full physical exam. When she came back, she did the first part of the exam and then grabbed the doppler to check for a heartbeat. I was so excited. She squirted some COLD gel on my belly, and began to search. We could hear the "whooshing" sounds of the little machine doing its job, and then when we finally heard a somewhat rhythmic pulse, she said, "That's you." Good news, my heart was beating. I laid there and tried very hard not to get anxious, just waiting and looking at the walls, mainly. She assured me that, often times, baby is moving around a lot in the uterus and it can be hard to pinpoint them to find their heartbeat. Again, not too worried. She then said that if they still couldn't hear it, they had an "ancient" ultrasound machine they could wheel in and find the heartbeat that way. I liked that idea, knowing I would probably get to see AND hear baby!
They rolled the machine in and turned off the lights so we could see the screen better. I saw my uterus and then a little black shape inside of it. I didn't really know what I was looking at. Doctor told me that what we were looking at was the "gestational sac," the place where the baby would normally be, but in my case, we could see no such thing. She said that the main Radiology department at the hospital had much better machines, so she called down there to see if they could squeeze me in to get a better look at things. Still trying not to freak out, she told me that there were a couple of options at this point. Option 1: our dates were off and maybe the pregnancy was not as far as long as we thought, in which case the embryo might still be too small to detect a heartbeat or ultrasound image. Option 2: the embryo had stopped developing at some point and the pregnancy is no longer viable. Okay, nothing is certain. Don't panic. Trust the Lord. Another ultrasound might help clear things up. She said for now they would hold off on the rest of my exam, and instead sent me straight to Radiology to try to get some answers.
We checked in at Radiology reception and then sat and waited. I wanted to not be scared. I wanted to not jump to conclusions. I wanted it to be clearer than this, easier than this. The ultrasound had not been the euphoric, "There's my baby!" experience I had dreamt up in my mind. A lot of people go through things like this, I reminded myself. And suddenly in that moment I felt a deep sense of compassion for all of the friends and acquaintances in my life who have lost a baby or a child at any point, even though that wasn't for sure happening to us. But how could my dates be THAT off? We had been trying to get pregnant for about six months so I had tracked everything pretty carefully. As we sat there and waited, I started crying. Again, really wanted to not be crying. Really wanted to stay positive. But everything in me was trying to balance all the reasons to continue to hope with all the reasons to prepare ourselves for bad news. Michael texted our families to update them, and simply asked them to pray.
Finally the ultrasound technician came to get us. She was like the sweetest woman ever, and I'm sure could tell that we were anxious. She remained very calm and committed to explaining exactly what she was looking for. She started with a normal abdominal ultrasound. I didn't really look at the screen. But the longer she searched around, the more I knew that she wasn't seeing any baby in there. She than told me she wanted to do a "trans-vaginal" (or internal ultrasound); lovely wording, I know. They insert a camera inside of you to examine everything up close. Kind of incredible, although uncomfortable. She said that would allow her to see really clearly what was going on in there. She mentioned the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy in which the embryo implants somewhere outside of the uterus. . .a possibility that can be very risky and often requires medical intervention and almost always losing the baby to protect the health of the mother). She also mentioned that we could be looking at what is called an anembryonic pregnancy (a pregnancy in which an egg was fertilized and implanted in the uterus but never developed; the body continues to believe it is pregnant and a gestational sac develops, but nothing else). I asked her before she began the internal ultrasound, "So, I'm not sure if you can answer this, but is there ANY way at this point that this turns out good?" She paused. And then said, "I'm going to let the doctors answer that one for you. I really can't say."
In my heart I was beginning to realize that there were probably no good outcomes. I was preparing myself for the fact that it might be all over, just like that. She did the internal ultrasound and was very kind and, again, explained everything she was looking at while she was looking at it. "I'm going to take a look at your cervix... now your uterus...now your right ovary...now your left ovary." I lay there, trying hard not to tense up, trying hard not to tremble. I felt bad for my poor husband who just had to sit there and look at the screen and watch me lay there. After she finished (and we could tell that things were still rather dire), she told me to get dressed and that she would have us wait in the waiting room so she could send my doctor the results and see if she might be able to talk with us before we went home.
Okay now its for sure bad news, I thought. Conclusive, "here's what's wrong," bad news. They must know what's wrong if they don't even want us to go home yet. So we waited and waited and the technician finally came out and said, "Okay, you can go home. Your doctor will call you."
"Soon?" I asked.
"I'm sending her the results now, so I'm guessing she'll call you soon."
So we went home. To wait. We had been at the hospital much longer than expected. We canceled our evening plans. We had multiple offers from people offering to bring food and keep us company, which was so kind and so appreciated, but we just needed to be alone to process. I could hardly stand the thought of waiting to hear from my doctor until Monday, especially because we were supposed to go out of town on Monday. If something was horribly wrong, I didn't want to be far away. So I finally called the doctor's office, and the nurse was able to make sure my doctor had seen the results of my ultrasounds and she transferred me through to my doctor. The doctor very kindly, but matter-of-factly, explained basically the same two options she had explained earlier. Either baby was much earlier in development than we thought, or baby had stopped developing at some point, in which case I could potentially start experiencing signs of a miscarriage.
The doctor ordered another ultrasound for the following week, so we'll see if anything has changed by that point. In the meantime, we just wait. Wondering if I'll miscarry at some point in the coming days. Wondering if there is, or ever was, a developing little one inside me at all. Wondering if maybe the doctor is right and we're not as far along as we thought and maybe baby is just incredibly small. We prayed. And cried. And texted friends and family to update them and ask them to please be praying. We know that a miracle is not out of the realm of possibility. We could go in next week and see a healthy little life and heartbeat on the screen.
Again, I'm waffling between feeling hopeful and feeling realistic. What I do know is that no amount of worry will change a thing. I just have a lot of questions. Why did I get a positive pregnancy test on October 21 if I'm not very far along now? Why did my lab/ bloodwork look normal when I went in for my first appointment at (what I thought was) 8 weeks and 5 days?
Part of me felt embarrassed that we told as many people as we did (immediate family, some close friends, our high school staff, some extended family). But Michael reminded me that those are the people that we want to be praying for us and supporting us. He is right.
So for now, no Christmas/ baby announcement pictures. If we are pregnant and not very far a long, it will be a while now before we make the news "public." If we lose this baby, then having taken pictures would just be too painful.
I went to bed that night and read some Psalms, consciously trying to remind myself of all the things I know to be true about God even in the midst of fear and unrest. I listened to worship songs to try to flood my mind with truth. I prayed honest prayers, even though sometimes I don't know how to pray in all this. And I cried before the Lord. Knowing He cares. And even the fact that any life developed in me at all for any length of time is incredible.
So for now we trust and believe and pray and hope.
Those ten days were long. Turns out we couldn't get in for another ultrasound until the following Monday, instead of the Friday we were hoping for. Apparently at the end of the year everyone is trying to squeeze in all of their medical-everything-scans because they've already met their deductible. Who knew? I kept reminding myself that those 10 days mattered. We could have been sent home from that first appointment with definite bad news. Or with definite good news. But even after 3 different ultrasounds, the conclusion was "inconclusive." So those 10 days mattered. They mattered for the process. I didn't want to waste those days. I knew that whether those ten days meant the difference between an empty sac and a visible baby, or whether those days were simply to prepare us for the very real possibility of hard news, there was something the Lord wanted to do in those ten days.
In those ten days we prayed. We cried. We updated all of our friends whom we had told around 9 weeks, 10 weeks, 11 weeks, when we thought it was "safe" to tell them and could assure them they wouldn't have to keep a secret for much longer. We had enough people praying for us and encouraging us to help us feel supported and not alone, but there were also still tons of people who had no idea about Baby Scout and just helped our life feel a little bit "normal" during the waiting - simply by their not knowing.
We went away to the beach with my in-laws and nephew for a few days, and that was fun and restful and a good distraction. I was so fearful of miscarrying. But I had no symptoms whatsoever. I read way too much online about misdiagnosed miscarriages, blighted ovums, anembryonic pregnancies, and tilted uteruses. Michael and I concluded that we could build a convincing case for either possible outcome. We had plenty of reasons to believe that Baby Scout was still in there, still growing, just being a sneaky little ninja and making it hard to find him in an ultrasound. We wanted to believe that maybe he would get big and get brave and be the star of the show on the next ultrasound. But we also knew that an empty gestational sac at an 11 week ultrasound was not good. We should have been able to see something this far along. The possibility that my dates were off was unlikely to me. We had been tracking and planning and trying for six months and I was pretty aware of everything. But how everything could have gone on this long with no miscarriage symptoms was beyond me. Before that 11 week appointment, we had no reason to believe that anything was truly wrong. My pregnancy had been healthy up to this point, and although I was not naive about the risk of miscarriage, I kind of figured that if I had gone 11 weeks with no miscarriage symptoms, things were probably alright.
When we got home from our beach trip, our sweet friends had gathered up encouragement notes, bags of our favorite coffee, flowers, and even a cinnamon cobbler and left them on our kitchen counter for us to come home to. Many of the notes were from our high school students who had no idea what was going on, but were just asked to write us encouragement cards "just because." When I saw it all, of course I cried. It meant so so much to us.
Pregnancy and complications and miscarriage are very personal things and can be very isolating as it is. But I can't imagine having walked through all the uncertainty alone. We didn't tell EVERYONE, but the friends and family walking with us were such a gift to us in that little season. "You don't get this if you walk through life alone." I told Michael. "If you choose to walk through the hard stuff alone, you don't get the blessing of the outpouring of love and comfort and encouragement. We would miss out on this."
As Monday grew closer, I concluded that I would be surprised with either outcome. If there was a baby on that screen, I would be shocked and thrilled and elated, like, "Really?!" And if that screen still showed just black emptiness in the should-be baby space, I would be sad and confused and disappointed like, "Wait? Really??" But overall I felt peaceful and hopeful as we drove to the hospital that morning. I felt like Baby Scout really could be in there. I also knew we might drive away that day with more, "wait and see" kind of news, since we wouldn't actually be seeing my doctor.
Our ultrasound technician came out to get us. It was the same woman who did our initial ultrasounds. So sweet, so kind. She took us into the dimly lit ultrasound room and I lay down on the bed, unsure of what were about the see... or not see. She squirted the warm jelly on my stomach and began to look around. This time she turned on a big TV on the wall so that Michael and I could look at what she was seeing. She didn't say much. She would move the device around on my belly, type some things in the computer, and it would take a picture. We're not experts, but we were pretty sure that if Baby Scout was alive and healthy, we would have been able to identify him. Not to mention, I'm sure the ultrasound technician would have said something like, "There's your baby! Strong heartbeat, healthy as can be. Looks like you're officially ____ weeks along." But she said very little. After looking around my abdomen for a while, she decided she wanted to do another internal ultrasound. She looked around for a while more, typing things in and pausing to "capture" certain images. These are not the ultrasound images you ask for a print out of and post on Instagram. Nobody posts the pictures of the empty womb, the bleak picture of a gestational sac with no evidence of a developing baby. You only get to see the pictures of the healthy ones. I don't think anything can ever prepare you for the feeling of looking on the screen at your long awaited ultrasound and seeing... nothing. I'm not sure I even knew that was possible.
After the ultrasound was finished, the tech told us she'd send the results to my doctor and we'd hear back in a couple days. A couple MORE days. More waiting. Michael said that, from where he was sitting, the only thing that looked different about this ultrasound was the shape of the sac... he compared it to a quotation bubble on a cartoon. Comic relief, I guess. So we left the hospital and went to work. We kind of had to "move on" for the day. I went to a Pastor's Wives gathering and updated the girls there with my lack of updates, but still kind of just held it together because I didn't KNOW for sure. By late afternoon I was finally alone in my car and started crying. It was a hard reality that there was MORE waiting... and probably bad news to come. I walked into my house, only to discover that my dumb/awesome dog had chewed up some pages of my BIBLE in the living room while we'd been gone. I can't even. Maybe on a normal day I would have yelled at him. Or thought it was even a little funny. Not today, Mozzie. I couldn't. Handle it. I walked straight into the bathroom and just got in the shower and cried and cried. And asked my husband to clean up the Bible mess. I know it was only a few pages, and I know technically I could get a new Bible. But that particular Bible, my precious copy of it, the one Michael had given me when we were engaged, the one I had underlined and marked up, was like my one treasure, the thing that brought me so much comfort in all this. It was just too much. I crawled in bed after my shower and just laid there until I absolutely HAD to get up and get ready for our staff Christmas party that night.
We woke up the next day and went to work like normal, because there was no reason not to. Michael and I were in a meeting with his dad (who also happens to be one of our bosses) and my phone rang. It was the doctor's office. I stepped out to take the call. As I walked down the stairs to my office, my doctor said from the other end, "Well, it looks like still nothing has developed." My response was simply, "Okay." I hope she didn't think that I was absolutely the most heartless mother. I just didn't want to fall apart on the phone because I knew there was more to talk about, and I had only met my doctor once, and we needed to talk about my "options." I think I just said "okay" a lot. I wasn't ready to "do" anything about my failed pregnancy. So she said I could wait it out two more weeks to miscarry naturally (mind you I was almost "13 weeks" on paper by this point) and then choose one of the other two options if nothing happened by then. I asked if I should come in for another blood test and she said, "No, no, we already have our diagnosis." Our diagnosis. My sweet babe whom I had loved and talked to and prayed for was now just a diagnosis. It sounded so final.
From what I've read and learned from my doctor, this is essentially what happened. . . The egg was fertilized and even implanted in my uterus (signaling hormone production, which signals the growth of the placenta and gestational sac, and also leads to morning sickness, fatigue, all the "normal" symptoms), but somewhere early in development there was likely some kind of chromosomal abnormality, so my body recognized that (amazing, really!) and the baby stopped developing. Technically our baby never even became an "embryo." We believe that life begins at conception, so Baby Scout's life, personhood, value, DNA, and unique genetic makeup were very much REAL. It wasn't a "fake pregnancy," I really was pregnant, but the life inside of me simply stopped developing very early on and my body took a LONG time to realize it.
I texted Michael and told him I wouldn't be coming back to the meeting. He came downstairs. I was crying and trying to explain. Then his dad came down to check in and we told him the news, and he just started praying for us. There was so little to say. I went home for the day after that. We had sweet offers from people asking if they could come over or bring dinner, but I just needed to be alone. After a couple days of hibernating, we decided we still wanted to host our high school staff Christmas party that weekend. We needed to laugh. We needed people in our home. We love that kind of stuff.
I know that Christmas can really magnify loss or pain of any kind, but I was still so grateful for Christmas in all of this. Thankful that it allowed us a pause from work and ministry. Thankful that there was still so much to enjoy... our new home decked out with cozy Christmas lights and decor... time with family... gifts. But by the end of Christmas day I was kind of a mess. The whole day had been wonderful. I was thankful that the day felt "normal" with our families... it was lighthearted, and no one made it weirdly serious or sad, including us. But when I got home that night I realized that, for a whole day, I had the luxury of pretending that everything was "okay." When, in fact, it was not.
I had a good Christmas night meltdown. I didn't like any of my options. Miscarriage is already emotionally painful, but the fact that your body has to go through something difficult physically (whether its natural miscarriage, medically induced, or a D&C), only adds insult to injury. My miscarriage had barely started, and I was scared of what the process might be like for it to complete on its own. I was scared thinking about having a D&C if it came to that. Christmas had provided a beautiful buffer from our current reality. Michael came in our room to find me laying in bed, and I sobbed as he just held me and I said, "I don't want to do any of it. I just hate this so much..."
xo, Kristin
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