Are you tired of me talking about the miscarriage yet? I don’t mean to make it a big deal, but in all honesty it’s the only thing that’s been on my mind lately. Women who I know and love have been through miscarriages, some multiple miscarriages, and yet I did not know until having experienced it myself how horribly painful it is. However, I am extremely grateful to God that I was warned ahead of time so that I did not have to suffer through the emotional trauma and the physical pain all at the same time.

Miscarriage sucks. Miscarriage is ugly. There is no good part of it except the part at the end when you are just relieved it’s all over (yet still that’s bittersweet because now you have to decide if and when you will be ready to try again). I started bleeding Wednesday but it didn’t really get bad until Friday afternoon. Horrible clotting and cramping (or contractions, more accurately). I had clotting on Saturday morning that scared the hell out of me, so I phoned a friend and she graciously dropped everything to take me to the E.R. Normally I would have had my husband accompany me but my friend was better suited for this situation. Mike is always good for support in any situation but I needed someone with a little expertise with the girly things. Thankfully the doctor determined I was okay and not losing too much blood, so they sent me home to rest with lots of water and ibuprofen.

Saturday was hell. I made more trips to the bathroom than I care to admit and the contractions were fairly debilitating. I consider myself to have a high pain tolerance but ibuprofen is my miracle drug and I am not too proud to take it. Today has gone much better. The worst is over now and I am so relieved. Bleeding has slowed, contractions have minimized (though my uterus hasn’t seemed to have returned to it’s original size, which is like the cruelest joke ever), and I am ready to go back to work tomorrow and get on with my life. Oh, and the good news is that all the ice cream I’ve been eating (you know, to “cope”) has not affected my weight. I stepped on the scale today and I haven’t gained a thing! I was able to enjoy all the frozen creamy goodness with no guilt at the end. See, there’s always a silver lining…

I want to thank those of you who have thrown such kind words my way. I am blessed with an amazing support system. It’s humbling really, and I only hope that I will not pass up opportunities to return the love in the future.

I was chatting with a coworker yesterday and I told her I was having a bad day. She used a response I use quite often:

“It’s only a bad day if you let it.”

“Yeah, but this is a really bad day.”

“Oh, why is that?”

And here’s where I made her feel like a total a**hole,

“I started miscarrying.”

It’s like when someone casually asks you how you’re doing and instead of just saying fine (which is all the answer they were really prepared for) you proceed to tell them you lost your job, your dog died, and your wife just left you.

Of course she told me she felt like a total a**hole and I told her it was my full intention to make her feel that way, of course. (She has a great sense of humor so we were just joking around here). And then she gave me the best advice ever:

“In that case, go on with your bad day!”

I would say a miscarriage is reason enough to let yourself have a bad day, don’t you? It’s a damn good excuse to eat ice cream for dinner too

The stress of waiting to miscarry has been getting to me. Today I felt like I had an especially heavy weight on my shoulders. Actually, more like a annoying gorilla following me around, breathing on my neck and threatening to push me over when I least expect it. My ultrasound isn’t until Monday and I’ve been growing more anxious to see what’s going on with my uterus.

Lately I’ve been feeling both pregnant and premenstrual. A weird combination for sure. I’ve had a hunch that the premenstrual thing is a precursor to the miscarriage. That hunch was confirmed tonight when I discovered I started bleeding. So I think the miscarriage has officially begun. To be honest, I was a little relieved to see it. I mean, it only took like 3 seconds to conceive once we started trying again so I don’t think I was quite ready to be pregnant yet.

If this for sure turns out to be a miscarriage and not just normal pregnancy spotting, I’ll for sure be going out for a drink when it’s all over. Ladies, anyone want to join me in drowning my sorrows in a tall glass of Black & Tan?

Romans 4:18-21 (New Living Translation)

18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!”^[a] 19 And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.

20 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.

When the doctor told me there was no hope for this pregnancy, I took his word for it. I could have opted for the D&C to end the pregnancy right away, but for some reason felt like I needed to wait. I’ve been in a weird limbo ever since. Feeling pregnant physically, but mentally and emotionally convinced that it’s over. Until yesterday. Yesterday I felt a nudging from God that maybe I shouldn’t give up so easily. Maybe I need to have a tad bit of faith that he really could do a miracle here.

I have issues with hope. I am afraid to get my hopes up for most things, afraid that if I do it would make the let down hurt that much more if what I’m hoping for doesn’t come to be. So I am hesitant to hope for a miracle here. I am terrified to let my mind wander to the place of possibility, the idea that maybe this pregnancy isn’t over. I don’t want to be that naive girl who expects unrealistic things. Fortunately, God understands these fears of mine. I believe it was God (not Google) that brought me to these two websites:

The Misdiagnosed Miscarriage Site - “We believe, based on the numerous stories that have found their way into the Misdiagnosed stories forum, that having a retroverted uterus may alter when you may see your baby via ultrasound.”

When a Blighted Ovum is not a Blighted Ovum - “My name is Kay and I am the mother of a four year old not-so-blighted ovum. I was misdiagnosed back in 2002 and told at my 5 1/2 and 6 week ultrasounds that I most likely had a blighted ovum.  After my 7 and 8 week ultrasounds, my doctor strongly recommended a D&C due to blighted ovum. At nearly 9 weeks, we saw my baby for the first time on ultrasound, beating heart and all!”

Apparently it is not so unrealistic to hope for a miracle after all! I read some of the stories on the Misdiagnosed forums and many of them sound similar to mine. I have a retroverted uterus, which could explain why they could not find the fetal pole with both of my ultrasounds.

I was diagnosed with a blighted ovum. According to the Misdiagnosed Miscarriage Site, “A blighted ovum is a fertilized egg that implants but does not develop. The gestational sac continues to grow but the baby does not grow within the sac. If the case is a true blighted ovum, the yolk and fetal pole will not be present.” In my case, they were able to see the yolk sac. I think this gives me even more reason to hope.

All of this is science and nature and miracles - stuff I won’t even pretend to understand. The bottom line is that it’s not over until God says it’s over. I can wait with confidence that he is in control and he knows what’s best for me. And that’s all I really need to know.

We are back from Georgia.

I am back to work.

I have not miscarried. Yet. Still waiting.

After this is all over I think we’ll chuck it all and join the circus. I think Luke would make a great acrobat someday. 

I do not have happy news to share. My hCG on Monday was 41,225. On Wednesday it had only risen to 48,955. My doctor says it should be doubling every two days, and once it reaches 100,000 it would stabilize. I had another super fun ultrasound on Thursday. They could not find the fetal pole. Based on my lmp I should be 8 1/2 weeks and a fetal pole should be visible by now. Last week I was measuring at 6w2d. Thursday, which was 7 days later, I was only measuring at 6w4d. (To save you the math work, that’s a progress of only two days.) They checked for blood flow around where the fetal pole should be developing and there was nothing.

This is not a viable pregnancy.

My doctor says I can have a d&c and be done with it, or I can wait and have another ultrasound later to see where everything is at. I am not comfortable with ending the pregnancy voluntarily, so I am going to wait. I’m going to wait for my body to miscarry naturally. If nothing has happened in three weeks, I will go in for another ultrasound to see what’s going on. Then I may decide to have the d&c. It’s not that I want to go through the physical pain of a miscarriage. I know the d&c would be easier. I don’t have much hope for a miracle at this point, but I also don’t want to be the one who closes the window of opportunity for God. I want to let him be in control of this.

I was an emotional wreck on Thursday, but at this moment I’m feeling okay. It hits me now and then but I deal with it as it comes. I’m with lots of family - my wonderful, loving, supportive, understanding family. We are in Georgia for a cousin’s wedding. What a perfect time to be dealing with bad news such as this - I don’t have to go back to work until Thursday and I’m with an endless supply of support. God is still in control and he is still taking care of me.

Mike is taking it hard too but maybe not as hard as I am. He guarded his heart with this one. He had a premonition all along that this was too good to be true. He has been extremely gentle with me. He gives the best hugs. I’m scared about going through the miscarriage but I’m counting on Mike’s infinite supply of hugs to help get me through it. We’re gonna be okay.

I’m staring at my belly in the mirror and there is no way I’m only 7 1/2 weeks pregnant. There’s just no way. And it can’t just be fat - I actually lost 3 pounds last month. Of course it looks like fat. Not like those cute little pregnant bellies I see around town. I’ve always had a pot belly, but now I have stretch marks, flab, and that beautiful c-section crease. Needless to say, I’m not feeling so sexy right now. This is so not the first pregnancy.

With a healthy dose of nausea comes a bit of irritability as well, which makes it ever so important to have the right kind of music playing at my desk while I’m working away. Today is one of those days where the only kind that’s tolerable is Led Zeppelin. It’s a first for me, but hey - whatever works, right?

I was supposedly 7 weeks along on June 27. But since I hadn’t been tracking my menstrual cycle so well (my last cycle was just before I had the IUD removed… if that is too much information, you may as well stop reading now), they ordered an ultrasound. They said it was because I had an “Unreliable LMP” (a term which for some reason makes me giggle). Unreliable Last Menstrual Period - meaning I didn’t know the date - really I was the unreliable one.

On the day of my ultrasound I should have been 7w6d (7 weeks 6 days), but the ultrasound tech told me I was measuring 6w4d. That’s a 9 day difference, which I don’t understand because I know my Unreliable LMP was only off by a day or two at most. So they guess that I ovulated super late. Okay. I am dreading this first trimester, praying to God it’s not like the last. So to find out I am not as far through the woods as I thought… well, it was a little devastating at the time.

And if that wasn’t enough, they also could not see the fetal pole on the ultrasound. I had never heard of the fetal pole, but the tech explained that it’s basically the start of the fetus. Wikipedia describes it as “a thickening on the margin of the yolk sac of a fetus during pregnancy.” They could see the yolk sac, just not the fetal pole. Either it’s not there, or it’s too small yet to see. I’m told that they do not consider it a viable pregnancy until they can detect the fetal pole. So I get to have another ultrasound this Thursday. Yeah! They are super fun because until you are 10 weeks along my doctor’s office will only do them transvaginally (I won’t explain. You can look it up if you’d like, but I don’t think you really want to know.)

So not only do I have another super fun ultrasound, but the nurse called me later that day to ask me to go in for two more hCG blood tests. They want to make sure my hormone levels are rising well enough before doing the ultrasound. I appreciate that. I would hate to have to go back for a third super fun ultrasound. I had my first blood test on Monday, and my hCG level was at 41255. We won’t really know if that’s good or not until we see the results of tomorrow’s test.

So. I’m still pregnant. 7w2d, unless they change it again on me. I have started to experience some nausea. It seems to be mostly toward the end of the day but even that seems to be changing already. This morning my gag reflex is on high alert. I seem to be fine as long as I keep eating small bites and drinking small sips. With my first pregnancy I was blindsided by the sickness so at least with this one I feel a little more prepared. I have a few tricks up my sleeve and I’m just hoping they still work.

The Very Hungry Mommapillar (an adaptation of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle)

In the light of the moon a little lady lay sleeping. One Monday morning the warm sun came up and - plop! - out of the bed rolled a very hungry mommapillar. She started to look for some food.

At 7 am she ate a granola bar. But she was still hungry.

At 8:30 am she ate two muffins, but she was still hungry.

At 12 noon she ate three hot dogs, but she was still hungry.

At 2:30 pm she ate four oatmeal cookies, but she was still hungry.

At 6 pm she ate five pancakes, but she was still hungry.

At 9:30 pm she ate one banana, one piece of toast, one burrito, one bowl of ice cream, one slice of pizza, one cupcake, one apple, one bowl of soup, one potato, and one piece of rhubarb pie.

That night she had a stomachache!

Oh yes, this pregnant momma is hungry nearly ALL OF THE TIME. I can’t seem to get enough to eat lately. It pains me to spend money on food, but at least with this pregnancy I’m not just flushing it down the drain (literally - I puked for four weeks with the first one. I seriously pictured that money going down the toilet every time I found myself hunched over it). I am supremely grateful that I have not experienced any morning sickness so far. The P.A. at my doctor’s office said that usually if you’re going to have it bad it will start early, around 6 weeks. I’m almost at 8 weeks and have had no hint of it. I’m not out of the woods yet but it’s looking good so far. That’s a miracle in my book!