Our Second Miscarriage (Trigger Warning)

We are so blessed to have had our first pregnancy end successfully with the birth of Jax. But it hasn't been a very easy journey since then.

The first miscarriage was horrible. The second miscarriage was also horrible. But this time along I think we have been stronger. I'm not saying it was any easier...the third time we found out we were pregnant we were so excited, but still cautious with our emotions. After our previous miscarriage, it was scary to be pregnant again. The whole time we were thinking "please don't miscarry again". The first miscarriage had robbed us of the carefree happiness that comes with pregnancy before ever experiencing a loss. From here on out every pregnancy we have will be experienced with a point of hesitation and fear...which truly sucks.

We waited until we thought we were about 7 weeks pregnant to tell family this time. After all, that was further along than the previous miscarriage so we figured it may be time to tell them. Time kept passing, and we were about 2 weeks away from being free of those first trimester nerves and worries. We went into what was supposed to be our 10 week checkup with some nerves. I had nerves all day and expressed how scared I was to my husband about what we were about to see on that ultrasound.  So it didn't help when the Doctor placed the ultrasound wand on my belly and we couldn't see a 10 week old baby moving around on the screen. The Doctor said let me look closer and said not to worry because she thought she saw a fetal pull and that she would schedule us for a more in depth ultrasound. This scared me beyond belief but my husband tried to convince me that we must just have the due date wrong since I had been having irregular cycles due to PCOS. We waited a couple of days for the next ultrasound. When we finally got to the day of the ultrasound, the tech showed me the heartbeat and a wave of reassurance swept over me as she handed me a couple of ultrasound pictures and pushed the due date back to being a little over 6 weeks pregnant. We started to get excited even though we weren't as far along because we would be having a Christmas baby, my favorite time of year. Time kept passing and we started to head towards the tail end of the first trimester once again.

This is when I looked down and started to notice that familiar and troublesome spotting when I went to the bathroom. Any of you Mamas out there who have experienced this know the feeling of your stomach dropping to the floor when you see it.

My husband and I weren't together at the time (because I was meeting him out of town at his parents house in a couple of days) which made it that much harder. I had to call him and tell him that I thought it was happening again. We both held it together over the phone call but I broke down in the car with my in-laws. They were so loving and as supportive as they could be in this situation and said not to lose hope.

I had a wave of negative thoughts flood my mind. Why was this happening again? What did I do wrong again? What did I do to deserve going through this a second time? Even though I know too well that those questions are of usually of no relevance when it comes to miscarrying.

What started as a long car ride with miserable bathroom stops ended with an even more miserable Memorial Day weekend.

I was so grateful to see my husband. We knew it was a miscarriage even without the OBGYN confirmation at the time. We had been through this before and we knew we could get through it again together. What followed were days of bleeding. And one horrible night while I passed the contents of my uterus. I had similar to birthing type pain as my uterus contracted to let my body naturally pass everything. What people don't talk about is the physical pain that you go through when you miscarry. There is obviously the emotional pain, but there is so much physical pain as well. I sat in the shower crying while my husband helped console me. We were both a lot more immediately affected this time than the last. I had carried longer, we had seen our baby and a heartbeat on the ultrasound, and we had just started to begin to feel hope in this pregnancy.

We drove home at the end of the weekend and the Doctor confirmed I had miscarried and naturally passed everything. But that wasn't the end of it. I was continually reminded every week of what had happened as I went to the Doctor's office to get my blood drawn. They had to do this in order to make sure my HCG levels went down to below 5. I had to do this to make sure that I did not need to have a D & C. So for about 5 more weeks I got stuck with needles and left feeling more and more like my body let me down again. We are now labeled with what is called "secondary infertility". We are on an uphill battle to figure out what has gone wrong with each pregnancy and what we can do to fix it.

Miscarriage is tough.  With this second loss I think we were able to cope with the emotional loss a little better than the first since we came into the pregnancy with caution. It is still not easy and hurts like hell, both emotionally and physically. We made sure to surround ourselves with loved ones who cared and showed so much overwhelming support. This battle seems to be never ending, but I know we are resilient.

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