We had our first daughter with no problems. Second month of trying, slipped one past the goalie and 9 months later, there’s little Giada. “This is easy!” we thought. We wanted at least one more kid and planned on waiting till G was a bit older, 2 years old or so. Right before her second birthday we started trying again, and sure enough, the second month, SCORE! Come April of 2009 she’d be a big sister! Heidi called her friend, G’s Godmother and told her the great news. She thought ‘Hey, I’m a few days late, come to think of it…” and soon they were cheering on the phone ‘We’re gonna be pregnant together AGAIN!!!!” (their first daughter and G are 2 months apart.)
We got this pregnancy thing figured out.
We headed in for the first ultrasound, planned on seeing a little circle with a piece of rice inside, and tiny flashing thing…the heartbeat.
Here’s the first time you feel completely alone in a hospital full of people. The techs aren’t really qualified (on paper) to tell you anything. They’re there to take measurements and leave the explanation to your doctor. We kinda’ knew what to look for…I think any second time parent knows, and we didn’t see a baby. We saw an empty sac. ‘This is a blighted ovum!” Heidi whispered to me…panic setting in for both of us. The Tech had gone into all business mode and was doing things as fast as she could. “You’ll have to talk to your doctor” was all she’d say to us. Then she packed up, told Heidi to get dressed and vanished.
Fear, confusion, sadness festered in that room. We had a worst-case idea of what was going on, but no direction, no guidance…no idea what came next. Our awesome doc told us that it was early, there’s no clear reason to panic, and to get some hCG level testing done. If the numbers are doubling, Heidi’s conception math was off. If not, we’ll take things from there.
They didn’t double. We had a sac with no baby. Heidi and her friend weren’t going to be pregnant together. G wasn’t going to be a big sister yet.
We opted for a quick D&E procedure and were home later that day. Think about any time you’ve suffered a loss of a family member. The family kinda’ converges around you, there’s meat trays and bagel baskets. You’re not alone in any way. That’s not the case for miscarriage. Sure, our families were supportive and made sure there was nothing we needed. But we found ourselves going about our usual Friday night routine. G was at my folks, we were free to do whatever we wanted. Wings? Beers? Target? How about a movie? Yeah, let’s see Tropic Thunder, something funny and get our minds off things.
We didn’t laugh. I try not to blame the film. We went to visit a friend at work. What do you say? “Hey, how’s your day? We had a miscarriage and D&E…like you do.” It was a lonely feeling.
Our doc was good, he told us that we didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t cause this, it wasn’t or fault. That helped us move forward and start thinking about trying this all again. We did it once, quite successfully, why shouldn’t we be successful again? This miscarriage thing…bad roll of the dice. We’ll do better next time.
To be continued.