Tear Soup

If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it, no matter what kind of grief you are going through or what grief you have been through that still needs simmering every once in a while.

This has been a month of Tear Soup for me. Exactly one month ago, on December 31st, I had the best news to share- I was finally pregnant! I was so excited and was trying to figure out when and how to tell my kids. 2012 was going to be a great year because I would have a baby at the end of the summer. I immediately started thinking about how wonderful it would be to have Bryce in school (kindergarten) and have a new baby to hold for a few hours each day. I knew my kids would love the baby and it would increase the love in my house. After sharing with Jeff, I decided Valentine's Day would be the perfect day to share the news. What better way to celebrate the holiday of love!

Well, as you can see, it didn't exactly turn out that way. Because of my infertility history, I get to go to the doctor early for tests. I had my blood drawn twice to check for HCG and progesterone levels. My HCG looked great, but my progesterone was low, so he put me on supplements. I began bleeding a week later and started to panic. I have never had bleeding in a pregnancy. I went into the doctor, but it was too early to have an ultrasound. He put me on pelvic rest (I don't like that term!) and told me to come back in a week. My levels were drawn again, and everything looked good.

When I went in for the ultrasound, we found a baby with a heartbeat! Unfortunately, we also found a big pool of blood, that was termed a subchorionic hemorrhage. I had never heard of that. The dr. said it was fairly common and most will just reabsorb in the body, but he kept me on pelvic rest.  I was reassured by the heartbeat, knowing that my baby was doing fine right then and was strong! We decided to tell the kids that night, because we felt that the kids should know why mom was sitting on the couch so much. :-)

The next week I spotted for a few days and then on Thursday and Friday the bleeding became more and I called the Dr. He wasn't in, but they said I could see his colleague just to get reassurance that everything was fine. Well, everything was not fine. She did not find the baby or a heartbeat so I was told the miscarriage would happen over the weekend. I was devastated.  I decided not to believe the doctor (denial anyone?!) and just wait until Monday when I could see my doctor. Well, I did miscarry over the weekend, on January 22nd. It was heartbreaking.

Over this past 9 days, I have been hoping that maybe I was wrong, maybe there is still a baby there. Today I went in for an ultrasound with my doctor. He confirmed that the miscarriage was complete. The good news is that I don't need to have a D&C. He also talked to me about how dangerous this pregnancy was, and he was really worried for my health. The baby was implanted very close to my C-section scar and he said there was a 34% chance that I would develop Placenta Accreta, a very scary condition where the placenta attaches to the scar tissue and ends with a hysterectomy. This would have been a very long and scary pregnancy. This doesn't make the loss any easier, but it does give a little bit of relief.

I was debating how much to share on here, but since this is my journal and scrapbook, I wanted this baby to be honored. The kids were so sweet and so excited about having a sibling.

Now, we will be taking some time to decide what the next step is for our family. Please keep us in your prayers as we try to determine whether or not we will keep trying to add to our family, or if we will just be content and grateful for the 3 beautiful children we have. Tomorrow is Dallin's 10th birthday and the first day of February so my focus will defnitely be on him and how grateful I am that he made me a mom 10 years ago!

I have been so appreciative of all the support I have had from friends and family. Phone calls and texts and flowers and dinners have been flooding us. For my past 3 babies, the difficult part for me was getting pregnant and then I had very healthy, noneventful pregnancies. I have never had a miscarriage before, so this is a new loss I have never felt. Another book that I read that is helpful to me is call About What was Lost and it's 20 author's experience with miscarriage. Can you tell I am searching for answers and peace? If anyone has advice for how to get through it, I would certainly appreciate it.

For now, I will keep on having Tear Soup.

Edited to add: I actually forgot that we took this picture. When I told the kids we were having a baby, we went on a scavenger hunt that ended with ice cream at Baskin Robbins and the good news.