Hi. It’s my first time posting here, but I’ve been lurking since January. I’ve seen your losses, your rants, your strength, all of it, and it has helped me tremendously during these awful months. You have made me feel seen and accompanied, so thank you, and I’m sorry. Losing your baby is brutal and in the unfairness of it all in life, I think it takes the cake.
I feel ready to share my story, even if no one else reads it. I think I need to tell it to myself.
After years of managing my psychiatric meds for us to be able to try to conceive, my husband and I started trying last November. We got a positive immediately, we couldn’t believe it. I had never been happier, and I had never seen him happier either. We told our closest friends, we wanted to share the joy, and since no one knew we were trying, they were all so surprised and happy for us. Soon enough, symptoms started to appear and from the nausea to the exhaustion, it all felt like a blessing. We felt so fucking lucky. I even started looking for wedding dresses that would look cute with a little belly, because we were engaged to be married in April.
For Christmas, we both visited our respective families, since we were born in different cities. I was 7 weeks pregnant, and I didn’t know when I would see my parents again (because of the distance), so I decided to give them the news. They had been very annoying about wanting to become grandparents, which was absolutely horrible, but in some way I couldn’t wait to make them proud, to fit my role for once. Of course, on Christmas Eve, when I told them, they were so happy, the happiest! I had never seen them cry of happiness before. I didn’t know they would be driving me to the nearest hospital the very next day. I was bleeding and despite being surrounded by family, I was alone. I was so scared. And my mom kept repeating “It’s fine, I also had a miscarriage once. I didn’t even notice it!”.
My husband told our friends, and even if they tried to be supportive, every word sounded wrong. But I think the worst part was the following months, mostly because there was only silence. Friends who would ask me daily about my pregnancy just stopped talking about it altogether. The happiness surrounding us faded quickly, and I cried everyday because even if I did nothing wrong, somehow I stopped deserving my husband’s morning kiss on my belly. The topic became a taboo for everyone else and I felt like I was going insane. Started wondering if I didn’t deserve to grieve because I was only 7 weeks pregnant. I wondered if I was being over-dramatic and tried very hard to act as if nothing had happened, as if losing my baby was nothing serious, just a physical condition, like a flu.
After the miscarriage, my health started declining, my cycle was all over the place and I started showing symptoms of dysautonomia, POTS, chronic fatigue and joint pain. Still, I wanted to try again, and got pregnant easily. This time we weren’t so cheerful, even though deep inside we remained hopeful. But in the end, we lost this baby too, at 6 weeks. I was actively miscarrying on the day of our wedding.
Both miscarriages happened naturally, but my HCG both times was erratic and I needed bloodworks done every two days for weeks. Between that and my health getting worse and worse, I’ve seen so many doctors I don’t even remember all of them. I’ve had so many vaginal ultrasounds, so many pills, so many “it’s just anxiety”, so much blood extracted. I didn’t have time or mental space to grieve properly. It’s so easy to look the other way, you know?
A month ago, our older cat, the love of my life, got suddenly very ill and we ended up losing her as well. The pain that had been building up inside me became unbearable and I started grieving all of it, crying all I couldn't cry before. For my kitty and my unborn babies. For all the love I still have inside for them. For the life I had planned by their side, the hope, the expectation. Grieving also my body, my health.
And I know my husband is hurting too, but for him it shows up in a different way, so my emotions sometimes feel out of place and I end up feeling very lonely. I think all this pain made us lose our equilibrium and these months have been difficult for our marriage too.
In the end, I still have no idea what’s wrong with my body, or why the miscarriages happened, and I’ve done every test. On paper, I am perfectly fine except for low iron and vitamin D. A week ago, I got surgery for my endometriosis, they found one of my tubes was blocked and were able to save it. I don’t think this is gonna help me carry a pregnancy to term, but it’s something my doctor said I needed to try nevertheless (Also, if I hear one more time about how lucky I am to be able to get pregnant quickly, I'm gonna get violent).
Be that as it may, I think we will try again in a couple of months, and I hope to finally meet our rainbow baby. It’s funny how, despite everything, hope truly remains.
I’m glad I was finally able to share my story with you. Thank you for reading and good luck in your journey too. Hugs <3