TWSTBE Founder - Story 1

TWSTBE Founder - Story 1




April 2013 - We were so happy!  I came home one Friday and took a pregnancy test while Husband was taking an after work nap.  2 pink lines.  Wow.  We were going to parents!  We had not been trying very long, 3 months maybe.  But this is just what we wanted!  I did what any rational girl would do over the next few days...take about 6 more tests, just to make sure.  All positive.  First thing on Monday, I called to schedule an appointment with my gynecologist.  I was so upset that I had to wait another 4 weeks to come see her!  But, it is what it is.

The next 4 weeks were amazing!  Sure, I felt like someone was constantly beating my boobs with a plank of wood, and I peed what felt like every 15 minutes, but the joy we felt was immeasurable.  We made plans.  BIG plans.  And small plans.  Everything from how we would tell everyone to disciplinary practices for their first bad grade, to what colleges would be viable options for our star student athlete/scholar/musically gifted child.  We had a nickname.  We would have conversations towards my belly.  We took all the necessary steps toward a healthy pregnancy.  We were so ready to be able to share our secret with the world, but we knew that it always best to wait until after that important first appointment.

And so the day came.  It was May 6th.  We were beyond excited!!  I lay on the table as the sonographer inserted the probe and went to work finding our baby.  It took a minute to figure out what we were looking at.  What was that dark area?  It looked just like a dark hole.  Where was our baby?  I think it dawned on me before Husband…there was nothing there.  That dark hole was where the baby was supposed to be, and it was empty.  The sonographer said some non-committal things like “You may not be as far along as we thought.”  It’s her job.  She can’t say anything.  We waited for the doctor in the exam room after that.  When she came in, she confirmed.  I had what is known as a blighted ovum.  To cut through all the medical stuff, my body had terminated the pregnancy before it got far enough along to develop anything.  But your body still acts mostly pregnant until the ovum is expelled from the body.  I don’t think I ever knew true devastation before that moment. I went home, instead of back to work as originally planned.  Husband came home shortly after that too.  We spent the day on the couch, in a daze.  

So much went through my mind.  What had I done to cause this?  Was the shopping cart I pushed too heavy?  I was pretty tipsy around the conception date; did that kill the baby? Was it because I was over-weight? Oh and did I get mad! I was mad at everyone for a long while.  I was mad at God and the doctor and the person crossing the street too slow.  It’s not fair!  I was still having pregnancy symptoms, but wasn’t going to have a baby!  There is nothing right about that situation.  Then I felt like a fool.  There I was having conversations with something that wasn’t there and may never had been.  Making plans for something that wasn’t real.  Mourning and crying about someone I never met.  Someone whose heart may never have even beat once.  I felt stupid and foolish; like I had been fooled by my own body, even betrayed.  How could I explain this to anyone?  I felt no one would understand.  Everyone would think I was crazy for being so sad and mad about this mistake my body had made.  

Eventually, people started to know and find out.  And that is when I realized that I wasn’t as alone as I felt.  Other couples had felt these things and gone through this or other experiences.  I felt so much less crazy after finding out that others had these feelings too.  I am not saying that it ever gave me answers to the questions that my brain was throwing out in my head, but at least I knew that I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t alone. And that helped.  It didn’t make it all better.  Nothing ever will.  But I realized with the help of friends that sometimes a life starts when plans are made for that life. Life doesn’t start with birth, or at 20 weeks pregnant, or at the first heartbeat.  Even though there may have been no physical presence of “life,” Husband and I had created a life for this little person from Day 1.  And we deserved time to mourn that and time to cope and deal with that happened to us.  And we took that time.  We love our baby and we wish we could have seen the person he would have become, and that was OK.  We were not alone in those feelings.  It’s still not easy always and I still don’t know why this happened.  But feeling less along, less isolated, less crazy, helped so much.

On May 17^th, I physically miscarried.  We were at a wedding out of state.  I had been bleeding for a few days.  I began cramping very badly and bled like I had never bled before for about 3-5 hours, and just like that it was over.  It was sad; very sad.  But I knew that I would make it because I now knew the stories of others who had made it. 

Part 2 of my story to come…


I chose today (Sunday, May 11^th, 2014) to launch this blog and submit my first entry/story because it is Mother’s Day.  I may not have a stroller to push or little diapers to change or a little mouth to give a bottle too, so it may not seem like I am a Mother, but I am.  I am the Mother of Angel Babies.  No, they can’t make me breakfast in bed today and they can’t sign a little card for me, but they are with me today.  Happy Mother’s Day to the Mothers of Earth and Angel Babies alike.