TWSTBE – Founder’s Husband - Part 1

Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there, whether its grown up kids, little kids, babies, babies-in-womb, angel babies and ever furry babies.  

Here is Part 1 of my husband's story of our journey.   I love you, sweetie.  Your strength has kept me strong as well. 

TWSTBE – Founder’s Husband

Part 1

My wife mentioned to me that she wanted to start a blog. We had tossed around the idea of one a few times before, but when she said she wanted to be about our miscarriages, I was relieved.

It had been a year since our first miscarriage and quite honestly, I didn’t feel we were healing from our losses. We had been visiting a family counselor/therapist and she was helping us achieve our goal, but we still needed something to tie it altogether. We wanted something that would not only help us, but help others who went through similar incidents.

 So, this is a blog for women (and men) who have been through miscarriages and/or infertility. She asked me to write our story from my point of view so that men could also find comfort in knowing they aren’t alone in what they have experienced.

On May 6^th, 2013 I was extremely anxious. It was the day of our first sonogram and I was so pumped to see our baby. We had only tried for a few months, maybe three and we were pregnant. At this time, my mind was racing with what color to paint the nursery, what car seat is the safest, where could my child go to college. These thoughts were normal for first time parents; we were ready to start a new chapter in our lives.

Once we arrived, they make the wife/girlfriend/fiance’/baby holder take one more pregnancy test and the doctor said it showed pregnant. At this time, I secretly breathed a sigh of relief thinking that health wise, everything was ok. However, once the sonogram began, we received a quick and sudden dose of reality. There was a sac present but it looked like a dark hole. In my mind, questions began to arise. Was the machine broken? Where’s the baby, don’t we normally see something? Are we not that far along? In our relationship, I’m the optimistic one. I thought the doctor will tell us it’s all good or that we needed to show patience, etc. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The doctor stated that we had a blight ovum which is when egg and sperm conceive together but a child never develops. It’s more or less the equivalent of a false positive pregnancy where the body has all the symptoms of pregnancy but no child present. Our doctor is a straight forward and honest person which we appreciate, but I wasn’t ready to accept the fact that I wasn’t a father yet.

The doctor and I had this back and forth conversation: Her hormone level is too low. It can bounce back. No, it can’t. We could have the baby start to develop next time we’re here. No, it can’t. Isn’t there hormone shots, pills, anything that could help kick start development? No, there isn’t.

When I came to realize that this wasn’t our time, I went through the whole range of emotions. My first reaction to our news was getting my wife back to health. She still hadn’t physically miscarried and getting her back to health was priority one. Subconsciously, I had gone into father mode. Father mode is when you protect your family with all your might and will keep everything or everyone away. It was a two person wolfpack and I needed to nurse my wife back to health. Once she was back to normal, which took a few months, we took a break from trying for a family.

 
I asked myself typical questions: What did we do wrong? What did we do to deserve this agony? Why can’t we have a baby, aren’t we good people? I had come to realize that our next child is a blessing and I will cherish it that much more once it arrives.

TWSTBE Founder Story 2:

A few months after our first miscarriage, my husband and I started to try again.  My periods were all out of whack and it was hard to nail down the right timing.  But soon, on Sunday, November 17^th, we saw the 2 pink lines again.  

I imagine that everyone who has gone through what we had gone through earlier in the year would feel the same way we did.  Super excited and super scared at the same time.  I would say we spoke less and made fewer plans for that time.  Until December 10^th.  I had taken the whole day off work for the first sonogram and appointment.  The doctor had brought me in earlier than last time by a few weeks, just so that we could see early on what was going on.  Husband snuck out of work too and that morning we were in the same room that had devastated us 6 months earlier.  It was surprisingly hard to be in that room, even though we were confident that we were going to be getting good news this time.  And we did.  Right there on the monitor was a tiny little image with that had a little pumping part in the middle.  Our baby!  Her heart!  It was all there!  I couldn’t hold my tears back.  We were over the moon!

Plans intensified immediately, looking at the calendar to decide when to tell everyone.  We narrowed the names down to Boy and Girl names and purchased tiny little Dallas Cowboys onesies (gender neutral).  We told our family and closest friends in what we felt was an adorably creative way on Christmas and New Years.   Everyone was ecstatic for us! 

January 4^th, in the early afternoon, I started to bleed.  Not much, but it was enough to concern me.  I tried to call my doctor and got through to Doc on staff who said if it got worse I could go to a hospital.  We were not taking chances.  We went to an emergency care clinic near our house.  It was a Saturday, so they had to call the sonographer in special.  She did the sonogram, measured the baby at 8.5 weeks in size (we were almost at 12), and said she couldn’t find the heartbeat.  I didn’t even look at the screen the whole time.  I couldn’t.  Husband did and he stayed very strong even though he knew what he was seeing.  The doc told me I was miscarrying and to make an appointment with my gyno first thing on Monday to decide how she would want to proceed.  I left her a message and assumed I would see her on Monday morning.  

**GRAPHIC CONTENT TO FOLLOW**

Sunday late evening, I started to cramp.  Bad.  Worse than anything I have ever felt.  Some things would help a little; meds, heat, laying down in certain positions.  But the pains would come back just as strong after some time.  About that time the bleeding (which had been like a light period to this point) got significantly worse.  By bed time, I was soaking through a full pad in under 2 hours.  My cramps kept coming.  Without my knowing it, Husband had been monitoring time between when the waves of pain would hit.  8 minutes, each time, dead on it.  More or less, I was in a form of labor.  The doc on duty at my regular gynos office told us that if I started bleeding more than 1 full pad an hour that I might look at going to the hospital.  By the end of the next hour, I had used 4 pads.  I went to the bathroom and as I pulled my pants down…I really can’t even put it into words, but it was like my insides all fell out of my vagina.  I was standing in a puddle of tissue and clots and blood was everywhere.  Husband came in right then and saw everything.  I think this was probably the most traumatizing moment in each of our lives.  We knew what we were looking at.  We cleaned up as best we could and went to the hospital.  There, after vaginal exams and sonograms, they confirmed that there was no longer a baby in my uterus.  

We have done well over the past 6 months; healing at our pace, through our own methods.  I will add more posts on our processes and other things that I want to share soon.  I just wanted to get this part down, to give a frame of reference of what we went through.  And to get it out.  It took me two weeks to write this, but I feel better telling my story.  I feel better knowing someone might read this and not feel alone.    The better posts from me will come.  The ones that talk about how we made it through and how we are, but the posts like this are important.  For all of us.  We have to start here.  

I still want to share all of your stories!  Please send them to me at thiswassupposedtobeeasy@gmail.com.  I may not post them immediately, but they will get posted.  And share this blog with your friends and family who you know might want to share or just feel less alone.