Rain Rain Go Away…

So, I had planned on a different kind of post this weekend. I’ve been coloring and crafting up cute ways to announce our pregnancy to the world. I would be 6 weeks along and with our past experience, I didn’t think hiding this pregnancy would be necessary. But instead of a rainbow announcement to share with our friends, I get to talk about more rain.

We were “lucky,” you could say, to learn of our pregnancy quite early in comparison to other women. I learned I was pregnant at just 3 weeks along. We’ve been so excited, and I am such a planner that we even jumped on a big sale when it happened and I bought a bassinet for my bedside…

I downloaded pregnancy apps and began carefully watching my diet, and taking a prenatal vitamin. Every week I’d inform Warren just how big “jelly bean” had gotten and the developments of this stage. I pinned ideas for a nursery and newborn photos for December, when I was due. We were excited, and a little nervous of course… I contacted people about an at home fetal monitor to try later in the pregnancy to keep my peace of mind and planned on getting a doppler as well to be able to check on jelly bean as often as I wanted.

I’d see sisters in my ward with their new little ones and think, “That’ll be me next year.”

But today, the day I am 6 weeks along, I have something different running through my mind.

Not again.

I can’t loose the rainbow that everyone is promised.

This can’t be happening to me.

I’ve been bleeding for a day and a half now. The real torture isn’t the horrendous cramping or tedious cleanup, it’s the not really knowing if I’m still pregnant or not.

I called a nurse from my doctors office over and over yesterday, and finally decided to go in for an ultrasound today, hoping to put any uncertainty to rest. But up there on the black and grey screen we saw nothing but a seemingly empty uterus and evidence that my right ovary had ovulated.

The Doctor kept saying things like, “this has happened to some women in pregnancy,” and, “there’s still no way for us to know for sure if this pregnancy is viable or not.”

Maybe there is a baby, and maybe the baby was already flushed down my toilet.

And according to the Doc, it’s a 50-50 chance.

But with having had a “healthy” pregnancy up until the end I know that this isn’t normal for me. Warren and I are pretty sure we’ve lost the baby.

Miscarriage.

Why is it such a cliche?

Why is it taboo to talk about, especially when so many go through it?

You’ve probably heard the statistic, but let me hash it out here again for you. One in every four women experience a miscarriage in their lifetime. That is 25%. You probably have a close friend or family member you think you know everything about, but didn’t know they’ve lost a pregnancy.

Miscarriage effects bunches of women everyday.

So why isn’t it talked about more?

And why is it that nobody understands the difference between this and my experience last fall?

Because let me tell you, having potentially gone through both, it is different. Completely.

Neither one is easy. Neither experience would I wish on a friend.

But I am perhaps more mad now, after experiencing both a miscarriage and a stillbirth, at the countless people who told me they knew exactly what I was going through because they understood the pain of loosing a pregnancy. Because they had experienced a miscarriage. What I lost last fall wasn’t loosing a pregnancy. I lost two perfect little boys who were ready for this world. Ready, but gone too soon.

What I may be loosing this weekend is a pregnancy. The potential to become a perfect son or daughter of mine. The potential, even a very wanted and loved beginning, but not yet the reality.

In a lot of ways, this experience has been harder for me to deal with because of loosing my boys. Loosing a pregnancy that was supposed to give me hope, and something to look forward to, hurts more because of what I’ve lost already.

In other ways though, I think I may have suffered more if I hadn’t experienced a stillbirth. Because I wouldn’t know the reality of coming through the storm and the strength of waiting for my rainbow to appear.

I feel for that one in four. I am so sorry that anyone has to experience loosing the joy I have felt these last weeks.

But I also feel deeply for that one in one-hundred and sixty women who experiences stillbirth. That pain is still sometimes hard for me to bear.

---

I am trying to keep my heart believing that God’s timing is perfect and that all these things happen for a reason, but this storm keeps raging and the toll it takes is hard to deal with day to day.