I know I confuse a lot of people. In person, I can become quiet and closed off, but behind a screen I say more than most people would. That might come across as insincere to a lot of people, but one thing you should know is that I'm a verbal processor. In order for me to know exactly what I'm thinking or feeling, I need to talk it out, write it out, cry it out.. But I've learned (the hard way too many times) that because I process in this way, I can often say things in the moment that seem very hurtful and harsh. I've had to ask for forgiveness for a lot of things that I said, but didn't really mean. Not even about that other person, but about myself, my husband, my family. I have to choose my words so carefully because I don't want to use them as a means of harm.
Behind a screen, I can form my words into (mostly) concise observations and honest thoughts. My words are exactly as I intend them to be. Face-to-face, in person, I stumble, I stutter, I repeat myself, I say things that are easily misunderstood, because I struggle to put each and every intricate thought into a clear and definitive picture. But here, here I can pour it out, make it known, and make it accurate. This is how I tell my story best. It's not that I couldn't or wouldn't share these details with you in person, because I certainly would! It's that I may not be able to form the conversation on the spot. I may not have the time or space to give the topic as much attention and detail as I feel necessary. In my mind, my story is not just a handful of events on a timeline. Instead, I see my life as an overarching mural that is painted by every single conversation, experience, emotion, relationship, and heartache. Each coming together on canvas to create the picture of my life. Everything plays into the next stroke of the brush. Each circumstance is molded by the past eight. So for me to just sit and tell you the "latest" in my life just doesn't do it justice in my heart. Because I feel like I can't convey the beauty and the intensity of an event to you without you fully understanding where I've been, what's led me to this point, and why I view life the way I do.
All that said, this is the way I'm choosing to communicate with you all what has happened and how it's affected our lives. This story is so important to me and has shaped the way I will live the rest of my life. I'm not the same as I was before. I can't be. I've experienced a heartache that I've never known, and it will mark me forever.
Secondary Infertility
It was time. We were ready for baby #3 to join the crew. 2018 had been the best year and we were ready to grow the family. In September, we hadn't been super... um.. intentional, but my period never came. I took several tests, thinking that eventually one would turn up positive. Finally on about day 50 of my cycle I called my doctor. I explained what was going on and they said to give it one more weekend and call in Monday morning if I have another negative test and no period. Well, on day 52 of my cycle, my hopes that it was a pregnancy quickly disappeared with the cramping. After that cycle, I had looked back and realized my cycles were becoming longer and longer. Since Myla was born, I don't think I ever went back into a consistent rhythm. In October, I started tracking a little better. I thought that maybe with the longer cycles, I needed to pay a little more attention. Another long cycle with several negative tests. I broke down and bought an ovulation predictor kit. I mean when there's 40-50 days in your cycle, guessing the right one wasn't very likely. I took the tests and never seemed to peak. Maybe I wasn't doing this right, maybe I just always seemed to miss the window. We were fully prepared to start announcing a pregnancy at Thanksgiving or Christmas, but those holidays came and went without a positive test. This was odd. It was new territory for us. Trevin and Myla had come so easily, without tracking. But the negative tests began to pile up. I realized something deeper was probably going on.In all honesty, I put off going to the doctor for several months. I didn't want to assume something was wrong. I felt great; I was healthy; I had two successful pregnancies before, without any trouble. But deep down, I knew things had changed after I had Myla. I had always been an emotional person, not typically in a group or with people. (Hello, introvert.) But I needed space at home, alone, to process life, the good and the bad. I'm an enneagram four, so emotions were always a part of me and I was ok with that. Crying was soothing and refreshing and life-giving. In high school, I used to pick a sad movie or my grandparents' slideshow video to let out a good cry. I needed that and I honestly enjoyed that. I've always longed for that space, but since Myla has been born, that hasn't happened near as often. I didn't feel the waves as intensely as I had before. I assumed it was because I was growing, spiritually and emotionally, but I started to wonder if things were out of balance. I mean, was it coincidence that I suddenly felt emotionally stale and had an inconsistent cycle at the exact same time?
In January, I had another 50+ day cycle and I made an appointment with my doctor for February. I knew something was up and I didn't want to wait another 40-50 day cycle to find out what was going on. My doctor was convinced right away that I wasn't ovulating. (You'd think I would have had an inkling of that, but I had been in full-on denial.) She suggested progesterone to jumpstart a period (because it might have been 2020 before it showed up again on its own,) and clomid to help with ovulation. I had several friends who had used clomid and I was terrified. I feared that my emotions would return with a vengeance and that I would be paralyzed by the intense waves that it could bring. We decided to try it for one month and go from there. If the side effects were too much for me, I wouldn't take it again.
The first cycle on clomid was rather uneventful. I had a few headaches from the meds, but other than that, I didn't have much for side effects. I was so relieved. I still felt calm and under control and mostly excited. I took the ovulation test, as instructed, and I had finally peaked! It felt like the first "positive" test that I had for baby #3 and it gave me real hope that a pregnancy would be right around the corner. I had been let down hard before though, so I was careful to protect my heart. I knew there was no guarantee and I didn't want to get ahead of myself.
Easter weekend, the negative tests were confirmed with the arrival of my period. I felt defeated. I thought we knew what the problem was. We fixed it. I ovulated. Why am I not pregnant?
Our short struggle with infertility is nothing compared to what some have endured. I'm fully aware of that. But now I have had a small glimpse into what that pain is like. My heart is incredibly softened towards those who have walked this road or are currently in the midst of it. God has now gifted me with a special grace for those people. It is a confusing and heartbreaking path, one that I've only had a small taste of. If for nothing else, I'm thankful that I can see these families in a new light. My heart has always hurt for them, but now it aches alongside theirs.
God showed me a lot of His character through those months. He proved his faithfulness for the millionth time. He provided genuine moments of kindness on really hard days. He asked for my patience, contentment, and submission of my plans. He asked for my trust. I held it tight many days, but the moments that I was able to release it, the peace that swept over me was indescribable.
Pregnancy
May rolled around along with a second round of clomid. We increased the dose and hoped for the best. I had started that cycle on the Easter holiday weekend, so my doctor didn't get back to me until almost a week later. Unfortunately, I was late getting started on my dose of clomid, but we continued with it anyway and thought it might still take effect. I had a positive ovulation test at the beginning of May and I felt a little more confident this time around. I had intense ovulation pain for several days, but figured that was just a side effect of the clomid. We started the long and dreaded wait. When the time was getting close, I took a pregnancy test. Negative. It was still early, but I didn't have any reason to believe I was pregnant yet, so I decided I wouldn't take another test this cycle and started to wonder when and if I'd ever see a positive test again.
Fast forward a few days. We decided on a whim to take a quick trip to Lake of the Ozarks. (It just wouldn't stop raining at home.) We had a great time - I'm sure there'll be another time to share those stories. We left on a Tuesday and returned home on Saturday. Last second, I had thrown a cheap pregnancy test into my bag, because I knew it would be torture if my period didn't show up while we were gone and I didn't have a test to take. I suspected nothing, but on Wednesday I noticed I was fairly bloated, not that unusual, but still I took notice. By Thursday I had gotten so big, even James made a comment asking if I was feeling alright because my stomach was protruding so much. Still didn't think anything of it until supper time when James had grilled steaks and a couple of the fish he had caught. I piled my plate high and practically licked it clean before I asked for another steak. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew. That was so unlike me to eat that much in one sitting. (I'm usually a grazer - eat little bits at a time, all day long.) I thought back to our last several meals and I remembered eating every ounce of food in front of me and still feeling hungry when I got up from the table. I knew I needed to take a test, but decided to wait until the next morning when my results would be clearer.
I felt giddy going to bed that night, but I had also been down this road before. Many high hopes dashed by a missing pink line, month after month. So I was trying to be cautiously optimistic. In typical pregnancy fashion, I woke up at 4:00 AM needing to pee. I went back and forth about whether or not to take the test then or wait until morning. I decided I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep without knowing, so I took the test and tried to preoccupy myself for 3 minutes. When the last seconds counted down, I took a deep breath and grabbed the test. Two pink lines. I panicked and my mind raced, "Two lines means pregnant, right??" This was a new brand of test that I had never used so suddenly I was afraid two lines weren't universal. After I confirmed, (thanks Google) I thanked the Lord for answering our prayers, blessing us with another child, and for carrying us through the hard season of infertility. I ran back to the bedroom and told James the good news. He was half-asleep but that sure woke him up. And to prove that I really was pregnant, I started bawling.
That was Friday morning. It was our last day at the lake and I was skipping around like a goof all day. If you would have saw us, you would have said we were beaming. Trevin saw us taking a picture of me holding my belly. He innocently asked, "Why are we taking pictures of people's bellies?" We laughed it off and moved on. We weren't quite ready to break the news to the kids.
Remember how I had said that the test I brought was cheap and this was the first time I had ever used it? I did the worst thing and looked up the Amazon reviews for it. It seemed like there were so many reviews that said they got false positives. I was suddenly so skeptical and was convinced I needed to find the nearest Walmart to buy another test. James assured me that I was pregnant and that it was ridiculous to think I needed to spend half of my day confirming it for a second time. So I trusted him and I trusted the test, but I had plans to take my expensive test as soon as we got home.
We came home early Saturday and immediately shuffled off to a graduation reception and a wedding. I decided to wait to take the test until the next morning. Sunday morning confirmed I wasted an expensive pregnancy test, when the cheap one did just fine. I was pregnant.
Fast forward a few days. We decided on a whim to take a quick trip to Lake of the Ozarks. (It just wouldn't stop raining at home.) We had a great time - I'm sure there'll be another time to share those stories. We left on a Tuesday and returned home on Saturday. Last second, I had thrown a cheap pregnancy test into my bag, because I knew it would be torture if my period didn't show up while we were gone and I didn't have a test to take. I suspected nothing, but on Wednesday I noticed I was fairly bloated, not that unusual, but still I took notice. By Thursday I had gotten so big, even James made a comment asking if I was feeling alright because my stomach was protruding so much. Still didn't think anything of it until supper time when James had grilled steaks and a couple of the fish he had caught. I piled my plate high and practically licked it clean before I asked for another steak. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew. That was so unlike me to eat that much in one sitting. (I'm usually a grazer - eat little bits at a time, all day long.) I thought back to our last several meals and I remembered eating every ounce of food in front of me and still feeling hungry when I got up from the table. I knew I needed to take a test, but decided to wait until the next morning when my results would be clearer.
I felt giddy going to bed that night, but I had also been down this road before. Many high hopes dashed by a missing pink line, month after month. So I was trying to be cautiously optimistic. In typical pregnancy fashion, I woke up at 4:00 AM needing to pee. I went back and forth about whether or not to take the test then or wait until morning. I decided I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep without knowing, so I took the test and tried to preoccupy myself for 3 minutes. When the last seconds counted down, I took a deep breath and grabbed the test. Two pink lines. I panicked and my mind raced, "Two lines means pregnant, right??" This was a new brand of test that I had never used so suddenly I was afraid two lines weren't universal. After I confirmed, (thanks Google) I thanked the Lord for answering our prayers, blessing us with another child, and for carrying us through the hard season of infertility. I ran back to the bedroom and told James the good news. He was half-asleep but that sure woke him up. And to prove that I really was pregnant, I started bawling.
That was Friday morning. It was our last day at the lake and I was skipping around like a goof all day. If you would have saw us, you would have said we were beaming. Trevin saw us taking a picture of me holding my belly. He innocently asked, "Why are we taking pictures of people's bellies?" We laughed it off and moved on. We weren't quite ready to break the news to the kids.
Remember how I had said that the test I brought was cheap and this was the first time I had ever used it? I did the worst thing and looked up the Amazon reviews for it. It seemed like there were so many reviews that said they got false positives. I was suddenly so skeptical and was convinced I needed to find the nearest Walmart to buy another test. James assured me that I was pregnant and that it was ridiculous to think I needed to spend half of my day confirming it for a second time. So I trusted him and I trusted the test, but I had plans to take my expensive test as soon as we got home.
We came home early Saturday and immediately shuffled off to a graduation reception and a wedding. I decided to wait to take the test until the next morning. Sunday morning confirmed I wasted an expensive pregnancy test, when the cheap one did just fine. I was pregnant.
I felt like I had already grown so much. Saturday and Sunday I struggled to find an outfit that would conceal the belly that seemed to have showed up overnight. I told a few people right away, some of the people that had walked this road so faithfully with us. The next day was Memorial Day and we had plans to be with family all day long. I asked James if we should tell everyone right away or if we should wait. We both agreed my stomach would do the talking regardless of what my words were saying. We wanted to share the news. Sunday night we sat the kids down and told them. Myla started jumping up and down and Trevin looked at us skeptically. He was excited, but he did have a lot of questions that needed answered. But just like that, it was real. Baby #3 was officially on the way.
We told family and friends on Monday and everyone was thrilled. Trevin started telling every person he walked by and I had to reign him in a bit. We weren't quite ready for the whole world to know. Those first days were so sweet. Myla started kissing my belly from day 1. We told them the plans for the nursery and started thinking about what it would be like to have a January baby. I joked with James that maybe we could only have election year babies and that's why we hadn't been able to get pregnant until now. I felt great. I wanted to soak in every bit of this baby because we had longed for it with every ounce we had. We started talking about names and everybody, except for me, had a guess on the gender. I had been through this before so I knew that I had to go in for a pregnancy test at the clinic before scheduling my first appointment. I hadn't even called my doctor yet, but just came in, asked for the test, took it, waited for the results, scheduled my 8-week ultrasound and left. My doctor saw the results and wanted me back in for blood tests. Since this was a clomid pregnancy, they monitored my hormone levels a little more closely. Having never been on clomid before this, I had no idea, so I went back to the clinic and they drew blood. Results came back great and they wanted me to come in a couple days later to make sure my levels continued to rise. A couple days later, another vein poked, and great reports back. They said they'd see me at my 8-week appointment. Unfortunately, we didn't have the full picture yet.
ER Visit
The last blood draw I had was on Thursday, May 30. I was almost 6 weeks along. Myla had come down with the stomach flu that week but she was feeling better. On Saturday, June 1, it was a typical night. I put kids to bed, James went back out to work. They were still trying to get into the fields. I curled up in bed with the computer and binged a little Netflix to settle in for the night. Around 8:15PM I got severe stomach pains in an instant. It came on so quick that I closed the computer rolled over and instantly started moaning. My first thought was that I had caught the stomach flu from Myla. But this was so sudden and severe, I couldn't figure it out. I thought maybe it was a weird pregnancy flu that was going to hit me differently. But I didn't actually feel sick. I didn't feel crampy or gassy or nauseous. I just felt sharp intense pain. I tried to find a comfortable position, but that wasn't proving to be easy. I got up to get some water and try to find some Tums to see if that would alleviate some of the stomach pain I was experiencing. I could hardly walk. I was bent over and moved so so slow because every ounce of movement made the pain escalate. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what on earth was happening. I wasn't bleeding and it certainly wasn't cramping or contractions, so I ruled out miscarriage. After I got some water, I tried walking back to bed. I felt lightheaded and nauseous now. I felt like I could pass out. Everything was going fuzzy. What in the world was happening?? I bypassed my bedroom and went straight for the bathroom. I was literally gripping the walls to keep from falling over. It was like I couldn't even see straight. I sent James a quick text letting him know what was going on and hoping he'd come home soon. I curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor and tried not to move or pass out or throw up or scream. This went on for another 15 minutes. I didn't want to call James in if this was a false alarm. But with each passing minute, I was afraid I was going to lose consciousness. I called James and he picked up. He hadn't seen my texts but said he'd come right home. By the time he got to me, I was having a hard time forming sentences. It was out of control. (Looking back now, I have no idea why we didn't go to the ER at this point. Maybe it was the babysitter issue, maybe it was the fear of making this into a bigger deal than it was, maybe I was scared to know the truth...) James got me back into bed and I remember having him rubbing my back. Everything seemed to hurt. In total, the episode lasted at least two hours. It finally relieved and I was able to fall asleep. It picked back up in an hour, but it wasn't as severe and didn't last as long. I could pinpoint the exact pain on my left side now. I had another spurt of pain at 5:00AM the next morning, but much shorter lived and again, less intense.
I had already planned to stay home with Myla from church that morning since she was still getting over the stomach flu. James still considered going with Trevin, but the more I thought about it the more concerned I was that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. A friend of mine had experienced one a few years ago and I knew how serious it was. I was nervous to be left alone in case something horrific would happen. We both thought it wise for everyone to stay home and we had a nice morning together. I felt better but was very sore and tired. There was a small window of time to plant that afternoon before more rain came, so James went back out after lunch since I was feeling better.
Now that I knew the pain was concentrated on one side, an ectopic pregnancy was all I could think about. I sent my friend a text and explained what happened and asked what she experienced. Before she could reply, my pain started back up again. It was more intense than the previous two episodes, but not as severe as the first one. This was at 4:30PM. I was done messing around and called James immediately and said we need to go in. Now. He rushed home and had his niece come stay with the kids until Dori could come for them. I kissed the kids goodbye with tears running down my cheeks. Partly because of the pain and partly because of the fear.
We went straight to Grand Island. The drive seemed to last forever. Each bump in the road had me wincing. While we were on our way to the ER, my friend sent a text back with her ectopic experience and said ours sounded different but that if it were her, she would go to the ER right away. Lucky for us, we were already on our way.
We checked in to the emergency room and waited for a few minutes in the waiting room with a family who had a little baby with a spiked fever. I remember wishing the baby would stop crying. I remember the older kids looking at me. I was holding my stomach and had a tear-streaked face. I remembered hating this room. (It was the same place we had brought Myla after her first two seizures.) There were only bad memories here and I was afraid we were about to make another one.
I felt a small gush in the waiting room, but honestly didn't think much of it. I was still in pain and the sudden hustle and bustle of getting checked in had me preoccupied. I was checked into a room and then the questions began. I felt like I answered everything three times. They drew more blood, started an IV, and asked another round of questions. I felt a second small gush and this time it registered. I was bleeding. I hadn't done the urine sample yet, so now it'd be a catheter. When my regular nurse came back in to do the catheter, she asked James to step out. After he left, she looked at me with heartfelt eyes and said in the most tender voice, "You started bleeding?" I couldn't even let out an answer. The tears started to roll down my cheeks. I knew this wasn't a good sign. She leaned in and tried to comfort me. I remember her saying that we're going to assume baby is just fine until we know otherwise. I honestly had assumed the best up until this point. I was optimistic. I was pregnant. My baby was healthy. Everything was fine. Until suddenly everything seemed wrong. The pain couldn't have been random. It had to have been trauma in some way. The bleeding was confirmation to me that I was losing my baby. In my heart, I knew I would have to say goodbye before I could ever say hello.
There were moments that James and I would be alone in the room, for up to an hour at a time. The first few were masked by the questions asked, the adrenaline of the ER, and the pain. They gave me something for the pain and I was able to settle in. But it, in turn, gave my mind the space and ability to think. One of these segments of time alone was far darker than the rest. It was after all the testing had been done, all the questions had been asked, and before the ultrasound. We waited in quiet for a long time. We asked each other questions, tried to make sense of it all. I felt so scared. I asked James to read from the Psalms. He made it half-way through a passage before his words were no longer audible. He met his breaking point. We cried. Hot, heavy, painful tears. I picked up the phone and finished the chapter, and then read another, and another. I felt so desperately that I wanted to pray - to pray for the safety of our baby, to pray for strength to walk this looming dark path before us.. but my mind couldn't form the words. I went numb. Reading from Psalms allowed my heart to speak the words that my mouth couldn't. It allowed me to feel God's presence in the most intimate way I have ever felt. James and I hated what was happening, but we were both fully expecting to leave the hospital without our baby. We saw no way out of it. I asked James, through tear-filled eyes, "Can we name the baby?" He couldn't even get out a word, but he nodded. I didn't say it out-loud but I felt a strong nudge and God placed a name in my mind on repeat, "Auden James. Auden James. Auden James."
Then came the ultrasound. As soon as the image came up on the screen, I instantly felt at peace. I didn't think anything had changed; I had no sudden burst of hope. I just felt calm, for the first time since arriving. I've always associated ultrasounds with the excitement of meeting/seeing my baby. And this time was no different. My eyes searched the screen with everything I had to make out the foreign shapes and contrasts. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I knew my baby was there. Maybe not alive, but there. I think I even smiled as I watched. The technician wouldn't tell me anything that she was seeing or measuring, but I did take this opportunity to ask questions. I told her the pain had been on my left side. I wanted her to focus her attention in the right area. I asked her how she would rule out an ectopic pregnancy. I wanted to make sure I triggered the thought to make that a priority in her mind. She told me she would look outside the uterus and make sure there was no formation or anything else that shouldn't be there. I felt at oddly at peace. I didn't know what the report would be. I wasn't sure what the doctors would find, but whatever it was, I was ok with it.
She finished the ultrasound and sent off the images. After they started tracking my bleeding, we realized that it was only really spotting. The blood and urine samples came back fine, great even, one doctor said. Suddenly things didn't seem so scary. Maybe this was all just one big misunderstanding. Hope started to return. The doctor finally came back in with the results. Because baby was only 6 weeks, they were not able to find a heartbeat, but there was formation in my uterus. (My baby was there! It's still so early, no heartbeat doesn't have to mean no baby!) They found several cysts in my ovaries, some being fairly large. They suggested that one could have ruptured causing the pain on my left side. Just a theory. They can't confirm a ruptured cyst with ultrasound, so it's hard to know exactly. That's what I was told. (We now had confirmation of something in my uterus and a solid explanation for the pain I had experienced! Thank you, Lord! It felt like a miracle.) They were sure to inform me that it still could be a miscarriage, since they couldn't confirm viable pregnancy and I had stomach pains and bleeding. They said we could go home and that I should take it easy. (Oh, and just check in with your OB in the morning.) So basically, something is in my uterus, they can't say if it's actually a baby, but they can't say that it's not - I have large cysts in my ovaries that could explain the pain, but they also couldn't prove that's what happened - and it might just be a miscarriage, but it might not be, they can't confirm either way. Ok...
I remembered the doctor that came in and gave the report rattled everything off so quickly and asked for questions before we even had a second to process and then he was out the door. After he left, I looked at James and was like, "Wait, so what did he say?" The nurse that came to discharge us answered most of the questions that we had about how they came to this conclusion or how they decided on that or why they couldn't prove x, y, and z.. Our hope grew, and just like that we got to go home, with a baby in my womb and the most grateful hearts.
I requested Freddy's French fries after I was discharged and James and I sat in the car and ate them as we tried to process what had just happened. It had been the biggest rollercoaster of emotion that we had ever felt in such a short period of time. The adrenaline was gone and we were left with quiet hearts and bellies full of greasy food. We were happy.
We got home from Grand Island in the middle of the night. James was in and out the rest of the night helping keep the planter going but finally came to bed and crashed a little after 4:00AM. My mom had gotten the kids from Dori the night before and kept them overnight so they could go to VBS first thing Monday morning. We got a text early from my mom who informed us that Trevin had picked up the stomach flu from Myla. (At this point, nothing surprised us.) My parents were so sweet to offer to keep him and let us rest as long as we needed. James ended up grabbing him mid morning, and since it had rained, he was able to stay with Trevin and rest with him. I was lined up to help at VBS with pictures, but knew I'd need to take it easy. I was still feeling fairly sore and exhausted from the emotional strain, but I wanted to see the kids. I wanted to get back to normal. I took a long bath, made a stop at the bakery for a much deserved coffee and breakfast, and headed down to VBS. I was thankful to find out that they had found a sub for me that day so I really just sat around, ate cookies in the kitchen, and watched Myla experience her first official day at VBS.
By the time I got home, Trevin was feeling much better and hadn't gotten sick since early in the morning. He recovered much faster than Myla had, thank goodness. We did our best to rest and I lightened a few of my responsibilities for the week, took some pressure off. I had called my doctor's office that morning to let them know what had happened and to make them aware of the labs and ultrasounds that had been done the night before. My doctor wanted me in for an ultrasound and more labs on Thursday. I was kind of bummed. I thought for sure she'd be as confident as I was and be happy to wait until my 8-week appointment to see me, especially since my labs had been fine and the ultrasound didn't show anything abnormal (minus the cysts). I wasn't having any pain, just soreness, and I was hardly spotting. But after I thought about it, I figured in a few more days baby's heartbeat may be more visible, maybe we can clear this all up and be completely at peace that baby was healthy and where it needed to be.
The next couple days were rather uneventful. The kids and I kept up with VBS and met with friends, but things felt normal again. I remember Wednesday I had a hard afternoon. I had a short window of time to do some church work, ran out of toner in the copier, made an emergency trip to York to buy some, only to strike out. It was VBS week and it was my fault we were out of toner. I felt terrible and I actually had a breakdown over the whole ordeal that night. It was then that I realized how stressed I was about the ER visit and the appointment the next day. Everything felt extra heavy and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I slept well that night, but woke up on Thursday morning with mild cramping and more spotting than I'd had before. I felt like I was suddenly in a panic. Like maybe things weren't as "fine" as I thought they were. Why would I start bleeding more now? Why was I suddenly cramping? Deep down I knew that spotting and cramping early in pregnancy are fairly common. I knew that it didn't necessarily mean something bad was happening. But the weight I had discovered the night before was very obvious to me now. I was scared.
Ultrasound
My appointment wasn't until 12:30, but I called my doctor's office first thing to let them know about the cramping and spotting. They told me to come in early and get labs done so my results would be in before my appointment time, that way they might get a better picture of what was going on. I went in and they drew blood, again. (My veins were so tired of this. I was so tired of this.) I had a few errands to run, including a chiropractor appointment, so I tried to keep my mind at ease. After a little while, I received a call from the clinic. They had the results of my labs. I'm not sure why they didn't wait until my appointment to tell me in person, but the nurse rattled off some information and nothing seemed to stick until she said, "Your numbers went up, but not as much as we'd like to see." I froze. This was the first time my labs were anything but perfect. The nervousness increased and I called James immediately. He had planned to meet me at the clinic for the appointment, but now I asked him to come meet me early for lunch because I was feeling anxious.
We grabbed lunch at a new place and I remember feeling a pit in my stomach. I ate my food as fast as I could and we went straight to the appointment. I desperately wanted my peace of mind back and I longed to see the heartbeat on the monitor. I checked in and was taken back to the ultrasound room. I sat there, looking around the dark room, wondering what our life would look like when we walked back out. Although I felt uneasy, I had no idea what was coming.
My doctor came in and we talked a little bit about what had happened on Saturday/Sunday and any symptoms I'd had since then. As soon as the monitor turned on, I had a strong wave of peace wash over me. I knew that there very well could be bad news coming, but there's something about the ultrasound that puts me at ease. I watched the screen with intensity looking for anything I could recognize, just like on Sunday night. She made a few sweeps around and pretty quickly told us that she saw no viable pregnancy. It was the weirdest thing. I knew what that meant. I knew that meant no baby. I knew that meant something was terribly wrong. But for some reason, the emotion hadn't hit me yet. I think I managed to shut them off because I wanted every ounce of answers I could get. I knew if I let that soak in, I wouldn't have been alert enough to understand what had actually happened. I listened to the doctor as she made some observations. She measured the cysts in my ovaries and then informed me that they had developed because of the clomid, but would likely decrease on their own as my hormones leveled out. (Got that answered. They weren't a concern.) I could tell James started to process her words "no viable pregnancy." He started to ask questions about the baby. My doctor said that she needed to complete the ultrasound so she could give us a full picture. I squeezed his hand and shot him a weak smile. I knew his emotions were coming and I knew I'd feel the wave in a matter of minutes. But in that moment, I felt so oddly calm.
She circled back to my uterus and questioned, "They saw formation in your uterus on Sunday, right?" I answered yes. That's what we had been told. She said she thought so. She needed to review the scans from Sunday, but at this point, there was nothing there. My uterus was empty. She asked, "Is there any chance you miscarried this week?" I almost laughed. I said, "I've never had a miscarriage before, but I'm pretty sure I would have known. I hardly spotted all week and definitely didn't pass anything. I've had no pain since the weekend, only soreness and some mild cramping this morning. Like I said, I don't know exactly what a miscarriage feels like, but I don't think it's possible that I did." She moved on and pointed out a few more things and asked a few more questions. She finished the ultrasound. The screen shut off. My emotions turned on. I knew it was over. I knew my pregnancy had ended. I felt so overwhelmed, "Was there ever a baby? Was this not a real pregnancy? What is going on?"
She informed us that she found a bulge in my left tube. There was damage to the tube. It had started to rupture, but at this point it was only a hole. There was a lot of fluid behind my uterus, likely blood. She suspected an ectopic pregnancy, but couldn't confirm until she did a laparoscopy. She started to explain that I would need surgery. Today. She went into details and my mind struggled to stay sharp. My eyes were filled with hot tears and I felt like my throat was constricting. It was hard to breathe. There would be an incision at my belly button and if they confirmed ectopic pregnancy, they would go forward with two more incisions on my lower abdomen, one inside each hip bone. She would then remove the baby and likely the tube since there had already been damage done. I couldn't hold it back any longer. The tears started running down my cheeks. My doctor stopped mid-sentence and said, "I know it's scary. But it's a common procedure. It's minimally invasive." I stopped crying and gave her a puzzled look. I replied, "I'm not worried about the surgery. It's the loss of pregnancy." I wonder if my calmness during the ultrasound had thrown her off. The tears that finally came as she explained the surgery were misleading. I would have let her take my arm if it meant that I could keep my baby. I didn't care what she did to my body. I just wanted my baby back.
We asked questions; she answered what she could. Even though we'd had all of this "preparation" for a failed pregnancy, (between the pain, ER, spotting, cramping, sudden bad labs..) I still felt like this couldn't be real. This wasn't happening to us. This has never happened to us. This can't be happening to us. She asked when I'd eaten last and I told her it was lunch at 12:00. She said that I'd likely have surgery around 6:00-7:00 that night. But she said that I'd have to go to the hospital immediately to check my blood count. They needed to make sure that the internal bleeding wasn't severe. If it was, I was be rushed into surgery. She was optimistic that my blood count was fine, given that fact that I was walking, talking, and acting completely normal. I said something about going home to get a change of clothes before surgery. My doctor butted in, "You can't leave the hospital. They're going to run your blood count and you'll be there until surgery." I realize that this was probably protocol, but it was those words that hit me. "You can't leave the hospital." Maybe it was the urgency in her voice, hinting at her concern for my ignorance. This was serious. I was at risk. I had been walking around for 5 days with a literal hole in my tube, on the verge of a rupture. If it had, things would have been much different. I may not be here typing this story. Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of first-trimester maternal death. God was so gracious that he protected me that week, as I went to VBS, ran errands, played with my kids... Any of those things could have escalated the situation. "You can't leave the hospital." The weight of those words hung in my mind.
We wrapped up with the doctor and she told us to take the time that we needed, but to go straight to the hospital when we left the clinic. When she pulled the door shut, James and I wept. This time it was real. We had lost our baby. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." I'm not sure how long we sat there, but eventually I got dressed and James walked me out, through the lobby, across the parking lot and into the car. I felt like I was in a daze. Like I was in shock. Nothing seemed clear. Everything was happening around me; I didn't feel like I was part of it. I looked down at my stomach and felt like throwing up. All I wanted to do was hold Trevin and Myla. James and I sat in the hospital parking lot for a while. We both called our parents and tried to piece words together to let them know what happened. I sent text messages out to my closest friends updating them and asking for prayer. James put it on our church prayer chain. We were so desperate for help, for support, for community.
Before we went into the hospital I asked James to take one final bump picture for me. I hated this day, but I knew I wanted to remember every bit of pain, because this was our baby's story. No matter how much it hurt, I needed to be able to remember it.
Surgery
We checked into the hospital and were ushered back to our room. We were on the short-stay surgery floor. The rooms felt like cubicles lining the hallway. I remember meeting my nurse and really liking her. I answered the same 20 questions that I'd been answering since Sunday night. My memory is probably the foggiest on this period of time. I was still in shock and we were receiving so much information. I was overwhelmed.In between the buzz of the questions and labs, James and I had a few moments alone together. He'd grab my hand and I'd rest my head on his shoulder. My throat hurt from trying to stop so many tears. I asked him again if he was ok with naming the baby. We hadn't talked about it since Sunday. He said that he thought that would be good. Good for us. Good for the kids. We needed something tangible to cement this baby forever in our hearts and a name would help us do that. I looked at him and choked up as I asked, "What about Auden James?" He shot me a look. Obviously we didn't know if the baby was a boy or girl, but I had chosen James's name. I smiled, winked, and told him that "James" was a unisex name now. I could tell it puzzled him, but after a minute, his look changed and he stared at me with pain-filled eyes and said, "I like it."
Since I couldn't return home, I asked my mom to bring the kids over to the hospital since I would likely have a lot of time before my surgery. I wanted to tell them what had happened in person. I wanted to kiss them and tell them that I loved them. When they arrived, I could tell the kids were scared. I was in a weird outfit with weird people in a weird room hooked up to weird machines. They didn't want to sit with me, understandably. They went straight to James and were really tentative when James asked them to give me a hug. With every ounce of strength I had, I tried to hold it together. We told them that the baby had died and that Mommy had to have surgery. Trevin took it pretty hard. He had questions, but I could tell he was hurting more than he showed. Myla understood that the baby was gone, but obviously couldn't comprehend the heartache that the rest of us felt. She kept saying, "I'm sad the baby died." She'd tilt her head and press her tiny lips together. So much of me wondered if it would have been better if they had never known about the pregnancy. But after we've been walking through this grief for three weeks, I'm so glad that they were included. It's brought about so many great conversations. It's allowed them to walk with us in this trial. We've invited them in, to see how hard it is. And I'm glad we did. We've all loved and we've all lost.
Eventually my nurse came back in and said she needed to start my IV. We said quick and sweet goodbyes to the kids and I felt the exhaustion set in after they left. I asked the nurse to find a new vein because both of my arms were bruised and sore from all the labs and IV I'd had in the past week. She said she could try my hand. I laughed and said, "I'm glad those big hand veins of mine are good for something!" She laughed back and said that she spotted them from the door. My mood would swing from one extreme to the next. I would break down and cry uncontrollably and the next minute I'd be cracking jokes. I'm sure it was more of a defense mechanism than anything. If I was laughing, I wasn't crying and I was tired of crying. My nurse could see my struggle and told me that she had experienced a heteropic pregnancy, meaning an ectopic and normal pregnancy at the same time. Her tube had fully ruptured and had to be removed. I asked the question, not really wanting to know the answer, "Did you lose both babies?" She shot me a big smile and said, "No. We carried the other baby full-term. We have a healthy child. I know our stories are different, but after they removed that tube, we never had trouble getting pregnant again. We had tried for a long time to get pregnant before the heteropic pregnancy, but we haven't had any problems since. I fully believe that tube was the issue and once it was gone, everything worked like it should have in the beginning." I marveled at her story and hoped that it would be our story, too, someday. That the tube removal would do good and not harm.
The hours seemed to run together. James and I shot questions back and forth. We started to process the events of the week. This is when the confusion and frustration really started. Why had the reports changed so drastically from Sunday to Thursday? How on earth was the ectopic pregnancy not diagnosed on Sunday? How did they miss this? And what the heck was in my uterus on Sunday? Unfortunately, it would be several weeks before I had most of those answers.
Because of the shocking news and the emotion that came with it, I still hadn't fully understood what was going on. I knew that my doctor had said there was no viable pregnancy. What I didn't know was whether or not that meant there was a baby but no heartbeat, a living baby that could not survive a pregnancy, or no baby found at all. What if my baby was still alive inside me? I could not handle the thought that we would be taking my baby's life during the surgery. Regardless of what society or social media would tell you, my baby's life is just as important as mine. We were both intimately created and the thought of taking a baby's life absolutely killed me. But when I tried to remember the ultrasound, I thought for sure I would have been aware of a heartbeat. My doctor would have told me if my baby was alive. She would have let me listen to the heartbeat. My baby couldn't be alive. But what if there was no baby at all? Could it have been something else in my tube? What if this was a fluke of a pregnancy? Are my feelings of loss going to be validated if there was never an actual baby to begin with? How can I honor a life that was not actually a life? How do I mourn a baby that was never conceived? This was the thought that haunted me.
My doctor came in before the surgery and walked me through the procedure again. She had reviewed a few more of my results and informed us that often times low progesterone can be a sign of an ectopic pregnancy. My progesterone levels had been perfect, but she told us that the clomid had masked that symptom since my body had increased hormone production, as a result of the clomid. The very thing that helped me get pregnant also concealed the warning signs that something was wrong. For some reason, I felt cheap. I felt like the clomid had been a cruel joke. She did confirm that baby had already passed, and that surgery would simply be removing baby, and if necessary, my tube.
James's parents came. They offered to sit with him during the surgery. They came into the room and hugged us, cried with us, and prayed for us. There's so many moments of this process that have been so meaningful but so painful at the same time. This was one of those moments. It was exactly what we needed, but it made the sting that much sharper, the tears that much heavier, the cries that much louder. But it also helped us feel like we weren't alone. And that is what we absolutely needed.
As the clock ticked down, I knew the time was drawing near. James and I spent some time in the quiet before I was taken back. I hated the thought of being wheeled off. I knew that when I came back, our baby would be gone forever. I remember wanting to run straight out of the hospital. If I refused to have the surgery, that meant I could have just a little bit more time with my baby. I kept rubbing my belly. It suddenly felt weird to do it. I knew my baby was gone, but I was also intensely aware that these were my final moments with my child. Although life had already left my baby, my baby hadn't yet left me. The thought of going on without this little one shattered me. And yet the clock reached 6:00 and I was told it was time.
A new nurse came in and asked me to remove my contacts. She seemed surprised that I didn't have a case for them. (Turns out I wasn't planning on emergency surgery when I woke up that morning.) So they went in the trash can. Suddenly, things felt like a dream, probably because of the instant blurry vision. I remember looking at James's face, not being able to really see him, and kissing him goodbye. I couldn't look into his eyes and read them, but I wondered what he saw in mine. The nurse wheeled me out as I laid on the hospital bed. I remember her trying to make small talk but I don't remember responding to anything she said. I was wheeled down quiet, empty hallways; I couldn't make out any of the signs but I remember feeling like I had no control. I couldn't see, I was with someone I didn't know, in a place that was unfamiliar, about to go through the most traumatic experience of my life. She wheeled me through what felt like a kitchen. (I'm sure it wasn't, but the amount of equipment and change of style made it seem that way.) And then the double doors opened and I was blinded by the glaring lights of the operating room. I remember wishing that James could be with me. She wheeled me up next to a table and I heard a voice that I recognized. It was the anesthesiologist. I was actually comforted to have some sense of familiarity. They asked me to scoot across to the operating table. I remember my gown getting stuck underneath me and struggling to get it loose in order to move. I shimmied across the table and they told me to scoot down. It was then that I noticed the hole in the table. They continued to instruct me to scoot down, and then my backside dropped into the hole. I asked, "So you just want my rear in the hole?" They responded with a medically rehearsed, "Yes." The tone of the room was so uncomfortable, so I tried to lighten it up. I said, "Well, at least I'll get a cool breeze then." I had caught them off guard and they laughed. The anesthesiologist piped up and said, "You know I never understood the whole kilt thing, but maybe there's something there!" I chuckled and tried to decide if I was calm or if I was numb. I remember the anesthesiologist asked for the time. But in my mind it was like he asked for the time of death. They put the mask over my face and instructed me to take deep breaths. I took several and I remember thinking that I should be feeling something by now. I had tensed up and the nurse grabbed my hand and squeezed it. The emotion jolted through my body and the tears began quietly rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to fight the sleep, I wanted to feel the presence of my baby a little longer, I begged the Lord for a miracle, but my body relaxed and my eyes closed. This was it. It was over. This was goodbye.
Recovery
When I woke up, I kept hearing the voices and shuffling of the nurses in the room. I asked for James. They told me he'd be there soon. I remember wondering why they didn't already have him in the room. I drifted back off to sleep. Opened my eyes again and asked where James was. They told me that he was in the next room and that he'd be there soon. I asked another question but my eyes closed and I couldn't remember the answers because I quickly fell back asleep. This happened several more times before I remember waking up to James in the room. I don't even remember if I said anything to him, but I remember feeling much more at ease knowing he was with me. I felt a little bit like I was in a coma. I could hear things, but I couldn't really convince my eyes to open or my mouth to work. I was comprehending what was going on in the room, but I couldn't respond. A friend brought James supper and I remember smelling his sandwich. And then the crunch of the chips with each bite. It was so dead quiet, until that crunch echoed in the room. James told me later that he ended up taking the chips out to the hallway to finish them because he didn't want to wake me up. After he said that, I remembered waking up a few times and him not being there, but then I would see a shape walk back and forth past the door, and assumed it was him. I wanted to talk to him but sleep trumped it every time.As I started to come out of it a little more, I knew the nausea was setting in. (I was prepared for this because I've gotten sick after anesthesia every time. I had even warned the nurse before surgery that I had a history of nausea after. I wanted a bag ready and whatever magic smelly stuff they had to help keep the contents of my stomach where they belong.) I finally got a few words out to James. "Could you ask the nurse for something for nausea?" He replied, "Are you going to throw up?" Apparently I just kept saying to him, "Go ask the nurse for something for nausea." He told me that I said it 3-4 times with my eyes closed. I fell back asleep and a little while later I remember the nurse handing me a bag and a little disc. She said the disc had essential oils in it to help with nausea. I lifted it to my nose and I felt my stomach creep back down.
I could not wake up. I wanted so badly to check out and go home, but I didn't have it in me. I remember hearing the nurse come in several times and ask in surprise, "She's still sleeping? Has she woke up at all since I came in last?" James would tell her that I hadn't moved. In my mind, I was insisting, "I'm awake! I just can't open my eyes.."
I was aware enough to know that in order to go home I had to do three things.
1. I had to get up to use the bathroom
2. I had to eat something and keep it down
3. I had to have my pain under control
I couldn't hardly open my eyes, so I figured the bathroom was probably out of the questions for now. I thought maybe I could sit up and try to eat and drink. Yeah I could do that. I mean how hard could it be? The next time the nurse asked if I felt ready to eat or drink something, I was able to crack my eyes open and nod. I agreed to toast, probably because it was the last thing she listed and the easiest one to agree with. They sat me up and I was able to open my eyes and carry on a little bit of a conversation. I was so groggy, but I tried a bite of toast and instantly regretted it. I smashed that little disc against my nose and kept the barf bag as close as I could. It took every ounce of strength I had to try and keep that bite down. I finally settled again and slept hard for another round. Eventually, I started hearing the nurse make comments to James about the floor closing at 10:00PM. She said she didn't mind staying late to make sure I was alright, but if I was going to need to sleep it off a bit longer, she'd check me into another floor where I could stay as long as I needed. This conversation was picked up several more times before they woke me up and said it was time to go to another room. I remember the nurse asking me if I could walk or if I needed a wheelchair. I could hardly wake up enough to swivel my legs off of the bed, so I requested the wheelchair. Once again, I was wheeled down foreign hallways with blurred vision and a pit in my stomach. This time the pit was from the nausea that seemed to pick up every time I tried to wake up.
They got me settled in a new room with a new nurse and the lights went off. I slept hard for a long while before the nurse came back in to check on me. When she came in, I remember feeling like I had actually been able to wake up. I sat up on my own, answered a few questions and asked some, too. I started to feel some pain, but I remembered it seemed so odd because it was my right side that hurt, even though it was the left tube that was removed. I asked the nurse about this and she said it was probably because of the angle they were working at during surgery. They may have needed to work from the right side in order to access everything they needed to on the left. She gave me some ibuprofen and I wanted to try and use the bathroom. I needed to check something off the list. I made it up and into the bathroom ok, with a little assistance, but I got light headed and nauseous again. We took it slow getting back to the bed, but I had checked something off the list. I wanted to go home. She asked if I felt like eating. I voted for applesauce this time and it actually tasted good. I was able to keep it down and I felt alert for the first time. I desperately wanted my house, my bed, my normal. The discharge went really fast and I was able to leave the hospital at about 2:00AM. The nurse wheeled me out the front doors to meet James at the car, I remember the night was cool and the darkness felt as heavy as my heart. Daylight had vanished and all that remained was darkness.
Getting into the Tahoe proved to be a little challenging. I was weak and had three new wounds on my stomach. I closed the car door and felt the heat of the emotions for the first time since I'd woke up. I was going home. Without my child.
A mile down the road we got a call from the hospital, and guess what, I had forgotten the discharge papers on the bed. So we turned back around. The drive home was somber and quiet. I'm sure we talked, but I remember most of the dialogue happened in my mind. As we got close to home, I started to feel faint and nauseous again. I thought I was going to pass out. I really didn't even fight it. The sleep was calming to me. It eventually passed and I felt a little better by the time we pulled in the driveway. James got me in bed and my eyes closed before I hit the pillow. It was done. I hoped that when I woke up, the healing would begin.
I slept hard the rest of the night. When I woke up in the morning, I felt like I had just woken up from a nightmare. I couldn't decide if it had actually happened. I was moving around much better and diligently stayed on top of my painkillers. James had planned to stay in with me that morning, but I could sense the pressure from work was heavy on him. (The dry windows of time were few and far between and seemed to come at the most inconvenient times.) I had eaten something and felt fine, used the bathroom on my own, and just wanted to go back to bed. So I sent him out and lined up my mom to come over after lunch with the kids and help out.
-People stopped by with sweet gifts and food and flowers and coffee - gifts from people I'd never expect, messages from friends I hadn't spoken to in years, meals from people in the middle of their own hard life circumstances. People showed up for us in that first week. I cried every time there was a new text or gift, my heart couldn't absorb all of the love we were shown so quickly.
-I had a mild sore throat the day of the surgery, but when I woke up the next morning, I felt like it was so raw. I'd guess that the tube down my throat irritated it and I lost my voice several times over the next week.
-My stomach was really bloated from the laparoscopy. Every time I looked down, it felt like I was still growing with my pregnancy. I still looked pregnant. I caught myself rubbing my stomach and as soon as I realized what I was doing, I felt heartbroken and nauseous.
-All I wanted to do was shower. Every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. The hospital left me feeling filthy and empty. A hot, humid shower brought a sense of renewal. It became the only place I felt clean. It was the place I could cry unconsolably and beat my fists on the tile. It became my sanctuary.
-I tried for days to listen to music, lyrics that would speak to my heart. It took me almost a week before I could make it through an entire song. Any song. Music made me feel so raw and so fragile, I couldn't handle it, I wasn't ready.
-I didn't want to get out of bed. I wanted to stay under my covers and stare out my window. I was still so tired from the surgery and the shock of the week, I just wanted to sleep.
-The kids got bounced around; so many people helped look after them while I recovered. James was gone every day and into most nights for the first full week. I had the eerily quiet house to myself and it allowed me the time to heal physically, but left me feeling so lonely. I knew I just needed to push through, survive until planting was over.
-Some people came and just sat with me in those first days. There were a couple conversations that especially helped me cope, words I will never forget. One night, I was able to say things out loud for the first time as a friend sat with me on the deck, letting me ask the questions and feel the pain. Another spoke life straight into my soul and encouraged me in the most powerful way.
-I slept heavy for the first week, but started having traumatic nightmares soon after. One of them consisted of me at the hospital laboring and laboring and laboring for an eternity while I watched woman after woman walk in with a belly and out with a baby, but my baby never came. Many of these nightmares will haunt me for a long time.
-My hormones were all sorts of out of whack and the hot flashes would come without warning. My body felt so out of control.
-As my body healed, my mind struggled to do the same. The weight of some days felt so heavy. I felt as if I couldn't breathe. Sometimes, I actually couldn't. I started hyperventilating, more often than I'd care to admit. Every day felt like a struggle. Sometimes, I'd feel the burden lifted for a morning or an evening, but the weightiness would inevitably return.
-I continued to say "yes" to events because I wanted to find a sense of normal, but without fail I would come home exhausted and drained, regretting ever going.
-Sometimes James or the kids would forget about my incisions and grab me or jump on me (the kids that is...) It was literally a painful reminder that things were different now. My incisions started to heal, but they began to itch relentlessly under the bandages.
-My bleeding was minimal, most of the blood that had been behind my uterus was removed during surgery. But every time the bleeding would pick up, it triggered me back to the reality of what had happened. The blood was an obvious reminder that death had come.
-I didn't get to speak to my doctor after my surgery, but James did. There were several questions I had that weren't answered. My post-op appointment was set for two weeks after surgery. It felt like an eternity to wait for answers.
Post-Op Appointment
My post-op appointment was last week. As much as I wanted to know all the answers to my questions, I was dreading it. I didn't want to walk back through those halls. I didn't want to sit in that lobby. I didn't want to see my doctor. I didn't want the reminders of what had happened. I was shaking when they took me back to the room. But when my doctor came in and asked if I wanted to see the pictures from the surgery, I said yes, without hesitation. It wasn't an ultrasound, but I felt like for the first time I was able to see my child. She pointed out where baby was in my tube and my heart knew that this was the closest I would get to seeing Auden, this side of heaven. She had other photos, but my eyes refused to leave the one of my tube. Just like that, I was at ease. I had a long list of questions going in, but as she began to walk me through exactly what she found during surgery, some of those questions were quickly answered."Why did I have an ectopic pregnancy? I had no signs of high risk. Was there inflammation in my tube? Was there an abnormal growth blocking the path or was my tube irregular in any way?" (All explanations I found on Google.) She said there was no medical reason why this happened. Everything looked completely normal from the inside, other than the fact that baby wasn't where it was supposed to be. My doctor informed me that I had actually ovulated from my right ovary and that the egg made its way over to my left tube. This was fairly uncommon. Her literal words, "I hate to say it, but I think this was just bad luck." A fluke. Shouldn't have happened. Oddly, this comforted me. It probably shouldn't have, but it did. I felt like it had taken the blame from me, it wasn't a defect of my body.
"Am I more likely to have another ectopic pregnancy?" She said, statistically, yes. But she also encouraged me by saying, most of those statistics are made up of women who are already high risk for ectopic and since they've had one, they have greater chance of having another. Since I had no signs of high risk, she was not concerned that it would happen again. They would, however, monitor me very closely if I would get pregnant again. Consistent labs and then ultrasounds from the first positive test. This obviously comes with a warning, if I have another ectopic pregnancy, I will likely lose my fertility. The stakes are greater now. Pregnancy seems more dangerous than it had before.
"What was in my uterus on Sunday and how did they not catch the ectopic?" These were the questions that consumed me the most. We were prepared to lose our baby in the ER. But instead we felt like we were given false hope and that I was left at risk to continue walking around on the verge of a tubal rupture. My doctor told me that because my labs had looked great when I went to the ER, it didn't give them any suspicion that something was wrong. She said after going back to look at the scans from Sunday, she thinks it may have been a small blood clot in my uterus. She said it was small enough, she probably wouldn't have measured it and definitely wouldn't have called it formation. It likely passed with the spotting I had over the next couple days. She also said that the bulge in my tube would have been hard to spot without all the pieces to the puzzle. Even she confessed that Thursday, during my ultrasound, she went back and forth as to whether or not I needed surgery. She said even by then it was still unclear as to what was going on. Surgery was the only thing that answered the questions. I'm still a little fuzzy as to why I never saw an OB in the ER and how it went undiagnosed, but I'm choosing to dwell on the fact that I was blessed with a few more days of pregnancy and that the Lord protected me while I was at risk and oblivious.
"What will the rest of my recovery look like? When will it be safe to try again?" I honestly didn't know when we'd be ready to start trying for another baby, but I wanted to know what the timeline looked like. She suggested waiting a couple cycles, letting my body find a rhythm, giving myself time to process. But she was quick to say that there was nothing physically that would keep me from having a healthy pregnancy right away. She said, "If you end up getting pregnant in a couple weeks, call us right away and we're going to celebrate with you." I honestly don't know what the next few months will look like for us, but I felt an incredible sense of freedom being told that it was completely our decision. No mandated timelines, just whenever we're ready. There's still a lot of processing and healing and grieving to be done, but we look forward to seeing what God has in store for our family.
The last thing I asked at my appointment was to get prints of the ultrasound photos or surgery pictures. She printed off the ultrasound photos for me and I was able to pick them up this week. One of the hardest things about losing this pregnancy is that we've had no keepsakes, no mementos, no anything. I knew that the ultrasound pictures wouldn't show us anything. They're basically nonsense to anyone not trained in medicine. But as I stare at the unrecognizable shapes, I understand that my baby is there, somewhere, in the dark shadows of the picture. It's been a hard but beautiful reminder of our reality. I know my baby was inside me. I know there was life. But as I peer through the utter darkness surrounding me, I can't seem to identify my child. The harder I look, the darker the room gets. So I take a step back and try to come to peace with the fact that a new life has entered our house. A life that I won't get to stare in the eyes. A life that's outside of my reach. But a life that is forever here.
Everything in life seemed to move forward except for me. Many days I still feel stuck. Stuck in grief. Stuck in numbness. The waves are still pounding, but I'm finding that I'm able to navigate them a little better with each day. I'm figuring out what's helping me cope, who's helping me cope. This week I've been able to sit with a couple people that have been the most instrumental in my healing. People that have walked a similar road before me and don't simply speak Christianese to me. People that have let me say hard things and have been able to say, "I've been there, too." People that have constantly checked in, and have consistently made me dig deeper and helped me voice my fears and frustrations and failures. People that have showed up. I've never felt the love of the body of Christ more than I have in these people. God has been so gracious to put them in my life.
We're finding a new normal. I'm still exhausted most days, but I'm learning that grief takes a toll on my physical energy. It's created a new sense of dependency on God and those around me. It's made me recognize my limitations. God has called me over and over again to the Psalms. He's met me there. He's met me in the dark, lonely nights. He's met me in my angry questioning. He's met me in my deep despair. He's met me in my utter brokenness. Although many parts of this month have felt like a cruel joke, I'm comforted knowing that He has not abandoned us.
Auden James
The name comes with an interesting story. Months into trying to get pregnant, I had this strange thought. "What if we lose this next baby?" This might not seem strange to most people, but I had never really had that fear before. Maybe I was feeling this way now because the longing for another child was so deep, but I wanted to hold it with an open hand. Maybe it was because I've walked through loss after loss with friend after friend. Maybe it was God's graciousness to prepare me for what was to come. Whatever it was, I knew I'd want to name the baby. For my own sake, for the kids' sake. If we ever lost a child, we needed to name it, but I knew in the moment of shock and pain, it would be too hard to begin a name search. So I began a search for unisex baby names. Typically, I don't love unisex names, so I was starting from scratch. I hated almost every name I found, until I came across the name Auden. I thought it had such a sweet sound and I couldn't decide if I'd rather have it for a boys name or a girls. I figured that this struggle made it the best unisex name I'd found. I'd thrown it out there to James and he seemed to like it. (But he also thought I was crazy for trying to find a name for a baby that we weren't pregnant with, that I thought we were going to lose. Yeah, it does sound a little crazy.) I added it to my name list and left it. Never really picking it back up. Until that Sunday in the ER, when God placed the name so prominently in my mind. The middle name James had come out of nowhere, except for the fact that it's James's name... Like I had told James, I had seen "James" on all of the new unisex names lists. The name "James" was making a move across gender lines. I knew some people would assume we found out or thought that the baby was a boy by attaching the name James to it. (We are in mid-west Nebraska, for goodness' sake.) But I knew that there wouldn't be a better person to honor than my husband, and I knew that Auden deserved to be named after someone great.James thinks that Auden was a boy. Myla thinks girl. Trevin always said he thought it was a girl, but wanted it to be a boy. Even now, when he talks about Auden he says she and her, while I constantly catch James saying he and him.
I have no guesses or suspicions as to whether a boy or a girl, but when I hear James say he I can picture it. I see a little brown-eyed brunette boy (because it was a fluke that we got a blondie the first time.) I see Trevin playing tractors with him and James putting his dirty farm hat on Auden. I see a brother for Trevin, something James has always longed for since he never had one himself.
But when I hear Myla or Trevin say she, in regards to Auden, I can see that, too. A sister close in age to Myla. I can imagine Myla insisting they have matching princess dresses. I can hear their giggles and see their matching smiles. I can see Auden being Myla's shadow and Myla teaching Auden everything she knows.
There's so many precious things that have been done to honor Auden's life. On Father's Day, James's family planned a special memorial for us. They had a reading, we sang hymns together, and they prayed over us. It was incredibly meaningful, but at the same time so painful. I'm thankful for those moments. We know that it was so hard because this little life was so loved. They also gifted us a tree to be planted in honor of Auden James. We planted it in the front yard; it's impossible to miss. As James said, "I want it to be in the way. I want to be reminded every day." Some days I can look at the tree with a smile, other days are met with instant tears. The kids come and ask me, "Mom, do you want to go look at Auden's tree with us?" This tree will forever be known as "Auden's Tree."
I was also gifted a beautiful hydrangea plant from the moms' group at church. There was a large empty spot in my flower bed that I tried to plant something in this spring, without success. I was frustrated by that, but now realize it left room for flowers that will bloom in honor of Auden every year.
I was also given this darling blueberry necklace by sweet friends. She gave it to me at church and I asked if I could wait to open it. I didn't want to open an intimate gift in public. I didn't know how I'd react. I wanted to have the space to cry if that's what I needed. She hesitated and told me that if I wanted it explained to send her a text. I was certainly curious and when I opened up the box when I got to the car, my brow furrowed and I looked at it quizzically. And then a flashback flooded in. One of the last pregnancy updates I had seen on my phone before my surgery was that baby was about the size of a blueberry. I started to tear up. I had deleted my pregnancy app and hadn't given it much thought since my surgery, but in that moment this necklace was the most special gift. A simple blueberry. I sent my friend a text and told her I had made the connection. This was such a unique and specific gift. The thoughtfulness overwhelmed me. Trevin had asked about the necklace and I explained it to him. A few days later, he was helping me make a fruit salad when he exclaimed, "Mom, look! Blueberries for Auden!" The necklace wasn't the only gift, we now had been given another reminder of our precious Auden.
This is not at all what I had planned for June 2019, but I'm finding myself stuck in this story. It's a battle of joy and depression, gratefulness and resentment, life and death. This is the story of our Auden James. I wish I could rewrite it, make it the way I had dreamed it would be, watching this baby grow like I have my others, but Auden's story is different. It's short but eternal. And there's where my hope lies - in the eternal.
Auden, darling, I would have loved to watch you grow, to see you play with your siblings, to get to see who you would become. But instead you get to live the greatest life, growing up in a perfect world, with a perfect home, and a perfect parent. What more could a mom want for their baby? We will miss you every single day of our lives on this earth. We can not wait to meet you on the other side. You are so profoundly loved.
We've gained and we've lost, growing on the farm...
