Currently listening to: Duffy - "I'm Scared"
If you've ever ridden a crazy rollercoaster, you know exactly how my stomach dropped when my doctor told me I had miscarriaged my first baby during my first pregnancy. Not such a pleasent feeling given the different context.
Just two weeks ago we had seen him on the screen at the ultrasound technician's room. Little heart pumping away, he moved like showing off for the camera. And I fell in love. I didn't even know him, I couldn't even feel him yet, but the mere fact he was inside me, making me sick as a dog yet the happiest I'd ever been, it was proof I was in love.
There was no warning. There were no signs, no symptoms. No sudden bleeding. In an instant, my body absorbed the yolk and cut off all life supplies. And it was over.
To confirm it had been a miscarriage, I was to see the ultrasound technician again. My doctor left the room so I could call my husband. I texted. I wasn't going to call. My heart was beating too hard and too fast, as if trying to revive his little heart, and it sunk in. He's gone. My baby's gone.
"Craig, I lost the baby."
The tears started and I looked up at the ceiling, not sure what to say to God. My first reaction, naturally was to ask why. Why are you doing this to me? Why did you let this happen? Why me? Why. Why. But instead, I don't know the reason, I asked,
"Show me what You're doing. Please, show me what You're doing."
I was alone in the exam room, but I didn't feel alone. I was hurting, but I felt a calmness that was not mine, fill me. I was crying, eyes closed, hoping this wasn't real, remembering my dream.
This was my biggest fear, and quite admittedly, for a couple of seconds (which felt like bloody hours), I felt like reality was inversed and I was living a nightmare. This couldn't be real. This was not happening to me. How could it happen to the one person that wanted kids so badly? How does that make sense that my body, my own property took one darn look at what would have been my firstborn and decided to, for lack of better words, kill it?
The doctor came back in. I asked him why, since demanding an explanation from God wasn't something I could bring myself to do. My doctor sighed, pulled a chair near me and explained that some women's bodies are more propense to carry a (and he used to following word for the utmost respect and care) defective embryos to full term. It wasn't much of a consolation, but my system was the kind that would only carry 100% healthy babies to delivery. Nothing less than all-around healthy babies.
All or nothing. How Jen-like.
I asked what happened to the "defective" embryos that were carried to full term. Doctor sighed again. He went on to describe how Down syndrome babies or with congetinal diseases are born. I blew my nose. The doctor stood up. We walked to the ultrasound room.
And I saw him for the last time. Smaller than my growing uterus. At the bottom, not moving. I broke down and hurt for the child I had just lost. Craig was on his way to the doctor's office. This is where I suspect I had an out-of-body experience.
My baby was gone. The concept rebounded on my head once and again and I felt horrible. There are ... truly no words. The next time I opened my eyes I was sitting on Craig's lap, sobbing, in the doctor's office. He was saying that medically the baby never made it past the embryo state, and that while my own body had cut off the life resources, my uterus was carrying on with the pregnancy as if nothing had happened. My uterus had clung on to the baby till the very end. In fact, to my uterus, there was no end.
I was experiencing a missed miscarriage.
Now we were discussing options. I could wait for my uterus to realize it was over and go through the elimincation process, or we could go the safer, quicker route: D&C. A procedure to clean out my uterus and prevent any potential infections. I said I would think about it. Craig held me close.
My doctor's words of comfort and my husband's arms around were holding me together. Somehow, the tears have stopped and a silence took over at the doctor's office. He left to give us privacy, and as soon as the door was closed, Craig and I looked at each other.
We knew what we needed to do. So we prayed.
Holding each other, we prayed. In the midst of the storm, in the middle of disaster, we cried out to our God, to make us understand, to show us His plans, to comfort us and hold us through this trial. He never fails, and He certainly knows better, so we trusted. We knew everything was under His control, so all we had to do was trust, and let His peace take over.
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