Round Two

As I’ve written about here, I miscarried my first pregnancy last August. I’ve been under the care of a fertility specialist ever since. Most women have to endure several miscarriages before getting specialized care; my quick referral came thanks to being 40 and having a fibroid the size of a peach. (I could write a whole post about that alone, but I’ll just say advocate for yourself when you know something is off. If I had, I could have had this thing removed years ago.) Tests revealed that I have a rare blood antibody syndrome called APS. Without treatment, my odds of successfully carrying a baby to term are low. It’s impossible to know, but I believe this condition is what ended my first pregnancy. The good news is that once you know you have it, treatment is pretty effective.

Anyway, after months of tests and gathering information, we determined I could safely try again. I got a positive pregnancy test in mid-March, the same week COVID sent me home to work and Taylor changed jobs. Last summer, I was stunned and moderately panicked to find out I was pregnant. This time, despite the global chaos, we both felt excited and prepared. In those first crazy shutdown weeks, I only left the house to go to my doctor for blood draws (amused by the irony of commuting to his office close to my workplace). I learned I would have to start giving myself twice-daily heparin shots. It was intimidating, and getting all the supplies together at that time was challenging, but the shots were truly not a big deal once I got used to them. It was also nice to spend the beginning of my pregnancy at home, with home comforts and no one but Taylor to notice my many appointments, tiredness, and excessive eating.

Thanks to my special snowflake status, I had my first ultrasound at six weeks. Taylor couldn’t come with me to this or any other appointment due to COVID restrictions. I never got to see my first baby, so it was extra thrilling to see a dot and everything else that was supposed to be there. However, the tech didn’t find a heartbeat. She reassured me that it was early and my dates might be a little off, and scheduled me to come back in 10 days. My numbers looked great and my body was doing everything it was supposed to do. No one seemed super concerned. I chose to remain hopeful. We made multiple copies of the ultrasound picture and announced to our immediate families on Easter weekend. I said that I was aware this was a risky choice, but I wanted to have the experience of a happy announcement, especially during a time when we all needed good news. Telling my family “So, I was pregnant” last time was not great.

There was another reason I wanted to go ahead and share: my sister Debra, my best friend, is pregnant with her third child due in December. She was only two weeks behind me, and told me as soon as she found out (having recently lost two pregnancies herself very early). The thought of being pregnant together and raising kids almost the exact same age flooded me with joy. I thought, well now both of these babies have to live! An old TV theme song about identical cousins floated up from the depths of my memory, and I found myself singing it in my head often.

So I was optimistic going into the follow-up ultrasound… and somehow surprised when the tech said, “I’m sorry, I don’t see any change.” The baby hadn’t grown or developed past six-ish weeks, and had no heartbeat. This is called a missed miscarriage, when your body doesn’t realize the fetus isn’t viable and just keeps trucking along. (Surprise: a whole different category of miscarriage to cross off the list!) My doctor presented me with a few options. Right away I felt like I would prefer a D&C to waiting a potential 6-8 weeks for my body to figure things out. But I started losing the baby naturally a few days later, before I could schedule anything.

We agreed with my doctor that I should send some tissue for analysis. I knew it would give me closure and comfort to have information about what went wrong (missed miscarriages are usually due to a chromosomal problem) and even what the baby’s sex was. This lab was touted for its quick results, but three weeks passed and we still hadn’t heard anything. When I finally called, I found out the test was inconclusive. Do you know how many of those tests are inconclusive? Less than 1 percent. In some ways, that was a harder blow than the actual loss.

The pregnancy sheltered me somewhat from the early days of the pandemic. I “knew” (still constantly aware that it might not work out) that whatever craziness was happening in the world around Thanksgiving 2020, I would be having a baby. That was my goal. Once that focus was gone, I got the full impact of the “coronamotions” everyone else had been experiencing for weeks, mixed with the adrift feelings common after a loss. After eight weeks of pregnancy, plus the quarantine loss of my exercise routine and daily comfort eating, I felt uncomfortable and frustrated in my own body. Plus, I couldn’t hug my parents, visit my sister to cheer myself up, have someone pray over me at church, or talk face to face with friends. I think that made me feel extra closed-up about it. As always, Taylor has been completely supportive, helpful, and loving throughout this time, but it was still tough not having my community in the full sense.

A second miscarriage also brings a certain amount of lasting dread. One is a fluke, two is a pattern. All the statistics in the world can’t change that feeling. But fortunately, I’m healthy, I don’t need help getting pregnant, I have access to great medical care, and aside from my age, all my problems are treatable. My identity has never been ingrained in the idea of parenthood, and I know that we will both be okay if we’re ultimately unable to have a baby. I also know there’s a limit to how many more times I can go through this, and I trust myself to know when I’m done. But I’m not throwing in the towel yet.

My first miscarriage was bewildering; my second was, very unexpectedly, empowering. In the end it felt like a surprise graduation from over a decade of hard inner work. The first victory happened when I sat alone in my doctor’s office after the verdict, automatically starting to blame myself – my body failing me again, my inability to marry the right person at a healthier maternal age, etc. Self-blame has been my first instinct for most of my life, especially in a crisis. But I snapped out of it almost immediately. Like Neo, I held up my hand to stop that rain of bullets, and I thought simply, Nah. I did not need anyone to say to me that this was not my (or anyone’s) fault, and beating myself up over it was a waste of precious energy. I already knew it in my cells. I was able to handle the rest of that appointment with calm and focus. Then later, when I got some strongly worded, unasked-for input about my situation, while I was grieving and hormonal, I stopped those bullets in their tracks too. I not only refused to absorb those words, but also recognized them as boundary violations and called them out. This is probably normal for many of you (and it should be), but for me, it was revolutionary. I don’t think the me of even a year ago could have done it. That experience was a gift. It gave me the certainty that if I do have a child, it will have a mother who is fully, unapologetically herself and can look fear and shame in the face even when she’s down. I worked hard for that, and I thank God for it.

I also had a spiritual experience with a Yoga with Adriene video during my miscarriage: her Yoga for Women, which is very restorative and meant to help with monthly pains. It did help me physically, but it also reminded me that pregnancy loss, rather than excluding one from full womanhood, is just as much part of being a woman as giving birth. I felt a deep, peaceful sense of connection to women throughout history and the feminine spirit. Death is part of the circle of life. It’s not outside it.

Reading other people’s miscarriage and infertility stories has been so helpful to me. I’m especially thankful to Jennie of The Uterus Monologues (who, just this week, had her first baby after multiple losses!). The further life takes you from the “ideal” path (however your culture defines it), the lonelier it can be. As someone with a life that continues to veer from the pattern I was prescribed, I feel a responsibility to bring my fellow misfits alongside. You are not alone. If you’re grieving losses, if you have APS and are scared, or just need a sympathetic ear about any of this stuff, I’m here.

PS: I think this one was a girl.