I knew I was going to write about our miscarriage at some point but to be honest I never felt our story was impactful enough or important enough to share with the world. Maybe it still isn’t. I’ve prayed over this for several weeks now as we are approaching the 1 year anniversary of our loss and also with October being Infant and Pregnancy Loss awareness month it’s been on the forefront of my mind to write a little of our journey. (By the way….I’m not sure why the month of October is so popular for awareness but SOOOOOO many causes are memorialized in this beautiful fall month…i digress)
We found out we were pregnant (do you all take like 5 tests before you believe what the little line is trying to tell you??) in September/October of 2014. I made an appointment to do a general overview of my history and all that exciting paperwork. That day the lady asked me how far along I was and I knew for sure I was at least 6 weeks and she said let me see if we can’t get you an ultrasound today. Everyone wants an ultrasound as soon as possible right? I agree and wait for her to see what they could do. She can see me now! Great. I walk in and up on the screen there it was this beautiful little sac with no baby or heartbeat detected. No big deal to the tech…i was just too early for the baby to have a presence yet and the house was ready and waiting for the baby to come live in. I was to come back in 2 weeks and everything would be perfect. I knew though. Somehow, I knew. Something wasn’t right. I saw the doctor after and they assured me with 2 previous healthy pregnancies everything was fine but I was just too early and all would be well at my next visit.
Those next two weeks were the longest. You try to forget but you can’t help it so you wonder and pray and google…never google 🙂 We told very few people we even knew we were expecting at all. In fact, we had told our pastor and his wife who are our dear family friends. I knew we could trust them and I knew they would pray for us. I also told my essential oils guru because I wanted to make sure I was being healthy in all my self care choices but that was it. I didn’t feel either of our parents would be thrilled with the idea as we, at that time, had a 3 year old and a 2 year old so I was waiting to tell them until I was ready to handle any and all reactions that might come our way.
The first week of November, our son Rylan got very sick and was admitted to the hospital for possible pneumonia or croup or something respiratory. Looking back now I am sure they told me but I was emotionally distracted and just walking through life and waiting on our next appointment to confirm the hopeful words of our doctor that a tiny bean would be there next time and all would be well. Rylan was admitted on a Wednesday and we were going for our ultrasound that Friday. At the time I was planning how to get help with our kiddos if Rylan needed to stay longer than a day in the hospital and us still attend our ultrasound on Friday. Keep in mind our families did not know and I still wasn’t ready to tell them.
My mom stayed late into that Wednesday evening with me and Rylan. He was such a trooper. We watched movies and played games and he slept off and on. Things were going good for him and they were expecting him to be released the next day so all was well. Until…that night I went to the restroom in that hospital room and I had started bleeding. I knew it was happening. Remember I googled. I came back out and sat in the bed with Rylan and my mom was still there just hanging out with us. It took me forever to muster up the words (like seriously 15 minutes passed) and I told her what was happening. I knew that I would have to call the next day and be seen myself even though we had an appointment on Friday. She was kind and helped me get a plan with my dad together to help watch the kids and I texted David to tell him he needed to take tomorrow off to go with me to the doctor.
At this point, it’s all foggy. I was just foggy. My brain and heart and all my body systems just seemed to fade for me. I kept thinking of how many women I knew that had endured much worse loss and pain than this. This wasn’t as big of a loss – I kept comparing myself to others and tried to bury my feelings and not allow myself to even feel worthy of grief. I had two beautiful kids at home. Excuse after excuse as to why this wasn’t significant enough to cause pain at any level.
We were discharged from the hospital and Rylan went to spend the afternoon with my dad. Raegan was with my in laws and happy as can be. David drove me to the doctor office and we were sent to ultrasound first. You read about how bleeding is normal and I still had a smidge of hope that maybe all would be fine. It was confirmed that we were in the early stages of miscarriage. I’ve never held my breath like that or maybe my breath was taken away for a moment…either way I couldn’t breathe. We saw the doctor next and they do their best to explain how common this can be and how I need time and all the test they want to do to make sure everything was clear and infection free for me over the next few weeks as this would take up to a month to fully happen. Again…all a blur.
I called this blog the waiting room because that day after the ultrasound while we were waiting to see the doctor, David and I sat in this big waiting room that we had sat in numerous times before looking over our cute pictures of our other two children and guessing who they looked like and whose nose they had and how much hair was seen on the photo and that day as we sat there just after hearing the news that we wouldn’t be having another baby we realized something…. There was as much heartache in that waiting room as their was joy but we had not seen that or experienced that before. The waiting room can be a very scary place for folks and that day wee got a new perspective. That day changed us.
David left to go sit in the car while I finished up paperwork and honestly the loss was hard on him too. He said he just remembered asking God why…and at the time God kept speaking over his heart- in all things I am faithful. He didn’t know what that looked like or what that meant but it brought him peace. You know, the peace that passes all understanding? Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
So now we knew. The next days and weeks were painful at times but I can say that if I ever doubted God’s love and peace I felt it then. I also found out that Panaway, lavender and Joy were my new favorite essential oils that I held dear to me during this process. They worked and that made the process not as painful and my heart a little happier.
A few weeks later I sat down at the piano and started singing and playing Kari Jobe’s song “I Am Not Alone” just as a personal prayer for myself. It was another part of the healing process for me and I still can’t sing that song without associating it with the peace of God I felt through this miscarriage. Weeks, months go by and things get back to “normal” — long story so far but just a few more things to add…
Fast forward to Mother’s Day – May 2015
Brooke: “I think we need to get a pregnancy test.”
David: “Really, I just thought you were on birth control and didn’t tell me.”
Brooke: “Nope.”
David: “Let’s go get one.”
We were going to my moms for a Mother’s Day get together and we stopped and got a yes on the way over. I slipped off to the bathroom and took the test…immediately a positive line…like not the 3 minute wait…immediately. David looks at me in the kitchen and says so…and I say yes. Speaking in code here and he says yes what…Yes, very yes. lol. We were both happy but once you’ve walked these streets and treaded these waters you just don’t know how to feel. I told him I was waiting forever to go to the doctor because I wanted no doubt that the baby should be there by the time we went in for our first visit. I didn’t want to do the wait and see game. I wanted to be sure the very first visit. So we waited until 12 weeks to go to the doctor. The receptionist kept asking why I waited so long and they needed to get me in soon. I said that was fine. So appointment is made and of course David is going along too.
I was very sick the week before the appointment and I told my dad that I thought I was pregnant and that we had an appointment that next week and I asked him not to say anything because we didn’t tell anyone again this time. My dad and I are close like that though. We share secrets and gang up on my mom. We are a team and our relationship is a really special daughter/father bond. So the next week my mom asked us to pick up Raegan’s 4 year photos from the mall since we would be down that way (I’m not sure what we told her we were doing but she had no idea we were going to the dr)
We arrive and do the routine question stuff and family history, etc. The lady walks us through the hallway and down to the ultrasound room. As we are walking she tells the doctor (we hadn’t seen him before) that this was the couple he was seeing in a few minutes and that we were pregnant to which he says well congratulations…We both say nothing back…you just can’t until you know. I was embarrassed when I look back on that moment that we didn’t even say thanks but it felt more like we should say well we will see I guess….
For anyone who has had a miscarriage and then gets a positive pregnancy test after that and goes for an ultrasound you are never able to breathe easily as they scan you. We both wait and lean back as she tells us…”well, there’s a baby….and there’s another baby.” What? Are you kidding? 2 babies? She confirms, yes you are having twins. I look over to see David wiping a tear from his eye and I am overwhelmed laying there. I was shocked. Then the questions come and this was her first time ever finding twins so they had to call in her supervisor to recheck her work and make sure all was well and that baby A and baby B were labeled correctly for future scans.
We see the doctor and he explains all the important things and medical jargon to us. We take it all in. Driving home that day is when David told me the story of him sitting in that same parking lot the day we miscarried and how God spoke over his heart that He was faithful in all things. He said I just can’t help but see that God has blessed us doubly. It reminded me of Zechariah 9:12, “Come back to the place of safety, all you prisoners who still have hope! I promise this very day that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles.”
I kept saying that it was easier walking through the missed miscarriage because a baby never came on the scene and lived in that sac. The only way I could describe it was a loss of HOPE. It was the hope of a child, a future, a family of 5. But our hope wasn’t in the logical but rather in the never changing and good promises of God to us. He is the author of life and hope. I could never have imagined being told that day that we were expecting two little babies. God always does that. The journey He puts us on is always better than our thoughts and ways and desires.
I know that this isn’t everyone’s story and I can honestly tell you that with or without twins or another baby being born into our family we still trusted and knew that God was faithful- however that looked. Trust in the hope giver and the restorer of your soul today. He is near and always has better things for His children.
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