The truth...

hurts.

I imagine this post is going to take a long time to write, and that I will probably revisit it and revise it even after I have published it.

Because it is the post I have wanted to write, needed to write, but have tried not to write. Because it hurts too much.

On January 4, 2010, I went in for my 12 week OB appointment. I was expecting it to be a normal appointment, and I had even told Brandon to not worry about going with me since it was scheduled for 2:50, too early for him to leave from work. No worries I said.

So I went in by myself.

After talking to the nurse about the medicines I could take for the cold that had been nagging me for a week, I went in to my room and waited for the doctor. It was not my regular OB but one of the other doctors in the practice (which is normal procedure, but strangely enough, the first time I had not had my regular doctor--I guess up till then I had just been lucky getting her all the time). This new doctor took the fetal doppler out to hear the heartbeat (you're supposed to hear it at 12 weeks), and when she didn't hear it, she told me not to be worried.

But I already was.

She moved the doppler around and around on my stomach, trying to hear the heartbeat, and couldn't find it.

No worries, she told me. Sometimes it is still too early to hear.

So she brought in the ultrasound. She tried the ultrasound on the stomach, moving it about and about just like the doppler, searching in vain for a heartbeat. Still no heartbeat.

No worries, she continued. Sometimes the baby is so low and hidden in the pelvis that you can't hear it from the stomach ultrasound.

By now I was secretly freaking out. Alone.

So she brought out the vaginal ultrasound.

And I could see it in her face. I don't even know if I was really even looking at the ultrasound screen at this point, because the doctor's face said everything.

Which was nothing.

I don't know how long she continued to pretend to look for a heartbeat, but when she did finally look at me and say, "There's not a heartbeat," all those worries that she had told me not to worry about just exploded.

"Can we get a second opinion?" I asked.

Of course, that's normal procedure, she informed me.

Minutes later, my normal OB came in. This is the doctor that has been with me through the entire roller coaster of this past pregnancy, and I could tell immediately that her heart hurt for me. And just like the doctor that had tried before her, my OB looked and looked in vain for a heartbeat, but it had stopped beating weeks ago.

I burst into tears.

***

My doctor asked if my husband was with me, and I told her "no." She then asked if I wanted to call him so that he could be there (she knew he worked in the area), and I said that I would.

"Brandon, I just need you to come here."

That's all I said.

I'm assuming he ran all the way from work to the hospital (we've never really talked about it), but he made it there in record time, and I told him. I probably didn't have to tell him anything, though, because my eyes say everything.

The doctor returned shortly after Brandon arrived and reassured me that I hadn't done anything wrong, that it was likely just some random problem (as are most miscarriages), and would be unlikely to happen in the future. She gave me 3 options: a D&C, waiting for a natural miscarriage, or drugs to induce the miscarriage.

I chose the drugs. I was scared of the D&C and all of its risks, and I didn't like the idea of waiting for the miscarriage to come on its own because you never know how long that would be (and my baby had apparently been gone for about 3.5 weeks and I hadn't had any symptoms save one excrutiating cramp on Christmas day that I just attributed to fatigue or food). And to be honest, I just didn't like the idea of something being dead inside me.

***

I took the drugs at 9:30 on the morning of Thursday, January 7. It was a snow day (school was cancelled), and I had already called in for the next day as well (but I got "lucky" in the sense that school was cancelled Friday, too).

I inserted 4 Misoprostol vaginally. The doctor said to take them this way since it helps make the process work a little better as opposed to taking them orally. For the first couple of hours, I didn't feel anything and honestly wondered if maybe the pills had fallen out. But three hours into it or so, I started feeling a little bit of cramping. By 1:30 (4 hours into it), I was experiencing full-out contractions and didn't think the pain medicine I had been prescribed was working very well, but wouldn't be able to take more for another couple of hours, so I just laid on the couch and tried my best to deal with the contractions. I started bleeding around 4 pm, and by 5, the blood had increased tremendously.

I'm sorry if this is too much information for some, but it's just something I need to get out, write, and remember.

For that next 45 minutes or so after 5 pm, I was experiencing uncontrolled bleeding, almost like clots passing through. I would be lying on the couch and feel that pressure of something getting ready to go through (like blood getting ready to gush), and I would head to the bathroom.

At 6:00, almost on the dot, I hurriedly ran to the bathroom again for what I thought was one of those gushes of blood.

But as soon as it happened, I knew exactly what it was.

It felt like an egg falling from me and splashing into the toilet. I will always remember that feeling and that noise, and as soon as I heard it and felt it, I freaked out. There's no other way to describe it--I freaked out.

Still sitting on the toilet, I cried for Brandon to come in.

"I can't look. I just can't look."

So he did, and I cried.

I'm not sure exactly what happened for the next half hour or so because I was so hysterical that it's hard to remember, but I do know that Brandon verified that it was tissue.

And then he flushed our baby down the toilet.

We had both had every intention of salvaging the tissue, of somehow saving it and burying it somewhere. But in my hysteria, I couldn't even look, and Brandon in his coolheadedness, was just practical.

It was at the bottom of the toilet. There was snow outside and the ground was frozen solid. We have a toddler and 3 dogs and nowhere to store human remains until the snow melts.

He flushed our baby down the toilet.

****
Tomorrow marks three weeks since the miscarriage, and while I would like to say I am doing well, I do have my moments of pure fragility. There are certain things that just make me cry--seeing a pregnant 16 year old student (or any pregnant woman, for that matter), having one of my pregnant 18 year olds invite me to her baby shower, trying to exercise those 12 pounds off that I gained for a failed pregnancy to no avail and yet not losing a single pound (I'm starting to think it's the hormones).

Seeing sisters and brothers play together.

I had a follow-up with my doctor on January 11, and she verified via ultrasound that everything was gone. I've had bleeding and cramping since then, but it has tapered off tremendously.

I'm not sure everything will ever be gone, though. I don't want it to be.

Pain is inevitable...

suffering is optional.

I came across this Buddhist proverb in a book I was reading the other day. The book is by a writer who likes to write about running, and he was answering the question that many people ask runners--how can you run for so long when it just hurts?

His answer: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

This is easily my favorite quote right now, and perhaps one of my favorites of all time.

I know I have experienced pain--who hasn't?--and I know that there is much more pain in store for me in the future. I cannot deny this.

But I will not allow myself to suffer anymore during my current time of pain or the inevitable future pain. I will not choose to suffer--because suffering is a choice. I will feel the pain, but I will not dwell on it or allow it to consume me.

When it rains, it pours

I have barely had time to grieve over the loss of our baby (but the gaining of an angel), and already my heart is crying again with the news that my dad's cancer has spread even more in just the few short months since his last surgery.

I hurt. And I know my mom, dad, and sisters hurt.

And yet despite all of this pain, I find myself glad that I have always believed in the genuine goodness of mankind. I have always believed that people are good at heart--and if that's what you believe, you will find that people will be good to you.

It was just a little thing, and I know he probably didn't think it would give me the first smile of the day, but I stopped by the McDonald's on the way to school this morning. Prior to my pregnancy, I used to drink a cup of coffee at home, and then I would pull through the Mickey D's drive-thru on the way and get a second cup to sip on during the first period of the day. Haven't been there since November, and today was my first visit.

"Hey, long time, no see!" he said as he collected my $1.08.

It wasn't necessarily what he said, but the happiness with which he said it--the genuine happiness to see me--that made me happy.

Cup of coffee in hand, I entered the teacher workroom to check my mailbox. And there in my mailbox was a card from the secretary, sending sympathies to me for the hard time I am going through right now.

This coming from the secretary that 95 percent of the faculty are afraid of (she's one of "those" sorts of secretaries, if you catch what I'm saying). I've heard words such as "impersonal," "scary," "mean," "bitch," and "unapproachable" used to describe her, and yet I have never had anything but a positive experience with her. She's always been there to give me a hug when I need one most--she just knows. She always asks about my dad to see how he's doing every single time I see her (which is more than I can say for people who should be asking about him).

I continue to my classroom, and my groupies start to arrive. There's about 6 kids or so that hang out in my room every morning before classes begin. They're not all the greatest students in the world, but they have good hearts and have always treated me with kindness and respect.

I hadn't told very many students about the miscarriage--not quite sure how to do it--but I did tell my Latin 5 students (and that in the form of writing because I just couldn't "talk" to them about it) simply because I have known them for 5 years and think of them as my little brothers/sisters/children. But I'm not stupid and I know kids talk.

One of these kids that apparently heard the rumor walked up to me this morning and handed me a card. I don't remember everything it said, but it was to the effect that no one understands why bad things happen to good people.

The fact that a 15 year old boy that I am constantly telling to shut up in class had the heart to get me a card just makes me happy (perhaps because it came from the kid I least expect such a card to come from). I don't want sympathy, but for whatever reason, it just made me feel a little better.

And he is right. Bad things happen to good people all the time, not just to me, not just to my family. There are thousands (millions?) of women that have had miscarriages, too. There are millions of people whose lives are affected by cancer. Every single second something bad happens to someone good, but I think the pain and suffering caused by all of these bad things is lightened to an extent if you believe that people themselves are good.

Believing in good just feels good.

It's interesting to me to watch people in times like this. How does someone act when they themselves are in a time of crisis? What do they do for others when they are experiencing suffering? True character is revealed, and often that character is not what you would expect. An ill-behaved 15 year old boy shows that he has a bigger heart than the brother of a man who has lost his child. An "unapproachable" and "mean" secretary shows that she cares more than she lets the rest of the world think. A fast food worker hands over so much more than a cup of coffee. An atheist does more soul-searching than most Christians in order to let her sister know just how sorry she is. For everything.

I started off this post with the title "When it rains, it pours." Obviously I was originally referencing the fact that not only did I experience the loss of a child but also the news of my dad's further metastases within days of each other.

But now I also think I mean that when it rains goodness, it pours it, too. I wasn't expecting to receive all of the goodness that I did today, but I sure am glad it rained.

Her name would have been Hope.

It was an easy choice for us, for obvious reasons.

And if our angel were a boy, he would have been Jude. I was particular to Jude because of the clock. My parents have a clock that plays a classical version of "Hey, Jude" every hour, and every time we visit my parents and that clock goes off, Max gets excited and runs to his Papa to pick him up and dance to the music. Seeing my Dad and Max dance to "Hey, Jude" makes me smile every time I see it and think about it. No one, not even me or Brandon, I think, makes Max happier than his crazy Papa, and I wanted to think about that true love and happiness every time I said "Jude."

Angel

I am sure this will be the first in a series of many blog posts about the loss of our baby. I tried writing in the journal I kept for the baby last week and just found it too difficult. Writing this right now is still very hard--the pain is still too raw and too new--and so I will have to keep this brief.

I am an emotional wreck. Once I miscarried, it seems like the tears have not stopped. They come and go as they please, and I find it hard to concentrate without dwelling on our loss. I think I slept all of two hours last night. I just can't stop thinking about what might have been. Like most mothers who miscarry, I have a sense of guilt (and anyone who knows me knows that I tend to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders), and even though I know in my heart that I couldn't have done anything differently to ensure a different outcome, I still feel guilty, but that's a whole other entry in itself.

I wanted this first post about our loss to be about what we've gained.

Today was my first day back at work since the miscarriage. I guess the teacher (my department head) that I had told about the miscarriage (because of all the days I was missing) had told at least one other teacher. This other teacher (a Spanish teacher) came to me this morning during my planning period.

"Oh, bebe, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. But now you have an angel watching over you."

And I hadn't thought about it in that way at all. I had been so focused on thinking about the child I would not have, about the brother or sister that Max would not play with, about the grandchild my parents would not get to see, that it hadn't even occurred to me that I might be gaining something from this horrible experience after all.

An angel.

And what's ironic is that I recently started to collect angels. My mother began collecting them shortly after my father's diagnosis ("we need as many angels as we can get now," she said), and I decided over Christmas to start, too. I even received my first one from my parents, and I had also had Max paint several angels to give to family members as Christmas gifts.

But now I have the real thing.

Yes, if I could choose to have the child I had in my belly for three months grow to a full term baby and a healthy child and kind and loving adult, I would certainly choose that over the angel I have watching me right now.

But like my mom said, we need angels now and my family needs more than most. To a certain extent, I can understand the plan and why this happened to me--even though I may not like it. My dad is back in the hospital again, and maybe this angel is for both of us. Maybe God knows that despite the fact that I put on a strong face and have so for the past year that I really, really just need someone to watch over me, and felt that now was the time for that to happen.

I don't know. I just feel a little better today--even though I am still hurting very, very much and will for the rest of my life--but I will always appreciate that Spanish teacher's one sentence for making me look at things a bit differently.