I thought I'd be drafting an email this weekend. It would follow calls to close friends and family and would contain a witty, slightly self-depricating and excited announcement of a new baby.
But, sometimes life has other plans.
On Thursday we went for our first doctor's appointment. I asked my husband if he was nervous as I got undressed and my stomach tightened - an odd question given that we really had no reason to be nervous. Perhaps it was some type of mother's intuition; perhaps it was just an odd coincidence.
The doctor came in and we chit-chatted a bit. She commented on my long hair and bangs; surprising since she hasn't seen me in over 18 months - with all of the patients she sees on a regular basis, she remembered something as trivial as my hairstyle. But, this is the woman who helped us through three years of infertility, who, on my first visit, sat with me for 45 minutes and explained why we could be having issues conceiving and then did it again when my husband came in a few months later; she was my last hope when other doctors had prescribed clomid and rushed me out of the office (even though I had none of the issues clomid fixes). She has, for the past 6 years, been an amazing and incredible part of our family's journey. She was thrilled to see us again, there for a second pregnancy.
We hadn't planned to get pregnant but, while lulled into an artificially blissful state thanks to a tropical location, fruity cocktails and the ability to sleep past 6 am, on a vacation to the Dominican Republic in September, we threw caution to the wind. After all, it took us three years to make a child the first time around.
And it happened. First try. Take that infertility.
We were shocked. And, by the time we found out, we were back in the real world, complete with tiny house, crazy dog, active toddler and ridiculous schedule. All on top of a very tough year full of many tough choices and changes. But as we got past the initial shock, we were excited. Another baby, siblings three years apart and with birthdays just 2 months apart - perhaps, if it was a boy, I could actually use all of old clothes I'd been stockpiling in Miles' closet for the past 2 years.
As the doctor started the sonogram, I saw the baby on the screen. "There's your little bean..." she said before trailing off. She looked around for a few more minutes and her silence said it all. She broke the news, I got dressed and a few minutes later I was sitting in her office, listening to a list of options for closing the chapter that we'd just started.
So here I am, still pregnant. But not. I'm walking around with a big belly - causing people to give me the 'fat or pregnant?' stare as I talk to them. I think about the fact that I have a dead baby inside of me and it's crushing. I'd planned on getting my maternity clothes down from the attic this week and pack away the clothes that started to bind my waistband until I could fit into them again. I thought about Christmas - about the fact that I'd be able to enjoy all of the treats without worrying about an extra couple of pounds - this was going to be the last time I'd go through pregnancy, I was going to let myself enjoy it. Now I sit here, 7 pounds above a pre-pregnancy weight that was higher than it should have been, bordering on the need for maternity clothes, while I wait for the doctor's office to schedule a D&C, assuming nature doesn't take care of things on its own before then.
Sometimes I feel silly - like I'm not entitled to be sad about something we weren't even planning on in the first place. I wonder if it isn't karma, my payback for not understanding why women who suffered miscarriages early on in pregnncy were so upset about something that wasn't even a part of their life yet.
I don't know why I feel compelled to write about this. Perhaps because, as I've told friends about what happened, I've heard so many of them tell me about the same thing happening to them and it surprises me. I wonder why more women don't talk about it, why instead we sit and wallow in it, wondering if we did something wrong, giving ourselves the "why me" speech, thinking that we're the only ones who are subject to nature's ugly side when, in reality, there's nothing we could have done and we're not alone.
There is good in this. We finally know the answer to a question we've been asking ourselves for the past year: we do want another child and we are ready. It's also brought us closer than ever - it's caused us to really examine some things we brushed under the rug for years and we have a greater appreciation for everything we have.
But it's still hard.
We'll move on and I'm sure in years, we will understand why this happened, perhaps even be grateful for it. For now though, we're just sad.
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