Anger is easier than grief.
Grief has the potential to suck me in, to make me so sad that I don’t want to move. I don’t want to move forward, I don’t want to create new things or happy things, and physically I don’t want to move. Grief feels powerless. Grieving is a process that requires vulnerability, feeling open to being hurt more. Grief is guilty- guilty for all the things I have in my life to be thankful & happy for instead of having my heart stuck at the bottom of the ocean under slimy seaweed. Grief is being a sponge to soaking in other sad things with its compassion (or love of misery). Grief is messy.
Anger helps me to move. Maybe too fast, maybe too intensely. Anger does not have room except for itself. No guilt, no additional grief, no vulnerability, no struggles with hope. Anger is hot, clean and powerful.
When I went through my second miscarriage 2 weeks ago I felt numb. I have tried SO hard to not grieve fully. I don’t want to. I am scared of it. I grieved with our first miscarriage, it was long and it was painful. So now, instead, I find myself lashing out in anger at my fiancé tonight. Because anger has been safer for me to deal with this miscarriage than grief has. It’s not safer for my fiancé or our relationship! This is when I realized I need to write my grief, write my story. This energy has to go somewhere because it continuing to exist as anger is more painful in the long run. I am writing this as a therapy for me. I hope it helps someone else in the process.
Last fall, 9 months ago, I lost my first baby at 10 weeks along. To Trisomy 15. It’s not common. It was due to poor egg health (yay to being older & trying to conceive). She was a silent miscarriage. We had no idea we had lost her. There was no cramping, no bleeding, no spotting- nothing. I still felt very pregnant. We went in for our bi-weekly ultrasound at our fertility clinic (high risk momma, so we had early & frequent ultrasounds). We had heard her perfect heartbeat twice at this point. She came up on the screen and her little hands had started to form! And look at her legs, her feet- those toes that were just starting! I cried, so happy to see how much she had been growing in my belly.
We had sold both of our nice cars, accepted a car from my fiancé’s dad that was awesome enough to lend us one, and went into debt to pay for IVF. We originally wanted to get married, buy a home, travel some & then try our IVF cycles. It was a big decision for us to do IVF so soon.
I was 34 going on 35. I have severe endometriosis, the cozy kind that is wound up in my organs. I had a laparoscopy done when I was 28 and the surgeon was supposed to scrape whatever he found. I came out from anesthesia, he told me they could only remove a fibroid that was growing on the outside of my uterus. The endometriosis was embedded in my intestines so tightly that they said I needed to see a bowel cancer surgeon to have it removed. It is also attached to my bladder but not so tightly, and in my ovaries. My HSG a year earlier had come back clear, so the issue with my endometriosis laid in the rest of abdomen. I waited about 6 years, not wanting to have an intense surgery done. My periods got more painful, my intestines were ALWAYS upset now (not just during my period). I went in the beginning of 2016 & met with a bowel cancer surgeon. We were scheduling the surgery and had an AMH test ran. It was low. Like 1.6 low, at 34. The surgeons said they were putting my surgery on hold until I met with a fertility specialist. We had just tried an unsuccessful IUI cycle with a great clinic a few months earlier. I have been married twice before this, had several boyfriends in between (not a saint!) and NEVER once had gotten pregnant. In 14 years of being sexually active & wanting children there was not once a positive pregnancy test. We went to see this fertility doctor thinking we would do a few rounds of IUI. I wasn’t a spring chicken but I wasn’t “old” in fertility terms. When we went back with my AMH score our doctor said “We start now and we do IVF”. He said that was the AMH level of a 42 yr old woman, not a 34 yr old woman! That is how our IVF journey started. Endometriosis & premature ovarian failure.
After our first round of IVF treatment I was pregnant! After all those years of it not happening I had convinced myself that it never would. It was safer to believe that then to keep going crazy hoping and trying. But here I was- pregnant on the first try! I was one of those amazing success stories that friends tell you about to comfort you when you weren’t pregnant again. The odds were stacked but there I was, me-pregnant! I knew right away. I started with morning sickness at 4 days past our transfer and kept being sick all day, every day of pregnancy after that. I was ecstatic, telling everyone I could because I was so happy. I had no idea looking at the monitor that morning that anything would change that. I wanted to be sick for the next 6 months until I could hold my baby, that was the only thing that mattered. What I didn’t notice as I admired the growth my beautiful baby had gone through in the past 2 weeks was the ultrasound’s tech face. I didn’t see her panic or her concern or her concentration. My fiancé did. He squeezed my hand as I was exclaiming about how perfect our baby was. That was the first time I realized something was wrong. Our tech told us she couldn’t find a heartbeat. She went to find someone else to confirm it.
I sat there. Legs spread, dress hiked up. In shock. I kept crying, this time it was from fear. No heartbeat was confirmed by another tech and then another doctor. I was a wreck after that. I honestly don’t think I have recovered, 9 months later. I have days that are better, and then I don’t.
I had a D&C done because I could not imagine passing my beautiful 10 week old baby at any random time, at home. That same baby that I had just seen with little fingers and little toes. They were also concerned that the medicine to help stimulate a spontaneous abortion would not be strong enough that far along. My body had stubbornly held to my baby so we did the D&C. I woke up bawling from it. I kept asking the nurses if I could hold my baby, could I see my baby. I sobbed for hours getting out from anesthesia, crying for my baby.
Unfortunately part of the placenta & umbilical cord were left behind during the D&C (not done by my doctor). I had felt awful. My body had intense cramps. Now we know it was trying to pass the rest of the tissue. I would have these intense cramps that I thought had to have been labor but what was there to labor for? They said there would be light cramping from the procedure… But I had a similar procedure, a polypectomy, done a few months before. That was light cramping. This? This was different than most of my endometriosis soaked cramps. It was painful on my back, it made me grip the tub. They lasted longer than cramps. And then there would be yellowish mucus and chunks of thin grey, purplish tissue passed. Sometimes blood. The chunks were usually bigger than clots that I have passed with periods. After I would pass a chunk the cramps would stop for a while- that was also different from my normal heavy monthly cramps. It felt like my vagina had taken a much needed shit, there was relief in passing whatever was coming out. Then it would start again a few hours later. I googled obsessively, looking for other women’s stories. It was my comfort.
I stayed in bed for almost 3 weeks after the D&C. I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to sleep, to hide. I didn’t work. I cried anytime I had to DO something, like go grocery shopping, keeping weekend getaway plans with our friends and our trip to a family reunion. I didn’t feel like I could do anything- I was supposed to be growing my baby, didn’t everyone know that?? I couldn’t do those planned things as not pregnant now, it wasn’t right. That felt like the only thing I could think about- my not growing my baby. I chainsmoked a ton because yay for healthy habits that further ruin your egg quality. I also started cutting and dying my own hair- also a bad idea to do when you are an emotional hot mess. The outcome from that did not do much to raise my spirits.
I hated that my baby was now referred to as “tissue”. We had a genetic test done from our doctor’s recommendation on the “tissue”. That is how we found out the gender and the cause of her death. I felt miserable when I learned this mutation was not genetic but due to egg quality. I felt like I had killed my only child. I felt punished, like it must be bad karma catching up with me. This was 3 weeks after the D&C, I had flown back home for my only grandparent’s passing. I am so glad I was with my family when I found out. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise even though the timing seemed horrible at first. I had not had death touch me closely once for the first 35 years of my life. Last summer unleashed that. I lost my first child and then lost my Grandmother. I like to pretend that they are close now, wherever they are. I decided to name her Caroline, after my great grandmother. It was a girl’s name that I had always liked but Jarod hadn’t liked it as much. He didn’t see why I wanted to name her but he told me to do what I needed to. It seemed appropriate to pass a good maternal family name onto her.
At some point I went back to work. I don’t remember. I don’t remember being engaged in anything like I normally am at work. I don’t remember giving a shit. About anything, about anyone. I let my patio garden that I loved die because I quit tending it. I kept painting these dismal paintings. At one point I was ready to break up with my then boyfriend/now fiancé because I thought I was a horrible partner. I was so sad, all the time! I didn’t know how to feel on again. I felt stuck in the off mode and like I was not budging. I was in a rut, I was in a funk. I was depressed.
I had a friend step in. She had quietly gone through the miscarriage of her first baby almost 2 years before that. She told me the gory things. She told me the emotional things. She told me no one would feel this miscarriage the same way I did. It’s been true. Our child was still a concept to Jarod, she was already a tiny human and child to me. That physical connection of having her grow in me meant my body was affected by her every second of every day. I already thought like a mom- making my decisions based on if something would be good for the little human or not. I talked to her every day. She was real to me in every sense. I am the only one that knew her like that. I felt the loss of her as a death of my child. So it’s natural that I have grieved her more than my partner, our family or my friends. I think to them it’s sad or heart wrenching, but I have found that only other miscarriage moms get that it is the death of your child.
2 months after finding out we had a silent miscarriage my fertility clinic figured out that I had an infection, and that it was from the retained placenta (my HCG levels would not drop). They brought me back in for a second D&C to scrape out the rest. My doctor performed this one for me. I loved him. He was upset for me and took great pictures before scraping. Having the second D&C done helped a lot with my healing emotionally. It felt easier to move forward. I think I had known subconsciously that I carried parts of my pregnancy with me still. Having it cleared out helped me feel clearer.
The only thing I wanted after my body finally healed was a baby in my belly again. It felt like that was the only way to fix this. I am normally very big on taking time to digest big events. I have learned the hard way earlier in life that you can’t fill holes with other things. Sometimes you have to walk around with a big gaping hole in your soul while it closes up and heals. This was different. This was a more primal urge. It felt like it was my womb that needed a baby, not just my heart.
We tried a frozen transfer in October of our 2 remaining frozen embryos. My lining has had issues with several polyps and being thin, our doctor wanted us to take advantage of having a great lining after this last scrape. The embryos looked perfect, they were grade A. My lining looked better than the first time we had done an embryo transfer. It should have worked. It didn’t. In some ways I was relieved, because I still felt so sad and numb from losing Caroline. I wanted another baby but it still had felt rushed. We had started the frozen transfer about 2 weeks after the removal of the retained placenta! We decided to not do our last round of prepaid IVF until late in the following year. We moved in my in-laws to save for a home down payment. It was really nice to have another focus to work towards again. I thought I could start to get part of me & my motivation for life back. This process took a lot and quickly, I had not filled up my reserve yet.
My AMH levels dropped to 0.2 in the following 4 months. I was at the Mayo clinic for an unrelated endocrine issue (unrelated because I do not fit the diagnosis that I had gone out there with!). My endocrinologist out there was amazing and proactive. She ordered the AMH “just because”. It came back so low that she scheduled for me to meet with their fertility clinic while I was out there. The reproductive doctor I met with was also amazing. She was very clear that I would most likely not get pregnant again using my eggs with an AMH level that low. She said that was menopause age levels. My FSH & LH still looked normal. I had low estrogen & hot flashes, so she said the change was starting. I was entering menopause about 15 years too early. We had to try with the IVF prepaid program that we had signed up for. She said we needed to move on our next cycle ASAP, that we couldn’t wait until the end of the year like we had been planning. She said we shouldn’t even wait until the summer. She also prepared me to start thinking about donor eggs as our next step. She ran 2 tests to rule out the most likely causes of being so young with such a low AMH. Luckily those came back negative. She decided that my low egg count must be due to my extensive endometriosis. This was during my Caroline’s February due date. It was hard being away from home during that and finding out how much my fertility had dropped. I was not optimistic.
In 2 weeks we were starting our last IVF round. Our savings for a home down payment went towards the $6k in medicine we had to come up with that was not part of the prepaid IVF program. They added in a lot of medicine to help stimulate my ovaries to cough up whatever eggs they could. I was bitter. I was angry. I did NOT want to try without having a few months to at least prep my ovaries with all the supplements & good diet that is supposed to improve egg quality. I wanted to live in my own home with less stress! I wanted to wait until we were better off financially to handle this last round. It was not the way I wanted to start this or go about it at all. I decided to set all my negative feels aside and said fuck it. This is my last time to ever try this. Maybe we won’t get any eggs retrieved, maybe we will. Maybe we won’t get pregnant and who knows? Maybe we will! But I have to be happy while I do this or I will always regret not enjoying my last and only time trying.
Lo & behold- it happened. We got pregnant! We had a low number of eggs retrieved. 2 made it to be transferred. We wound up pregnant. I had daily bright red spotting. I had cramping. I wasn’t sick at all. I told myself its normal to spot. I told myself I wasn’t as sick because we were going to have a boy this time. We had both dreamt about having a little boy the same night. We prayed, nonstop. We aren’t religious people. I listened to self-hypnosis apps about getting and staying pregnant. My first HCG draw came back on the low side but still in the healthy range- 40 at 10 days past transfer. Our first pregnancy was 276 HCG at 10 days past transfer, but this was still in range. I was happy, I was confident. Jarod was worried but I told him it was going to be fine, I can feel it.
They had us come in a few days earlier than usual for our second HCG check, just to make sure the HCG was having an upward trend. It had dropped. Down to 9. In 3 days. In those 3 days my boobs didn’t feel as sore. My heartburn wasn’t as bad. I kept trying to tell myself it was fine, I was just having a better pregnancy this time around. Until we got the 9 HCG test result back. There was no excusing or denying that. The fertility clinic nurse told me to keep taking the baby aspirin and the progesterone suppositories until we confirmed a 0 HCG. I asked if that meant there was a chance??! Our nurse has always been positive and upbeat with us. She was quiet. She said she had only seen an HCG rise after a drop two times in her career. I asked her, to really make sure, if I was really miscarrying. She said yes. I dropped the phone, Jarod took over the conversation from there. I sobbed for hours again.
We went in 2 days later for the last HCG. It had dropped to 0. I stopped the progesterone suppositories and braced myself. I never had awful cramps. My period 2 months ago was much worse on the pain scale than this miscarriage. I had a bright red flow but I have definitely bled heavier. I would pass clumps of dark red tissue. Some in the toilet, some when I wiped after going to the bathroom. 3 days after the 0 HCG test I took those clumps in my fingers and whispered to them how much I loved them, how happy I was to be a mom for those few weeks. I felt like a grief crazed woman, talking to bloody tissue. But to me that was maybe my poppyseed sized baby. I think it was part of my letting go. I figured even if it was just thickened uterine lining from the early pregnancy changes, or part of the growing egg yolk sac, I didn’t care! It was something related to my baby and dammit I was going to hold it this time.
I read an article about an older man that had lost many loved ones to death and was writing to a younger friend who had lost his first friend that grief is like the ocean. When you first go through a shipwreck during a storm the waves are high & crash in on you, you think you might drown. And you might! You find something to hold onto. The larger than life waves start to settle and space out. After a while it’s a calm bright day at sea. The grief isn’t gone. It’s just different now. Now you can see a large wave rolling in from a distance- you know that there are triggers. Like the due date of my babies. That’s a helluva day. Or going to a friend’s baby shower. Somedays there will be undercurrents that surprise you and pull you under. Like when I cleaned out my purse and found my TUMS that I lived on while I was pregnant… and have no need for now. Or when Pinterest kept suggesting pregnancy and baby pins from my activity just 3 weeks ago. In the end, your grief for your loss never goes away. You live in that salty sea of loss, but most days you can still live buoyant in the warm sun.
Right now I hate it. I hate that I tried SO hard and am walking away with empty arms. I hate the rollercoaster- the you will never get pregnant, miracle pregnancy!, super uncommon fatal disorder, still sick!, great chance at babies, no babies, your fertility is almost nonexistent, you are pregnant!, nope, nope you are not pregnant. And now what do we have to show for it? We are broke, living in my inlaws basement and I am heartbroken.
Somedays though I think “It happened for a good reason”, “I AM a mom”. Or “Yay! Now I can go back to doing other things for myself! Instead of being consumed by babymaking!”. And “Yes! Sex can be sexy again!”. I don’t always hate it. I have even been known to be grateful for this intense journey. For the things I have learned, blah blah blah. But not tonight.
I don’t know the secret to why some women have babies. Why some women never have a miscarriage or get pregnant just by doing their man’s laundry. I feel like there is so much more to it than all of things we can control. There really is this ethereal element of what happens when it comes to conceiving, carrying and birth. I sure as hell know it’s not under my control.
All that I do know is that I would most likely have checked myself into a mental hospital for a breakdown if I had not been able to talk about this (nonstop is what it felt like in the beginning). I am deeply grateful to the gory stories I read online of women who were brave enough to go through a factual retelling of their miscarriage stories. Being told it sucks & you will have some cramps is a fucking understatement. I needed to hear from other women about their physical symptoms to know it was normal.
I needed my friends who have miscarried to tell me that they had depression, grief, fear, numbness, anger- all the feels are normal. Our experiences may look different. Maybe we lost our babies at different times. Maybe your miscarriage was more gory than mine. Maybe you had more support or less. Maybe you are younger, or older. Maybe you have children already. It doesn’t change that we are sisters in this experience. I would have been lost without this sisterhood created between myself and my friend Shannon, to share the things that no one wants to speak about. We are not crazy. You are not crazy. You have been through an intensely painful physical and emotional experience, and you are not alone. You are a warrior goddess. You have fought for your child on a battlefield that most people can’t see, with your body and in your heart. That does not make your war any less real. That does make you stronger than maybe even you know.
Invisible Battlefields 