Losing Hope

WARNING: GRAPHIC DECRIPTIONS:  We found out at 10 weeks, 2 days that the baby's heart had stopeed beating. It wasn't until two weeks later that I finally miscarried. I was shopping at Walmart with Dylan and had been having mini contractions for a few hours when i felt a gush and something there. I knew what it was.... so I rushed to the bathroom and told Dylan to sit by the wall while I situated things. There it was... right there. It didn't look like a baby per se, but i could tell it was. I could see the eye spot and what looked like a curved spine area. Knowing what it was, I couldn't just dispose of it, so I wrapped it up and put it in a plastic bag in my purse, checked out my purchases from Walmart, and went home. James and I put the baby in a ring box from our wedding (he didn't want to see the baby) and burried it in our backyard. My HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels didn't go back to normal until around my birthday, december 13, a little over a month after I miscarried.

I was totally fine with the idea of the miscarraige, but have had a little bit of a hard time after the fact. It has been almost 2 months now, and I get sad when I think about her due date and the things that I would be doing around that time. I get sad when I think about how pregnant I would be now, and knowing that I am not even able to try to get pregnant again yet (they want me to wait three months from when my hormones went back to normal). Dylan is fantastic, and I find it a little odd that with his amazing memory, he doesn't ever ask about the baby that was in my belly, but I know how good of a big brother he will be, and want to make him one soon. This waiting thing is terrible for me. I am a planned person when it comes to babies, and not being able to plan when it will happen is killing me. I don't know how long my cycles will be (i have only had one since the miscarraige) and so it is hard to plan for when to try, when i dont know when to expect to ovulate. I want a baby. James wants a baby. Dylan wants a baby. I can't wait to grant those wishes.

Hope

We had our first prenatal visit with a sonographer and then my midwife on Friday, October 15. I was 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I wore my "not finding out" t-shirt that I had made, and Dylan wore his big brother shirt. We knew something was wrong by how quiet the sonographer was. She asked if we were positive about how far along I was. She didn't even give me a picture. When the midwife came in to talk with us, she said the baby was only measuring 6 weeks 4 days with a heartbeat of only 88 (should be at least over 100)and the was a small bleed between the placenta and baby called a subchorionic hematoma. The midwife basically said that she thought i would miscarry over the weekend and told me how much blood to expect. They had me get some blood drawn to check my HCG and progesterone levels. Unfortunately, since it was a Friday, I was on bedrest all weekend and didn't get the results unil Monday morning. The results came back at very good levels, so they had me get my blood drawn again to test for the rise in hormone levels. The levels did rise, so we had hope that when we went back on friday for another sonogram that the baby would have grown. Unfortunately, when we saw the little flicker on the screen, I could tell that it was still beating very slowly. The sonographer (a new one this time, thank goodness) talked us through everything she was doing and everything she saw. The baby was still measuring 6 weeks 4 days and still had a heartbeat of 88 beats per minute and the subchorionic hematoma was still there, even though I still had not had any spotting or bleeding.

James has been saying that he knew this baby was a girl, so I have been referring to her as Hope. I had a lot of hope that she would start to grow and that by some miracle the baby was just got a slow start on developing. It is a very weird feeling to be going about my day waiting to miscarry, waiting for your child's heart to stop beating. I know that things happen for a reason, and I have dealt with the news remarkably well. At this point I am ready for my body to do its thing naturally so that my body can get back to normal so that we can try again.

I would be 10 weeks today, and technically, I am still pregnant. We go back to the doctor Friday to do another size/ heartrate check. It is heartbreaking everytime because you can't help but still hold a glimmer of hope that things will miraculously turn around, however, at this point, my little Hope is already 3.5 weeks behind in development, and it is not looking good. I am ready to let her go. I love her, and she is my child, but she is just not ready to join us yet.

Waiting and Thinking

I have been thinking about my Grandma a lot lately. I have tried so hard to just not think about her so that I wouldn't be sad, but this pregnancy and all of the awesome things that Dylan does make me want to call her or send her pictures. My mom cries everyday, and I understand, she lost her mom, and a huge part of her everyday life. She talked to my grandma several times a day. They were very close. And, although I am only 6 weeks along, I am trying to play around with baby names. I just don't want to be thinking about naming a child after my grandma, because there can be no way that she is gone. She is going to come to Texas like she did after Dylan was born and stay with me, right? I had a memorial candle that I lit when I got home from Seattle for her funeral and it went out yesterday. That was really hard for me because for over a week it was like she was with me every time I saw that candle burning. Now the candle has burned out and the Elton John song "Candle in the Wind" is playing in my mind. I miss her. I miss her for me and I miss her for my mom, and Dylan, and this new baby. It will be a long road ahead...

About the pregnancy- Now that I am a stay-at-home-mom, I have nothing to think about but playing with Dylan, housework, and this pregnancy, which means it feels like this pregnancy will last forever, like time is going by sooooooo slllooooowwwwlllyyyy. I am 6 weeks, 2 days as of today and will have my first doctors appointment on October 15 at 8 weeks, 2 days. That is two weeks from today. It still feels like forever away. Part of me wants to get excited about being pregnant, but part of me is still worried until i see that the baby looks normal and is in the right spot, and growing the way he or she is supposed to be growing. And the he or she part will be here for a while because James and I have decided not to find out our baby's gender until he or she is born. I am nervous but super excited about it. I remember with Dylan that the first trimester went by super slowly, and then the second zoomed by and then the last few weeks seemed like forever, especially that last week when I was past my due date. This time I am actually hoping to be a week late again because it would give me my June baby. I am due May 25, but if I were a week late again, the baby would be born June 1st. I just feel a connection with June, my grandma's birthday was June 22 and if we would have gotten pregnant one month later, I would have been due on her birthday. I would still really like to have that June baby..... for her.

A new beginning

This is my first blog post. I've had this blog for a while, but never knew where to start in talking about my life until this week. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, September 14, my grandma, Iris Cohen Angel passed away at the age of 77. It was a huge shock as she was still up and about as usual just hours before her death. I sort this last four days in Seattle with my family and it made me think about life and how precious it is, and how quickly it can be taken away. I also had many talks with my cousins and aunts and uncle about how important family is and how much we will have to work to keep in touch and keep out family together now thy Gram is gone. She was the glue that held the family together and she took such joy in being a part of this family. Her greatest joys were the youngest branch of the family, her three great grandsons. It is such an ironic bittersweet happening that in the same week she passed away, she would have learned that two of her grandchildren would tell her that she would be getting two more great-grandchildren at the end of May/ beginning of June 2011. Both my cousin Jenny and I are expecting only one week apart. She would have been so happy! I just wish I could call her up and tell her. I want to share this joy with her. I can only hope that she knows...