not why we've had the year we've had or how it happens to happen to someone over and over and over with no real explanation. I'm not even asking to know why and how so many prayers went unanswered or why God made me to listen to my daughter pray every night for the past week for "Mom to have a good pregnancy journey and for junior to be happy and healthy." I'm not asking for answers to those questions. Not even wishing for them.
No. What I wish I knew today is the exact moment of the last beat of that baby's heart. Was it just after the ultrasound when my body, coursing with anxiety and stress, suddenly realized "this is it." Was it at 3 am on Wednesday morning when I awoke with the feeling that everything would, in fact, be okay. Was it this morning as we drove to the doctor's office?
I'm sure a lot of people wonder why it matters. I guess in a way I do too. But I remember standing around David in his last hour, watching his breathing slow, carrying in my heart the dual feelings of "Please stop" and "Not yet." I remember the way my legs left me after Pastor Al blessed him, the full bodied sobs I couldn't suppress, and the way the light caught fingerprints on the Pulse/Ox monitor nurses had turned off and cast to the side. I remember that moment as the moment - a time to acknowledge a life lost. The real and deep feeling that he was gone.
Seeing a quiet figure on an ultrasound screen - a small speck of black and white dots - too small with no movement - it's not the same. It is as if the moment has been stolen. No, it is not as if, it is just that: The moment has been stolen. If there's been no life to acknowledge there is no point at its end to acknowledge as well. There is no chance to know the exact moment that that life ended because nobody has come to agree on when it began or what importance it carries.
And miscarriage itself is such a strange place - that place between life and non-life. These small miracles that go unacknowledged by many for not being quite miraculous enough. It is a strange place to live - or, rather, not live. One of the hardest parts of being in this place is not knowing how long your womb has been a tomb or knowing the precise moment when your future child became a parenthetical in your life.
Honestly, I love you all. If you are reading this and did not know, please know that I haven't told you because I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to deliver this news time and time again. I just can't.
Much love to you friend. My second m/c was after we saw a good heartbeat and it sucked so hard! If you want to chat you know where to find me. (((hugs)))
ReplyDeleteOnce again, so very sorry. I wish so badly that I could just reach through the screen and hug you. You'll be in my thoughts as you endure these next few weeks and the upcoming appointments.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way. I wonder when my m&m's last moment of life occurred. I wish I could have seen that final flicker and shared its last moments of life.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry.
I am so sorry. It is more than any one person should have to bear. I am thinking of you, every day.
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry your going through this yet again. Huge (((HUGS))). I do understand your wanting to know when your little one died, though, as I've often wondered the same about my 2nd m/c. We saw the hb twice, and had a reassuring u/s the day I started bleeding. I didn't m/c for 3 days after that, and I've always wondered when it was really over. Your second to last paragraph is exactly what I have been feeling...but unable to put into words. You and your family will be in my thoughts and prayers!
ReplyDeleteYou don't know me, but I'm a friend of a friend. I wanted to offer you condolences on your losses. I know how hard it is to be touched by a tiny life, only to have it lost to me before I was ready to let it go. I've had 2 heartbreaking losses and still feel the grief, even years (and 4 healthy children) later.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to say to you is this. You can take or leave my advice, but I know a lot about human emotion and a lot about how a woman's body works. I'm a trained crisis worker and was on my way to becoming a midwife before my focus shifted to working with families instead.
Listen to what your body is saying. There is something happening to you that is out of your control. You cannot bring back the little lives you lost. You CAN work towards understanding why and how this may have happened. Our bodies are complex and mysterious. Sometimes we don't know why they behave the way they do. Sometimes WE DO and we can work towards fixing it. I know you've had multiple losses in the last year. Did you know that pregnancy hormones can linger in your system for 3-4 months. The later the loss the longer they linger. If we become pregnant too recently after a loss sometimes signals get crossed. Most women lose their fertility entirely after a birth (miscarriages count as birth in this context). There is a reason for this. Our bodies need time to regroup, to reset. Some women can just bang out pregnancies one after another, but most can't. Most women's bodies need time to reset. If you become pregnant too soon after a birth your body hasn't had time to get ready, and signals get crossed. From reading about your plight I think this is possibly the case for you. Some of those hormones tell your body you are already pregnant. Even if the levels are low enough for conception to occur, they can still interrupt the staying power of a fetus.
I'd like to encourage you to relearn about your body. I know this sounds silly, but sometimes if we can learn about ourselves physically we get greater emotional insight, and you sound like you could really use some emotional relief.
Also, I would strongly encourage you to talk to a homebirth midwife. Even if you have no intention of having a homebirth, those women have a deep insight into the workings of women and fertility. They may see or hear something in your conversation that doctors miss because they simply don't have time to listen. Midwives can be as much counselors and medical experts. If you'd like I can help you find one.
I know you don't know me, but I really feel that you deserve a break from the heartache. Giving yourself permission to grieve is essential. Giving yourself permission to heal is just as important. Fortunately, both can happen together if you let them.
(((hugs))) to you and I hope you find the answers you are seeking. You are in my thoughts.
Gwen, I wanted to address your post in hopes that you take to heart a few of the things I have said.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, when you say "your body is telling you something", what a woman who has endured 4 losses in a year hears is "You are killing your babies." Your intent is to tell me that my body is telling me that it is not ready or willing to create and maintain a pregnancy. You could not be more wrong. You know nothing of the nature of my losses, my attunement to my own body, or, quite frankly, anything.
Let's start with this: The studies do not uphold your basic claim here. If indeed a woman's body occasionally conceived before it was ready, we would see a marked increase in miscarriage risk in women who conceive close to their initial loss. A brief review of the available studies out there will show you that the increased risk in women who conceive 1-2 months post miscarriage is minimal at best -- often the standard medical "wait 2-3 months" is given because doctors wish a patient's cycle to even out and make dating a pregnancy easier.
Now let's focus on me: Aside from being given the go-ahead from my own physician, you should know this: I have spent the past 8 years charting my cycles (both to avoid and attain pregnancy). As such, I'm probably more in-tune with my body than you could know. Additionally, as a member of the EAGeR study, I had blood draws over the past four months on CD2 or 3 and again at O or O+1. I have more insight to the fluctuations of my hormone levels than you could imagine. My hormones are fine. By all medical standards, hormones are not causing and creating my losses.
What is causing and creating my losses is the unbelieveably complicated process of zipping up the DNA structure from one egg and one sperm. By all accounts that has gone wrong FOUR times now. Based on the nature of my losses, it's become fairly clear to my physicians (a whole team of them, I might add) that the problem isn't *me*. The first pregnancy was a blighted ovum: a CLEAR genetic root. The second pregnancy showed fetal demise during the most pivotal week - the week which shows nearly 100% of the losses being related to GENETICS. The third was a chemical pregnancy, which we can all agree has roots in a fertilized egg being unqualified to divide & grow - because it is genetically sub-par. The last miscarriage showed a beating heart on a Monday and a dead fetus on a Thursday -- again during that most pivotal week of development during which nearly every loss can be attributed to some sort of aneuploidy.
I appreciate your desire to keep a woman from suffering another loss. Unfortunately, I feel confident that your advice here is off base at best and offensive at worst. WAITING IT OUT will not make me less likely to endure again a fucked up zipping up of DNA - in fact, from what we understand of the universe, WAITING will make it WORSE.
Out of respect for whomever sent you here, I haven't said anything offensive to you, but out of respect for my ladies reading this who have also endured loss after loss, I could not allow your comment to go without a response.
Finally, I will say one more thing: I've given myself permission to heal and move forward. And after taking a short break (mostly to wait for the karyotype of this recent loss) I will also give my body permission to do what it needs to do on its own time, whether that be to achieve and attain a viable pregnancy or not. Part of knowing that you are out of control of a situation is actually acknowledging it.
ReplyDeleteGwen. That was incredibly condescending. She is very familiar with her body, and you implying - and believe me, that is how this is coming off, regardless of what you might have intended - that it is somehow her fault that these losses happened is both wrong and awful.
ReplyDeleteHer losses did not occur because she didn't know her body. And to imply that she is in anyway responsible makes me insane.
And she has been seeking support for her grief for a long time now. Given that you, by your own admission, don't know her, it's pretty crappy of you to make assumptions that she is not intune with her mental healing.
So shut it.
Gwen, you make me want to spit.
ReplyDeleteWomen who boost their own egos by "ministering" to the heartsick with ill-informed, condescending hogwash like yours are the scourge of the internet. Shame on you.
Wow... This was not the reaction I was hoping for. Monica, I was the one that sent Gwen. And, before I'm publicly hind-and-quartered, please understand it was done with the intention of helping, not hurting. Over the last several months, I've seen how upsetting these losses have been for you, and hoped a new perspective might give you a different angle to look at. Perhaps even attack from. It wasn't meant, as I now see, you and others clearly feel it was, an insult to your intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that you were involved in a study (although I didn't know details and certainly wouldn't have pushed for them). However, I'm also aware that though science has come very far, particularly in respect to conception, doctors can sometimes be wrong and over think (particularly in a study). Occasionally, an intuitive approach can be helpful. That was why I asked for her insight.
Now, on to Gwen. As you said (and she admitted) she does not know you or the entire picture. I do know her though, have for 25 years, and can tell you that nothing in her post was meant as condescending, insulting or malicious. This can be a highly emotional topic and miscommunication is sure to happen as a result. When she said, "Your body is telling you something", she most assuredly did not mean you (or any other woman) is killing their baby – I feel I need to make sure that is cleared up. For any one, you specifically, that read her post and was offended - please accept MY apology. No insult, or attack was intended. As for the rest of what she said.. Gwen is one of the most well-informed “mid-wifery” (not sure that's a word, but I'm gonna go with it..) women I've ever known. And, this may be where the clash comes from. Her approach to this topic is based more on natural intuition and "balance" as it were, and your approach is to utilize burgeoning medical technology. Neither is incorrect. I'm sure even the doctors you're working with will tell you there isn't an exact science to it (if there was, they might be able to "fix" the DNA zipping issue you described – which they’re probably working on as we speak). Additionally, if you look at the whole of what she said, it was meant as an honest attempt to assist you with the helplessness you appear to be feeling (it was a large part of the drive she had to even post, she can and does sympathize – but, this portion of what she said seems to have been overlooked)... I hate to see you suffer and all I wanted was for you to have hope, which (and, I know this will incur flaming), you appear to have lost. It was my prayer that focus in another place might help you to find a little light in the darkness that has been dogging your steps over the last year or so.
Therefore, I apologize for any insult, injury, or pain Gwen’s post may have caused (mostly to you, but also to others that read it). My heart was in the right place, and believe it or not, so was hers. I have been in the same situation as you have experienced over these last months (I lost a couple of children – one because of something natural that the doctors couldn’t put their fingers on, and a second because a doctor was arrogant and simply wrong about what was happening with my body). So, in response to the others that commented, and before anyone (disrespectfully, I might add – which, Monica’s response was not) starts calling me a scourge or tells me to shut it – please keep in mind that, while not knowing the complete picture, Gwen stuck her neck out to try and offer a little comfort and information. Her tone may have been gruff, but was actually matter-or-fact, not condescending. She did it at my plea and if anyone should be blamed, then look to me.
I appreciate when someone tries to make me feel better. I think that's the reason that I found her comments even more hurtful - one with experience should know that there is little you can say right now to make me feel better.
ReplyDeleteBefore you assume that I am fully reliant on science and disregard other arenas, you should know again that I spend my life weighing and balancing science and nature. I am far more in-tune with natural remedies than you probably know or understand and as a woman who has for 8 years practiced FAM, I probably know more about my body than any other woman you know.
The study I was enrolled in was on the effects of aspirin on gestation. That's hardly burgeoning medical technology. It's actually the first-round treatment option most REs and OBGYNs use with women who suffer repeat miscarriages -- without solid proof that it is effective. I enrolled in the study not to guarantee me a healthy baby, but to make the two pregnancies I lost worth something insomuch as my participation in the study was able to help other women in the future. To that end, I was effective. Viable pregnancy or no, the study got plenty of information that will be extraordinarily useful to them. I will never know if I was on aspirin or not, for the record, as it was double-blind. The only scientific benefit I receive is that in 4-6 weeks I'll know what the genetic issue was with my child and we'll know where to go from here.
I'm not sure what other "intuitive approach" you feel is the solution. The fact is that four times in 10 months *genetics* has failed me. These losses aren't because I'm out of tune or lack intuition, they're not because my hormones are out of balance or because I'm not listening to my body. They are tragic and impersonal moments in a cruel universe. And most importantly - there is nothing I can do or could have done to prevent them.
In the end, I always appreciate love and support from people -- but I expect more than a lecture from a woman who has also endured losses. Especially when - to be frank - she knows nothing about what I have or have not tried, how I live my life, or what I do or do not rely on as I go through this journey. To presume to know more on this subject than I is not only silly, it's downright wrong.
You should know that I am, at heart, a researcher. It's what English major types do, right? And I always tell my students to research, research, and when you feel done, research some more. My knowledge on this subject is shockingly broad - from Aviva Jill Romm's herbology to Dr. Beers's immunology. A lecture from a stranger simply wasn't helpful.
For the record, I feel no ill-will against Gwen. She stuck her neck out and tried to help. That's fine. Her assumptions were far from helpful, but we all move forward, yes?