Emma B…my reminder that Miracles Can Happen.
I’m not posting this blog on Facebook, so if you just happened to check our webpage, you may be surprised. We kept a lot of this quiet, but I needed to write this for me.
So this wasn’t the best week for us Texas Jacksons. On Monday, I had my third miscarriage. I was extremely early, but I was enough out of the danger window that I thought I just might be OK. I was excited about my doctor. She was the doctor who delivered Emma. I had a really good feeling about it all. We even ordered a big sister shirt for Emma and had hoped to tell Mark’s family in person when they visited next week. On Monday or Tuesday, we should have been able to hear the baby’s heartbeat.
When I had miscarried before, we knew there were problems days after my positive home pregnancy tests. So, when the doctor didn’t call with my HCG results last Friday, I had hoped that no news meant good news. The doctors were off last Friday, but I was sure they were checking and would let me know if there was a problem. I had made it through four blood tests and a week and half of rising levels; that meant we were going to have that second baby Jackson in July. Plus, I figured the doctor wouldn’t have talked to me about whether or not I wanted a c-section again if she thought things weren’t good. While I was nervous, I was thinking positively.
Well, on Monday, I learned that no news just meant that the doctor didn’t look at my charts.
I don’t know why but I haven’t really cried about this one. Don’t get me wrong. I was crying at the ER Monday afternoon as I waited for Mark and Emma to arrive after I saw that my HCG levels had dropped on Friday. I then knew the spotting was more than just spotting. My boss at OLLU made me take Tuesday off. Mark took the day off, too. We had a great family day with Emma. I napped. I took care of myself. But I never cried. And here it is Thursday night. I still haven’t had that good real deep cry. And I’m not sure what that means. I think it’s coming. I just don’t know when it will happen. When I was at the hospital on Monday, I sat in a room in the ER by myself. All I wanted was to see Mark and Emma. I didn’t want to be alone. And I needed to see Emma. I looked at pictures of her on my phone. I looked at her in my arms smiling in her bee costume. She was my proof that I could get pregnant again.
Emma did just what I needed her to do on Monday. She loved Mark and me. She made us smile. She didn’t let us dwell on what was happening. She distracted us from what was going on. I couldn’t think about the IV in my arm, what didn’t show up on the ultrasounds, and the fact that my HCG level had already dropped to 5. I had Emma who wanted to eat Os, flirted with the doctors in nurses in the hallway, and babbled away in her language to Mark and me.
Days later, I still feel a bit lost. I had started thinking about and planning Emma’s big girl room. I’ve got her bedding already. Now I just need to decide when to transition her into it. When I removed the baby’s due date from my BabyCenter account Monday night, a window popped up for dealing with miscarriage and loss. Oh how clever those folks at BabyCenter are, I thought. Only a handful of people even knew I was pregnant, and here they knew I had lost my baby. I know that I have been down this road twice before. But this time, I feel like I’m on a different road. I don’t feel as helpless. I’m frustrated and angry. I’m wondering if the doctors could have done anything like giving me progesterone. I’m angry that our referral for the fertility clinic at SAMMC didn’t get put in until yesterday after trying to get one in since July. I’m angry because I don’t know that we’ll be accepted even though I need the help and know what might work and even though I know I am a high risk pregnancy with an ectopic pregnancy under my belt and two miscarriages. The day Emma was born, we asked about fertility care and trying for number two…we were told we weren’t going to have to go down this road again. And yet here we are.
I keep thinking at least it was early. At least I didn’t get more attached. Tonight I read an amazing tribute to a 15-month-old boy who lost his life last June after battling a number of illnesses since birth. It took his mom 15 months to write this: http://babyortyl.blogspot.com/2012/11/june-6-2012.html. (Read this blog. It will change your life.) After reading her story of having to watch her 15-month-old die, I was so thankful that my Emma is healthy and that my miscarriages happened early. I am thankful that God didn’t let me get more attached. I don’t know how parents who lose babies late in the pregnancy or who lose their child get through it. My mom had nine miscarriages, all much later in the pregnancy than mine. I don’t know how she did it.
While I am thankful for an early miscarriage, I still wonder if I’ll ever get pregnancy again. Every day, I think about how I’m one day closer to 35. It’s that magic number for OB doctors and fertility specialists. July 23, 2013, I’m OK. My uterus is still young and my ovaries can still produce follicles that will give eggs that could one day be a baby. But on July 24, it’s over. I’m 35. Overnight, those ovaries decide to stop working.
I realize it’s not as drastic as that, but if you’ve ever read any literature on fertility or listened to a report on the news, that’s how extreme some doctors can make it sound. My dream of having three kids may just be that: a dream. How could someone above the age of 35 with fertility issues possibly get pregnant or have a safe delivery and a healthy baby? Impossible.
Then, I look at Emma. She’s my miracle. She was strong. She survived and was conceived against so many odds. She was healthy, and now I have a funny and smart 12 and half month old. Where did the time go? I’m fully aware that I will be asking myself this question many time for the rest of my life. I owe this little girl so much. She made what should have been an absolutely awful and heart-breaking day bearable. I had someone to live for. I had someone to take care of. Emma needed me to be in the moment and needed me and Mark to take care of her. Despite what was happening in my body, we had to make sure she got fed, that she got bathed, that she got cuddled while saying her prayers and that she was tucked into her bed.
