When Joy Turns to Sorrow
This is a highly personal blog. In fact, there’s very little theology or faith to it, other than mentioning prayer. This is me being wholly vulnerable and authentic. Revealing what goes on behind the curtain, or on the other side of a screen. This is my recollection of the very beginning of pregnancy. And there isn’t a happy ending at this point. So, I want to start out by including trigger warnings for pregnancy loss and miscarriage.
A few additional notes related to the content: 1) As pro-choice as I am, yes, I am referring to the tiny seed sized embryo as a baby. 2) The invalidation I feel when someone says a chemical pregnancy (a pregnancy lost before 6 weeks) is less of a loss than a loss at any other stage makes me ragey. 3) As important as my faith is to me, I absolutely do not ascribe to the idea that "everything happens for a reason." 4) Perinatal hospice, which I mention later in the blog, is rooted in the pro-life community as an alternative to terminating for medical reasons (TFMR). Again, I am super-duper pro-choice, and that means that I support people’s choice to not terminate a pregnancy as much as I support their choice to terminate.
My husband, James, and I have been trying to conceive for nearly a year. Through this process we have endured a lot. More negative pregnancy tests than I care to count. So many blood draws. Many appointments. I restarted therapy. I continued going to the chiropractor weekly. I started seeing an acupuncturist (who is absolutely amazing). We found a new OB who was willing to listen to our concerns and give us a plan. I started to meet with a dietician to get some help surrounding food + supplements in regards to autoimmune issues and problems conceiving. We’ve also prayed. A lot.
Last week we finally got a positive test! After 11 cycles of trying, we found out our little miracle was due on November 24th, 2022. Yes, Thanksgiving Day. I was so happy when I saw the test that I burst into tears. And while I’d had nearly a year to think of different ways to tell James, in that moment I walked into his office sobbing. It wasn’t exactly the happy announcement I had in mind. However, we were both over the moon with joy. After years of hopes and prayers, from both ourselves and from friends and family, our miracle was on the way.
Our first positive test, after almost a year of trying!
I immediately called our doctor’s office so I could get in for more labs. The appointment was great. The PA I saw, Sarah, took time to answer all the questions I had – even as a former doula I had so many questions about early pregnancy and our specific circumstances. We made a plan for monitoring the pregnancy going forward and I left feeling like I was walking on clouds. Over the weekend, James and I brainstormed all the different ways we would tell our families. We always knew that we’d want to tell people about any pregnancy early, because no matter what happened, we knew we’d want the love and support of those around us.
And over the weekend we started telling people. Some of my friends. My cousin. Some of James’s co-workers. Our pastors. Everyone on my care team. I designed several gifts to make to give our parents as we wanted to tell them in person. My parents were in Florida, so we made a plan to tell them when they got home. And by pure luck, James and I have a trip down to Houston next week, so we made arrangements to tell his mom and grandparents while we were there.
On Monday morning, I got a call from the office that my labs were back and while my progesterone was low, my HCG looked great. Luckily, the PA and I decided to do a progesterone shot in the office on Friday, so we had started to get ahead of that. The plan was that I would go in for labs again on Monday afternoon. Because of my work schedule, I had the labs drawn at the clinic attached to the hospital. A few hours later the results came back and they weren’t great. Another PA, Amy, called me and we talked about the results. While she wanted to give me hope that this baby would make it, she also wanted to be realistic. At some point she said, “I don’t want to beat around the bush. I think you understand things are not looking good. I am so sorry you are probably going to lose this baby.” I was gutted. We chose to have labs drawn again on Tuesday and see where things were at. Those results would officially determine the viability of the pregnancy, ruling out any lab error/difference. However, by Monday afternoon we knew that things didn’t look good for Baby Bell.
On Tuesday morning I returned to the hospital clinic and had my labs drawn again. By lunch time the results were back – my HCG, which should have doubled twice since Friday – was now only half of what it had been on Friday. This confirmed that our pregnancy, the one we prayed so hard for, the baby people already prayed over, was not going to make it. I was crushed. Devastated. I felt empty. At this point, I called my mom. I was heartbroken. For years I’d dreamed of how I’d tell my mom I was having a baby. Instead, I had to call and tell her I was pregnant and I was going to have a miscarriage. I think I cried through the whole phone call.
That afternoon I spoke with Amy again. She prayed with me on the phone and offered her condolences. She asked about symptoms I was having. Was I still having pregnancy symptoms? Had I felt any cramping? And then she made an appointment for James and me to see Sarah on Wednesday morning. On Tuesday night James and I fell asleep holding each other and crying. Grieving the inevitable loss of the pregnancy we longed for, prayed for, for so long.
Wednesday morning, we arrived at the clinic and got checked in. I’ve been seen in the same room for every appointment I’ve attended at this office. On the wall there are two framed articles written by one of the OBs. One article talks about why he uses paper medical records instead of electronic. The other article talks about perinatal hospice. Perinatal hospice is a model of care in pregnancy and birth that involves support for families who choose to continue a pregnancy in the even their baby has been given a “life-limiting” prenatal diagnosis. While our pregnancy wasn’t far enough along to engage in traditional perinatal hospice services like birth planning and preliminary decision making on medical interventions for baby, I couldn’t help but wonder, “How can we honor this pregnancy before it ends?” I spent two nights looking for answers and found there wasn’t a lot out there.
Things I never thought I’d look up.
When Sarah came in to meet with us, we were immediately put at ease. James and I were both feeling pretty crushed emotionally. At the same time, by the end of our appointment, we both felt a little better mentally. Sarah was so great about answering questions and letting us know what to expect. She also talked through some options with us for testing and for being even more proactive in future pregnancies. I had more blood drawn to confirm my blood type and to check HCG again. We left knowing that we really were in the final days carrying this baby.
By Wednesday afternoon, I’d started to experience some cramping and spotting. The beginning of the end. James and I attended the Lenten service, where I was scheduled to read the text, Hosea 11:1-9. It was a rough text to read. And as beautiful as the sermon was, speaking of love, ahavah, the affection one shows another, it was also very hard to listen to. Because I recognized that we love because God loves us, and that I loved this baby so much simply because they were my baby. It brought me to tears. And then, then we continued with the Holden Evening Prayer, something that has brought me a lot of peace in the past. There’s nothing quite like singing along to the Annunciation and Mary’s Magnificat when you are actively losing your baby. (I plan to make a separate blog post about this later.) So, I just let myself cry, the tears flowing freely, and knew that God could hear the prayers on my heart. After the service, James and I met with both of our pastors to let them know what was happening. Both Joanna and Maria have been so supportive of us, praying for our family, praying over our tiny baby just days earlier. Their presence that evening was so helpful as we processed our loss.
In the days following, my body continued to go through the miscarriage process. I went to acupuncture and was able to process some of my feelings with Meghan. I went back to the clinic for a rhogam shot. I napped a lot. I tried to savor these last moments. I did some crafting. I took the dogs to the dog park. I tried to prepare myself to return to work. And I prayed endlessly – for this baby, for my relationship with James, for my relationships with friends and family, for future pregnancies.
In memory of “Robin” Bell, gone too soon. We chose the name Robin because we didn’t know the sex of the baby yet. And for all the robins I watched out my window in the days I carried this baby.