Category: Miscarriage

Whispers from God

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2002-2003

Today I’m going to share another moment in my life where I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the God of Heaven & Earth heard my prayers and answered.

If you know me personally or have read my posts up until now, you probably know how much I wanted to have a child.  I cannot put into words the hormones, emotions, and dissappointments that infertility makes a couple travel through.  The miscarriage had been so many years previous, yet the pain in my heart was still fresh as I  longed for what I had lost.  I cried out routinely to my God to hear my plea.  I wanted a child.  Not just any child, I specificially and selfishly asked God for a blonde haired, blue eyed, baby girl who was just like me.

I had been through several rounds of oral medications and my doctor wanted to try 5 more months of infertility treatments before doing an exploratory laproscopic surgery to look for problems.  I was tired of trying and trying only to be disappointed month by month.  I begged God to tell me if and when I would get pregnant once again.  One night, I felt a still, small voice from within me telling me that I would have 3 months of treatments, have surgery, and then get pregnant.  Not an audible voice, just there in the stillness of my prayer.  Wait…  Did I imagine that?  3 months didn’t make sense!  The doctor clearly said 5 months, then surgery.  Afterall, if God heard me, couldn’t he just touch my body and make it all well without all of the treatments and surgery?  So, I pondered these things in my heart.

As I took injections for the infertility treatments, I started cramping worse and worse.  I was cramping so bad that the doctor was treating me with narcotics to control the pain throughout the entire month regardless of where my body was in the female reproductive cycle.  After 3 months of this agony, the doctor called me back into his office to talk about our options.  He said that I was having way too much pain and he thought it wise to go ahead and do the surgery to see what was going on.  Chill bumps immediately went up my spine!  It had been 3 months of treatment since that still small voice, now I was mysteriously being set up for surgery because of the pain?  Surely not, I wouldn’t let my hopes get up, but I knew that surgery needed to be done.  I knew something was wrong.

The surgery itself was uneventful.  The results?  Stage 3 endometriosis causing the cramping.  They removed the endometriosis as best they could.  I also had cervical polyps that we were told probably caused the first miscarriage.  I had never felt like something was wrong with the baby on the first pregnancy.  Somehow, I knew it was me.  Anytime someone said that there must have been something wrong with the baby, I would tell them, “No, it was just too perfect to be born into this sinful world.”  Now, I know.  It was my body, not the baby’s.  Perhaps God did think that child was just too perfect to be born into this sinful world…

Finally, the time had come when I would do another round of infertility treatments- this time with the endometriosis freshly cleaned out and no more cervical polyps.  Such a long wait in between, but this time I had more hope.  They had found the problem and fixed it as best they could.

I remember looking over the pregnancy test that I took early because I couldn’t wait any longer.  The second line was faint, but it was there.  I showed David.  He looked up shaking and said, “that’s positive!”  It hit me…  That still small voice had said, 3 months of treatment, surgery, then pregnancy.  It happened exactly as I had heard.  My God had heard my prayers and answered them.

Money, Money, Money

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2001

David’s long awaited graduation from anesthesia school had finally arrived!  He looked at positions in California as well as Texas, but didn’t find much at the time.  That search led us to Louisiana just across the Texas border.  So, we said so long to So Cal and made another long hard move across states.  Unfortunately, being fresh out of college and being showered with the first really good paying job in our lives, we turned to material possessions.  Our first search was a home.  We found a large home on lake Toledo Bend.  We were blinded by the beauty of the land and wanting to posess a home that proclaimed David’s hard work at school.  So, the home we purchased was large but outdated which we planned to change quickly.  Our dream home didn’t come without struggles.  We somehow got convinced it was okay to buy the home without an official inspection.  Bad move.  The septic tank was broken and expensive to repair.  The fireplace was set up to blow hot air, which we loved once as it got fixed, but David got his chance to crawl through tiny attic spaces to try to figure that one out.  I know there were more issues, but I can’t think of them right now.  I just remember that it wasn’t as golden of a find as I thought at first.  However, the neighbors and people of Louisiana were extremely nice and the serinity of that place was amazing.

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I had hoped that I would be able to stay home with a baby by that point, but apparently, that wasn’t happening.  So, I took a position at the local hospital working as nurse educator, infection control, and employee health.  This also brought in a bit more money for us to spend.

Since we had owned our first little fishing boat earlier in our lives, we longed to get back on the water to waterski (wakeboard for David).  One of the first purchases David wanted while living on the water was a wakeboard boat.  Of coarse, that came with an expensive boat lift to take it out of the water when not in use!

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The boat on the right belonged to my parents, but they left it there as we had the extra lift and so we could ski or fish anytime we wanted.  There were fish and turtles that would come up to the dock and you could easily feed them by hand.  We also had a duck named Hector that loved our pug dog!  I miss Hector – he was a good duck…

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We finally had money for vacations.  We went on a cruise with my parents to celebrate David’s graduation.  The beaches of the Carribean are breathtaking!

We had just about everything we wanted.  But, my body still longed to be pregnant.  We found an infertility doctor in Shreveport and began testing and treatments.

I do not write this today to make you jealous or to brag.  In fact, David & I are quite ashamed of how frivolous we spent money during that time in our lives.  I remember all to well the frustrations I felt when we were newlyweds and I would just wish Publisher’s Clearing house would show up with a big check, or that we would inherit a bunch of money from an unknown distant relative.  Anything to make paying the bills easier.  I thought everything would be good if I only had some more money.  However, we were blessed to have the chance to experience financial stability, but that did not bring true happiness, just more worries and responsibilities.

 

Why Me?

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1999.  So many new adventures on the horizon!  We were ecstatic, elated, thrilled, but then my life came tumbling down off of that high mountain to the deep valley below.  On March 1, 1999, I miscarried at 7 weeks pregnant.  For those of you who have gone through it, I know you understand.  For those of you who have not gone through a miscarriage, I will make a feable attempt to shed some light into the heartbreak and emotions involved.

One moment, you are so excited for things to come- the next, you are embarrased, crushed, depressed, and heartbroken…  Why?  Why?  Why?  I was a very moral girl growing up.  I didn’t do anything wrong that I could think of.  I drank penty of water, took my vitamins, avoided caffeine.  Why?  Why did this happen?  Why can all of the immoral, sin laden people seem to get pregnant and have numerous kids?  Why are children born only to be put into foster care because their family is not in a place to care for them appropriately?  Why are there 10y/o girls that are getting epidurals by David for their deliveries, but I can’t maintain a pregnancy?  Why?

As if my raw emotions were not enough, add the hormone factor.  Being pregnant, I would cry at the drop of a hat when I didn’t have anything to cry about.  So, when those hormones are on board and there is something to cry about, it is really tough.  I felt like someone was ripping out my heart, stripping me of every ounce of happiness.  I cried more tears than I could make.

Then, there is the pain.  On top of the emotions, going through a miscarriage is really painful!  My abdomen was cramping so badly.  With every contraction, my body tried to cleanse itself.  The fact that I knew what was going on made the pain even worse.

Family.  It is really difficult to go through this as a woman.  However, you are not alone in your pains of your loss.  David grieved.  Grandparents grieved.  Aunts and Uncles grieved.  There is the waiting time to find out for sure that you are miscarrying and the heartache during that time.  Tears, prayers, hugs.  Nobody knows how to express their concerns and fears appropriately because pregnancy is not supposed to happen this way!

I remember the phone call from my sister in-law telling me that she didn’t know what to do because she just found out that she was pregnant with her first child.  Shell, thank you for being thoughtful for making that call.  You knew it would be very difficult timing for me to hear your news and you were extremely sensitive to that.  I think your phone call helped to numb the jealousy that would have normally engulfed my heart at that time.  I was happy for you, yet concerned about if the same fate would happen to you.  I prayed for you and your child.  My dearest Hannah, I praise God for allowing you to be born into this world and become the lovely lady that you have.  You stand as a living shadow of what could have been in my life.  However, looking back, I understand why God allowed me to go through this and I am grateful for being given the opportunity to watch you grow and develop through the years.

Friends.  Of coarse with a first pregnancy, you tell everyone you know as soon as you find out.  Why not?  You are so excited over the news that you can’t contain yourself!  So, there is a wave of congratulations that are behind the news of miscarriage.  To have someone approach you to tell you congratulations only to end their joy for you with news of miscarriage is tougher than anyone would think.  What is that person supposed to say?  Let me just tell you “I’m so sorry!” along with a big hug is appropriate.

Things to NOT say…  “You can get pregnant again”, “Oh, there must have been something wrong with the baby”, “I guess it was just not meant to be”, “at least it was early on”, “at least you know you can get pregnant”, and the list goes on.  Everytime someone said something unintentionally unthoughtful, it felt as though they were pushing a knife through my heart.  I made David tell most people as I didn’t have the strenth to endure it any longer.  This wore on him as well.  We were both depressed, saddened, heartbroken.