In October and November we tried to conceive, this time with the advantage that natural family planning with the sympto-thermal method and charting gave us. I knew the day I ovulated each month and we timed our intercourse just right, even with my husband's DE, I knew we had a shot. I took some early tests at the beginning of December and they were negative, so I took a short break, feeling defeated, then tested again two days after my period was due. Once again, the second line was super faint. What did this mean? I tested again with an early result test, and it was definitely a BFP (big fat positive), but faint. My first reaction was not joy but fear...the line looked too light, reminding me of my last miscarriage and the faint line. I started sobbing and waited for my husband to get home (he was dropping our daughter off at school), so that I could tell him, through my tears, that it was positive...we were pregnant but I was absolutley terrified. I didn't know I would react this way.
I called the OB and they wanted me to get my beta's drawn to check the HCG levels (an early predictor of the amount of hormone an embryo produces) that day. I went to the lab and the results that came back were a tad worrisome: the HCG was 63. I was pregnant but it was a bit too low for this date. I was 16 days post ovulation, and studying up on things, research had shown that late implantation and/or low HCG's levels by day 16 DPO carried higher rates of miscarriage. I would need to retest in 2 days to check the "doubling time." I was learning something new every day! Doubling time is the time it takes for the HCG hormone to double in one's bloodstream: in a healthy pregnancy, it should be somewhere between 24-72 hours, averaging in the 48 hour range. The next beta was drawn under 48 hours later and it was fantastic: HCG was now 440. My doubling time was better than average at 24 hours.
You might think I could relax, but I was far from it. There's sooooo many things to worry about with a new pregnancy, especially after a loss: What if it is an ectoptic? A molar pregnancy? A blighted ovum? A chromosomal defect? What if I miscarry again? I couldn't celebrate, I refused to get "too" happy. I was thrilled on one level, but fear was neck in neck with my joy, keeping my emotions at bay. We would wait to tell anyone, including our parents, until after the first ultrasound that the OB scheduled for 7 weeks. If the little one was growing on track and had a healthy heart beat, our chances of miscarriage would go down to 10%...this was key and I knew it. Christmas came and went: I was totally and completely focused on the pregnancy, nothing else much mattered. I prayed constantly, but also prayed that if anything was terribly wrong, that God would take him/her home to Jesus painlessly.
On December 28th we went in for our first ultrasound, we were holding hands with terrible nervousness. As soon as the tech had a picture of my uterus on the screen, I could see my little one's heart beat just racing away. We were ecstatic! It was going at 130 beats per minute, better than expected, and measuring on track. However, they did see a small "bleed" in my uterus called a subchorionic hematoma. My OB assured me it was nothing to worry about, but to take it easy and no sex for a few weeks. That very day we were scheduled to meet my family at Disneyland and we let them know the great news when we arrived. What a joyful celebration that was.
I could "let" myself start to bond with this little precious one growing inside me...finally, our second child was really and truly on the way! I kept telling my husband that we wouldn't be out of the forest until 12 weeks, but still, the statistics were "on our side" now.
As I started googling to get information on the uterine bleed, the SCH, fear overtook me once again as I realized that rates of miscarriage are much higher with a SCH than not. Our rate of miscarriage jumped from 10% to 25%. The first day I learned this I was paralyzed, but by the second day I was looking at it the other way around: we had a 75% chance of a healthy pregnancy. That was pretty great... and so I started to let myself celebrate. Quickly I was caught up in thinking about baby names and how I was going to tell our daughter and our wider circle of family and friends. I had joined the online "August due date birth clubs" by this time, and we were all bonding in our own way, going through this incredible experience together. Wow: I was due August 16th!
The day of my first regular prenatal exam was January 6th. They weren't even going to do another ultrasound, but I pleaded with the tech. She gave in and as she got a clear picture on the baby, I could clearly see that our little one was measuring right on track. Pure joy! I had been studying and writing down all the normative values and measurements for this date and the face/body, even limbs could be seen: I was in love with this perfect tiny baby! But then it hit me, with a sudden and strange force: I was not seeing a heart beat. I said it aloud, "I don't see a heart beat." I expected the tech to pause and say, "Oh, here it is." But instead she paused and said, "I'm so sorry." *blink* What? "How far along is the baby measuring?" I asked. "Right at 8 weeks" she said, "so the heart must have just stopped beating." I was dizzy, I was in disbelief, this could not be happening again. I reached for my husband's hands and the tears started to come...this was not possible. She quickly turned off the machine and gave us some privacy. I started to lose it. When the OB came in to say "sorry" and talk about a D & C (a procedure where they remove everything in the uterus by dilating and evacuating it), I was simply in shock. She wanted to know if I wanted to do the D & C right then. I couldn't even wrap my brain around this news! And I wasn't about to let them take this little one out of my body already! No...I would wait.
So, for the second time, my husand escorted me out of the OB's office with my red sobby eyes as we walked past all the other pregnant women in the waiting room. Our big day had turned into our big tragedy.
By the time we got outside to the parking lot, I told my husband I thought they were mistaken. They had simply made a mistake. I doubted my own eyes and the tech's analysis....we just hadn't looked hard enough, the baby was just in a bad position....it was a mistake. I knew rationally that wasn't likely, but my heart could not accept that my little one was dead. I was in the first stage of grief: denial.
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