Our Second Pregnancy

On July 25, 2015, we found out we were pregnant again for the second time! This was such an exciting day especially because we found out the day that Adam had come home from his 2 weeks at drill. There were a lot of emotions whirling around us at this point. We were so thrilled to be pregnant again. In the back of both of our minds, we had some fear and anxiety about what could happen.

Because the last pregnancy ending came as such a surprise, we wanted to try and see if the doctors office would be more willing to monitor this pregnancy closer. I called to notify them that I was pregnant again and asked if I could come in for some blood work. They brought me in at a little before 5 weeks. What a relief it was to hear that my blood work looked great and my levels were right where they needed to be! Baby C was expected to arrive March 31, 2016.

We went in for a doctors appointment at about 6 1/2 weeks. The appointment did not go well. At my ultrasound, the gestational sac was an irregular shaped-very oblong. They could not find any trace of a baby inside nor a heartbeat. To say we were crushed was an understatement. It was like our nightmare was being relived all over again. But despite all of this bad news from the doctor, we were not going to believe that this was it. As believers, we believed in something greater. We believed in miracles and what the doctor said was not going to stop us from believing that a miracle was possible.

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us." Romans 8:31

At this point, we had told our immediate family, close friends, and life group that we were pregnant. These are the people that had been there for us through this suffering so we figured we could really use their prayers. We decided it was best to tell them early on so we could have all of our friends and family rallying around us and praying for us. We were so glad that we had made the choice to tell everyone because after this bad news, we were calling and texting all our family and friends to be praying for a miracle.

The doctors brought me in the next week (only a couple of days after our previous appointment). I was about 7 weeks. I had an appointment with a different doctor at the office because my doctor was out of town. We did an ultrasound and saw a little improvement but nothing big. The doctor decided that it would be best to put me on a hormone medicine called Progesterone and bring me back in a week. So I got right on the medicine and we alerted our prayer warriors to keep on praying.

The days and time spent in between the doctors visits were extremely hard. There was so much we didn't know and it was all completely out of our control. I didn't know what to think. Half of me thought I was going to lose this baby but the other half of me thought that a miracle might happen. Either way, we just kept on praying and asking the Lord to please develop and protect our sweet child.

We came back to the doctor the following week, which should put me at about 8 weeks. We got good news from the doctor and ultrasound. My sac was still irregular but there was a tiny little baby detected in the sac. When they tried to find a heartbeat, they could not distinguish between my heartbeat and the baby's. So the good news was that not all hope was lost and maybe next week we could hear/see this baby's heartbeat. I continued on the medicine because it appeared to be helping. We kept on asking for prayers from everyone that was willing to pray. I scheduled my next doctor’s appointment for the next week which means that I would be about 9 1/2 weeks along.

Side Note: I am a schoolteacher and at this point in my pregnancy, we had just started the school year. So not only did I have the stress of what was going on at home, but I had a brand new batch of 25 kids waiting. The first few weeks of teaching are extremely crucial to how the rest of your school year will pan out. (All my teacher friends reading this know exactly what I am talking about.) These are the weeks when you "lay down the law." These are the weeks when you develop a relationship with 25 new faces and get to know their parents. This is when you are establishing your classroom dynamic and rules and procedures. The first few weeks of school are the hardest but putting forth that effort in the beginning is SO worth it in the end. So with that being said, I was having an extremely hard time trying to balance everything that was going on in my life.

Week 2 of school had just started. I can't remember the exact date that I was supposed to have my doctor’s appointment but I know it was later in the week. I was very anxious to see what was going to happen at this doctor’s appointment. On Tuesday, August 25, 2015, I started spotting at school. At first, I called the nurse at the doctors office and described the situation to her and she said that it should be pretty normal and to call back if it got worse. Well by the end of the school day, it was definitely "worse." I knew what was happening. (Sorry for the gross details.) At this point, I was bleeding and cramping a ton. I was about to miscarry this baby.

I left school right away and called Adam. He met me at the hospital right near our house. I just remembered being so scared and confused and in pain. Was this really about to happen again? I couldn't seem to cope with the fact that we were about to lose another child. I felt like all hope was lost. As Christians, we go through many different seasons. The season I was currently in was a dry season of feeling like God wasn't near and didn't hear my cries. This is obviously a complete lie that came straight from Satan. In these moments, it is where our faith is truly tested. When your world comes crashing down, it is so easy to turn from the Lord and think that He is not good or that His plan isn't perfect. I had to convince myself that this was not at all true and cling to this verse:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

I had to believe that God had a greater purpose in this and that God's plan was bigger and far better than what I thought was good for us. God is always good, just, loving and He hears every single cry. God hates sin and evil and what we were going through is a part of the broken and sinful world we are living in. God will redeem us-this was the whisper that I kept hearing. Man, how I wished that it would happen right then and there but that wasn't a part of his plan. He had something far greater planned; we were just going to have to be patient to get there.

At the hospital, they ran urine and blood tests. They did an ultrasound and all sorts of things before they would really even tell us what was going on. We felt like we had been awaiting bad news for an eternity. They finally told us that my cervix was starting to open and that the baby was no longer living and it was a matter of time before I miscarried. At this point, the process had already started but it was going to get much worse. They released me and sent us home with instructions to see the OB as soon as possible.

The next morning, I had an appointment with my OB doctor. She gave us 2 options as to how to go about this miscarriage. Even though I was bleeding, I still hadn't naturally miscarried the baby. There was the option of a D and C (like I had previously with the last miscarriage) or to miscarry naturally with a medicine called Misoprostol that would open up my cervix. After talking with the doctor and really praying about what was best for my body, we decided that to miscarry naturally and at home was a better choice. It was definitely the more painful option of the two, but it was a lot less risky as far as looking ahead towards future pregnancies.

Thursday, August 27, 2015 is when I started to miscarry. A lot of people don't realize the pain emotionally that comes with a miscarriage. You never forget the date your child was supposed to be born or the date that you lost that same child. And it definitely doesn't get easier each time. There was a lot of emotions whirling around in my head. I didn't understand why this happened to us again. I followed all the rules of pregnancy and we did everything right. Then, it led to me questioning if my body would ever be able to successfully carry a baby. As a women, that is a scary thought to consider. It haunted me constantly that I could not carry out my sole purpose for being a women. I have dreamed of being called Mommy since I was little. Some women desire to be lawyers, doctors, singers etc. My job might be being a teacher but the greatest desire in my heart was to become a mother to many children. On this day, I really started to wonder if this dream of mine would ever become a reality.

As Christian,s we are not called to live in fear but to trust in the Lord. Trust that his plan is greater than we can ever wrap our tiny little minds around. My hope was and is not found in earthly things and needs to continue be focused on The Lord. Ultimately, no child could ever satisfy me the way Christ satisfies his children. This truth was something that we had to cling to even when it wasn't easy to believe. I won't lie-it was not an easy journey. It is so hard to fully trust the Lord when it seems as if your problems are bigger than God. BUT all hope is not lost because we will hope in the Lord no matter what circumstances we are faced with.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

That morning, I set an alarm to take this medicine because my body had not moved things along yet. I was given instructions to take it around 5 am and that hopefully it would open my cervix in the next few hours. If not, I would have to repeat the process in 12 hours. I went back to sleep for a couple of hours and then awoke to the most pain I have ever felt my entire life. The point of this medicine is to start labor by making your uterus contract and your cervix open up. When I woke up, I was having extreme contractions which meant the medicine was working. The amount of pain physically didn't compare to the emotional pain that this was causing us. I was going through all of the pain of laboring and contractions; our story just ended differently. We were coming out of this empty handed.  I can't imagine what it's like to suffer all of the pain of child birthing only to hold a precious child in your arms and experience an indescribable joy. This pain was just another reminder of our empty arms, our loss, a child that we would never know, and a pain that didn't turn into joy.

"A women giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world." John 16:21

This verse may not be true for our second or our first pregnancy but it was still my prayer. My prayer was that one day I would gladly endure all the pain in the world to experience all this joy of becoming parents.

Around noon that day, I miscarried the baby. There isn't an easy way to make that statement. Some people might say the correct term is "fetus" or "tissue" but in our eyes it was more than tissue. That was our child. The Lord created our child in our womb and already knew every little detail before this baby was even a thought in our mind.

There are a couple details that go into the last part of this miscarriage. Most of them are way to gruesome and graphic to share.  There were also several negative things that happened at the doctor’s office that directly had an effect on us. After feeling that we were "wronged" by our doctor’s office, we decided it was in our best interest to switch doctors. We also had my friends that were telling us that we needed to switch OB's so that we could have the best care available. I will not drop any names because I want to respect everyone, and that is not the purpose of this blog.  The purpose is to show how God is constantly at work in our lives. This was just God's way of leading us somewhere else and giving us hope in a hopeless situation and answering our prayer.  It was also the Lord challenging us to forgive them in the midst of their mistakes. That was not an easy task but we know that the Lord forgives us for our many sins and we are called to do the same. So, we moved on and had a peace about the Lord calling us to leave. I will say that during this process of switching, we were led solely by the Lord to a new set of doctors and an amazing facility that I could not say enough wonderful things about. (I'll brag on them and mention them later.)