The Beginning

I didn't think it would be this hard. I knew all the statistics. I knew something wasn't right from the beginning, but after 8 months of trying, seeing something on the pregnancy test was such a joy, only to have it taken from me. The truth is, my husband and I are devastated. The baby was only real to us for a couple of days, but it was still real. We started having visions of telling our moms at Thanksgiving and everyone else around Christmas. But it's over before we got the chance.

I'm glad that I had the chance to talk to my best friend about it all. I was with her this weekend and made her go with me to buy hpt's. I knew something wasn't right when the line/smudge didn't get darker and the digitals kept coming up negative. I miss having my girlfriends nearby. We scattered about the country and while we're still amazingly close, it's not as easy as it used to be.

I came home from Nashville and had been spotting and not getting clear positives, so my husband convinced me to call the doctor. He sent me to get blood drawn and the results were pretty clear. I still held onto a little hope, though, until I started bleeding yesterday.

It started around lunch time and then I had to go to an awful meeting with our math supervisor. She's a nice lady, but she has no interest in listening to what teachers are saying. We were meeting because I and the other 6th grade math teacher had some complaints about the district nine weeks test. We felt several questions were unfair. She basically took the opportunity to lecture us on why we just weren't teaching right. Then, she got offended when I got up to leave. The meeting had already run over by 5 minutes and my students were standing out in the rain waiting for me.

So...I got back to my classroom. Thank goodness I have my kids trained pretty well and it was one of my better classes, because I just sat down and stared at my computer screen trying not to burst into tears. I thought that the moment would pass, but I just couldn't hold it together. I finally called and asked if I could get someone to cover my class for a few minutes. We have a great, supportive staff, so they pulled a teacher's assistant to cover for me. I figured I could have a good cry in the teacher's restroom and calm myself down enough to get through the day. I tried, but just couldn't stop crying for more than a couple minutes at a time.

Finally, I went to talk to my principal. I knew that she had been through 2 pregnancy losses and had been at the meeting, so I hoped she would be understanding. Luckily, she was. She sent me home and told me not to worry about the meeting. She said that she knew that I was an excellent teacher and that my End of Grade test scores were always high. She also reminded me about her own losses and the fact that she just had her second child last year. It's encouraging, even if I didn't feel better at that moment.

So, I came home and curled up in bed an had a good cry and a nap. My husband has been wonderful. We already cried together the night before when we knew that the pregnancy was over. It's hard on him in different ways, I know. All three of his younger siblings have children. We have 4 neices and 1 nephew. Only one niece was a planned pregnancy. His family also is not shy about constantly needling us about having children. I told him that after the worst of our emotions had passed, he might need to tell them what we're going through, because I don't know how much more of that "friendly teasing" I'm going to be able to take. We'll see.

So, today, I'm home from school. I'm glad I decided to stay home. The cramping has been much worse than my usual periods and it's been accompanied by some GI issues that would not be fun if I were teaching today. I went to get some papers to grade and set up my substitute lesson plans, but I haven't done any school work. I've been sleeping and listening to music and crying and rumaging through the Christmas closet and starting this blog. I'll get to the papers before Monday. I think that today, it's more important to just take care of myself.

I love my OBGYN. He called yesterday to just make sure we understood what the beta numbers meant (that I wouldn't be pregnant for very long). I told him that we knew and that I had already started bleeding. He was so empathetic and said that he was sorry for our loss. He didn't call it a "chemical pregnancy." He called it a miscarriage, which was oddly comforting to me. I know it's just words, but it was like it gave me permission to be upset, somehow.

He also reminded us that, despite the loss, we now know that we can get pregnant. And while, that's not a huge consolation right now, it is important. As the months have gone by, we've both been contemplating all the things that could be keeping us from conceiving. So now, we start over and hope for a better outcome in the near future. For the moment, though, I'm not quite done grieving. I think I'd better go get one more bowl of ice cream!

If you've actually read this long post entirely, I thank you for your patience. I know that I can be a bit verbose.