My story continued

It was no coincidence that Simone was born nine months, practically to the day, after we moved into our new house.  More space obviously meant more room for another little lovely person in our family.  On top of all the devastation at losing Simone so tragically, I also felt like I was suddenly a year behind in the schedule of my life, of our family.

And then at one of our SAND meetings, a mom showed up who had lost her son at 41 weeks, just like me, and had gone on to have a healthy pregnancy and another son, 11 months later. She came to offer her support to mamas who want to go on to have another baby.

The next morning, out of the blue, Gabriela asked me when I would grow another baby in my tummy. And later that morning, I had a positive pregnancy test. I was thrilled, terrified, I cried. And then, I did the math and my due date was April 16th, three days before my due date with Simone.  It was very eerie to think I might have a newborn baby by Simone's birthday. But I felt better than I had in months.

That didn't last long.

I took that pregnancy test on Thursday. Sunday afternoon I started bleeding.  It was like flashing back to my labor with Simone. Blood, there wasn't supposed to be blood.  I tried to relax. I read about implantation bleeding.  Sometimes it can be really light, but sometimes women mistake it for a period.

I checked in with my midwives. They said it could be normal, and even if the bleeding continued, it could still be normal. I would just have to wait.

On Monday, when I was still bleeding I felt like everything was wrong. I was devastated, scared. I checked in again with my midwives. And it felt like some seriously shitty deja vu.   walking around the house, bleeding, feeling like this wasn't normal, awaiting a response from my midwife. And then, Beah telling me it was possible I was miscarrying.  I mean, she was right last time, when she told Lane she thought we had lost the baby, before we even left the house for the hospital.

I decided to have a blood test. It would be two tests done three days apart in which they would compare the levels of pregnancy hormones to see if they were increasing or decreasing.  Michelle, another of my midwives, came to my house to do the draw.

By this day, I was feeling some weird sense of calm in the universe. Whatever was happening, was happening and extra worrying on my part wasn't going to to change whether or not the baby was okay or miscarrying.

Wednesday morning, I was getting ready to take the kids on an overnight trip without Lane to Inverness.  We were all packed, had just finished a grocery run, all buckled in, when Michelle let me know that there was no need to do a second blood draw. I had, in fact, miscarried.

What. The. Fuck. Universe.

So, there I was, in the car. I hadn't told Gabriela about the pregnancy. Thank goodness I hadn't told her.  And I drove to Inverness.  I couldn't tell Lane right away. Not when we were going to be separated for the first time since Simone's death. Not when he would be all alone.  So I had to wait until the kids were in bed the next night after we returned to tell him.

I wasn't even 5 weeks yet. It was before an ultrasound would have even been able to detect a heartbeat.  Apparently these kinds of pregnancies are called "chemical pregnancies" and, unless you are paying attention to your cycle or trying to get pregnant, many times, women just think they are getting their period a few days late.

Of course this was upsetting news, but I have this awful perspective where I'm like, 5 weeks vs. 41 weeks. In comparison, it's a walk in the park.

I hardly told anyone in person. It's the same kind of deal where I feel like I need to come up with words to comfort others, or like I am asking for a big ol' pity party by telling people what happened.

Gabriela still doesn't know and I think it's for the better.  There's no reason for her to feel even more loss.

Whenever, if ever, I have another pregnancy, it will be terrifying every step of the way.  I mean, with Simone's death, there is some strange comfort in knowing that it was some awful random accident, that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.  But that same comfort is absolutely terrifying when I think about another potential pregnancy. There is no way to know or to be sure until I am holding a breathing baby in my arms.

At my appointment last week, the doctor said there was nothing to prevent me from going on to have a successful homebirth. If we had care with them, they would do frequent ultrasounds and also have me go in for non-stress tests several times a week from 36 weeks.  I think it's just something to do so they feel like they are doing something. Had I had all that extra monitoring with Simone, nothing would have changed.  But, I can't stand the idea of having something go wrong again, and not having jumped through their hoops.

Obviously, I don't have to worry about these things now, but I can't help but wonder.

I'm writing about this here not because I want to broadcast it to the world, but because this, too, is a part of my story and I want to remember it later.