Birth Stories & More, Part I - Jordan

Birth Stories & More

Part I – Jordan

Danny and I married in August 2005, and it was maybe a year later and I started to feel the itch for babies! I remember telling Danny, “I want a baby for my 27^th birthday”. Not meaning literally give birth then, but either trying or pregnant.  I should have taken a picture of his facial expression when I uttered the word ‘baby’! hahaha

So in March 2007 I stopped taking ‘the pill’, and very much to our surprise, I became pregnant before even having 1 full cycle! We fully expected it to take up to a year because that’s all we’ve heard. It takes time. Well…not for us! Amazing!

I called my OB with excitement, and had a blood test done at their office to confirm pregnancy, and then scheduled my first ultrasound for 8wks. It was scheduled for May 10, 2007, and I could not have been happier. Just 9 days before my 27^th birthday. I was getting my birthday wish!

On the big day, ultrasound day, Danny and I go into the small, dim ultrasound room where I was instructed to take my clothes off from the waist down. WHAT??! WHY?!! Oh My Gosh! Why wasn’t I warned they would be sticking this giant “wand” THERE!? It was definitely an awkward experience to say the least!  I patiently waited for information from the tech that was grossly violating me, but instead she blurted out the strangest question. “Are you sure you are pregnant?” What? What kind of question is that?! Yes, of course I’m sure! The cold, insensitive tech then said, “Well, I don’t see anything”.  What do you mean you don’t see anything?! She found no baby, only a deflated sac and yolk sac, but no baby.

Numbness. Shock. Disbelief. So ….a miscarriage? I had a miscarriage? There’s no baby? For the last 4 weeks I have been building excitement of being a mommy. But now I’m not. This is something I can’t wrap my mind around just yet. A few minutes later Danny and I had a consultation with my NP (nurse practitioner) to explain things to us in a much more comforting, sensitive way.  She explained it was in fact a miscarriage that most likely happened between week 5 and 6. And I remembered back to that week, I did have a small amount of odd bleeding, brown gunk. Was odd. But I’ve heard spotting or bleeding or brown blood was normal, and just means its old blood. But in my case, I suppose it could have been the ‘baby’.  I learned that early miscarriage was extremely common, especially for first time pregnancies. But this common knowledge was of no help to my broken heart.

My HCG (pregnancy hormone) was tested and it was a little too elevated to expect a natural miscarriage to happen. So I had to schedule for a D&C.  Sadly, they were quite booked and I had to wait until May 16^th to have it done. In the days leading up to the D&C I experienced a roller coaster of emotions. I can’t even put into words.

Danny and I arrived at the outpatient surgery building of the hospital, and Danny stayed by my side until they need to prep me for the procedure. Before being put under (which I’m so grateful I was out cold!), all I could think was, HOW do people CHOOSE to do this?! My heart was so broken it felt like it would never be whole again. 

It was over and done with before I knew it. I went ‘to sleep’ with the feeling of being pregnant because of the HCG hormone, but when I awoke from the D&C, I felt nothing. It was the worst feeling I had ever felt, and still to this day, there has never been a greater emotional pain. The hours, days, weeks and months to follow brought on unbearable emotional hell.  On a daily basis I cried. Many times alone. I hid the severity of my emotions from everyone the best I could. I couldn’t work for weeks because I was so broken. I sobbed and wept from emotional pain so deep there are no words. I screamed in uncontrollable outburst because the pain exploded out of me with such unrelenting magnitude.  I hit things, I wanted to break everything. I was filled with anger and jealousy. Angry when the sun rose in the morning, I only liked the rain. Angry at people going on with their lives, when my life was over. I was jealous of other pregnant women.  I didn’t want to live with this pain anymore. It was too much. But I knew it’s wrong to commit suicide. Ultimately, it’s the most selfish thing a person could do. And I didn’t want the guilt of hurting those who loved me just because I was living my own hell. So I prayed for God to take me away. If God called me ‘home’, then my passing wouldn’t be as bad as suicide.  I of course did not tell anyone I was having these thoughts. I knew they (family) would freak out and I’d be put on meds or padded cell or something. But all I needed was to be pregnant again. It was the empty feeling that was tormenting me.

I know my readers were expecting birth stories of Eli and Noah, but before them was Jordan. And a short-lived pregnancy I will never forget. Eli and Noah will be in the blogs to come. And they of course will be a much happier ending blog. :)

  Footnote:

Jordan is the name of the angel we lost to miscarriage in the very early weeks. It’s a name I picked for my own grieving purposes. It’s not a name I shared with others, but I had to do something that made my angel’s brief time with me mean more than an unsuccessful pregnancy. I didn’t give much thought into picking a name at all, but knew a name was needed.