No one can explain the feelings of loss you experience when
you lose a pregnancy. I don’t care what
anyone says about when life begins, in a mother’s heart, life begins from the
moment you see that first positive pregnancy test. From the moment you find you are pregnant you
fall in love. You begin to have hopes
and dreams for the life that is growing inside you. You wonder if it will be a girl or a boy. Will he have your eyes? Will she have your mates smile? No one can explain the instantaneous feelings
that begin to grow in a mother’s hear the second she finds out she is
pregnant.
Sadly, not every pregnancy has a happy ending. The hard reality is statistically 25% of all
pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 in 90 pregnancies are ectopic and then there
is the loss of still born babies, SIDS and infant death for other reasons. Sadly I have suffered the loss of 2
miscarriages as well as an ectopic pregnancy (actually attached to an ovary in
my case).
The physical symptoms can vary from woman to woman, but
it’s the symptoms, that no one sees that hurt the most. My journey to add a 2nd baby
started with hope and anticipation. My
husband and I didn’t really “try” to get pregnant the first time. One night without protection and wa-la I was
pregnant with our first. I had an easy
pregnancy. I gained a total of 25 lbs.,
didn’t get huge, never had morning sickness, had plenty of energy and on
February 9, 1996 I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was such an easy baby. None of the horrible stories I had heard
about colic, or sleepless nights (she was sleeping 6 hours at a stretch by a
month old). The worst problem I had was
our daughter was tongue tied, which made it nearly impossible for me to breast
feed successfully because she could not latch on properly.
In 1998, our daughter was 2 and we had just moved to Guam,
it seemed like the perfect time to add a new little one to our family. I quit taking my birth control and fully
expected that within a few months I would be pregnant again. I mean why would it not be as easy as the
first time? Time passed and every month
my “special friend” would come to visit, reminding me that I was not
pregnant. February of 2000 my parents
flew out to visit us. The day before
they left I was complaining to my mom that I was nauseous and didn’t feel
well. She looked at me and said, “Do you
think you might be pregnant?” My quick
response was that it couldn’t be possible because I had had a spotty period the
first few days they were there. Starting
to wonder I decided to do a home test anyway (any woman try to get pregnant
usually has at least one on hand). I was
in shock and terrified all at the same time when to my surprise it was positive. I immediately called the doctor frantic that
something was wrong. I was assured it
was “normal” to bleed when pregnant and given an appointment for the next
morning. The following morning all they did
was draw blood and tell me to come back to repeat the blood work on Monday to
compare the HCG levels and that would tell them if I was miscarrying, “which is
probably the case” I was told. I went
home and tried to relax but that seemed to completely impossible. I finally called and talked to someone else
who told me to go to the Naval Hospital and they would do an ultrasound and see
if they could give me any answers.
During the ultrasound I was told that my uterus was empty and I must
have miscarried. They also saw what they
said was a cyst on my ovary that they wanted me to follow up about. I went home crushed and angry. Why has God allowed me to get pregnant after
almost two years of trying, only for it end like this? I was also still in disbelief. I had never had a miscarriage before but from
everything I had ever heard from others, I had none of those symptoms. No cramping, no heavy bleeding, nothing, just
two days of light (very light) spotting.
Monday, I went in for the blood work they requested and was given an
appointment the following day so they could “confirm based on the HCH levels”
that I has miscarried. Tuesday rolled
around and Shawn and I sat in the doctor’s office as a nurse practitioner told
me that it was too early for the lab work to be in, but that based on my
ultrasound, she was sure it would confirm I had miscarried. She stepped out for a minute and I begged
Shawn to ask her again to just check the computer to make sure nothing was
there yet. She typed away on her
computer and as I watched, her jaw started to drop. “This is strange. This doesn’t make any sense at all.” My HCG levels has risen, not what they’d
liked to have seen, but risen none the less.
I was sent back down to the Naval Hospital for more tests. It was eventually decided that what at the
first ultrasound was thought to be a cyst was actually a pregnancy that was
attached to my ovary. I was given two
options, surgery (which I was told held a 95% of causing me to lose my ovary
due to where the pregnancy was located), or a small dose of Methotrexate
(Chemotherapy) which attacks pregnancy cells in the same way as cancer cells because
they grow so rapidly. All I could think
at the time was I still wanted babies and didn’t want to lose my ovary, so
chemo it was. I was sent to the Guam
cancer clinic to receive the shot of Methotrexate. It was explained to me that my HCG levels
would have to be followed closely until they were below 8 (my current level was
close to 100,000 and that there was a 10% chance at some point my HCG levels
could plateau out and I would need a 2nd dose. After about 2 weeks of going in every 3-4
days to have blood drawn I received a call at home and was told my numbers were
not dropping and I would need a 2nd dose. The Methotrexate did crazy things to my body,
it was very different than what cancer patients experience from what I told,
but not fun to say the least.
In June of 2000 we left the island and moved back to the
mainland. We showed up in Mississippi
and one of the first things I did was follow up with an OB/GYN. After finally being cleared to start trying, I
was sure that things would be different this time.
I am going to side track a little at this point to say that
in Guam, I was mad at God. I blamed him,
I could not understand why I was going through all this, but on Easter 2000, on
a cliff overlooking the beach I broke down and gave my life back to God. I promised to follow after him no matter what
happened and have never looked back. 6
months after we moved to Mississippi, in January of 2001, Shawn was saved and
gave his life to Christ as well.
After months of
trying Shawn went in to be tested to see if there were any issues on his end
keeping me from getting pregnant. Everything was fine on his end we began
talking about other options. I started
taking a low dose of Clomid in hopes that would help things along. After several months of being on the Clomid,
I was an emotional mess. I decided to
quit taking it. I figured that if God
wanted me to get pregnant it would happen and I didn’t need Clomid to make it
happen. The end of 2000, I found out I
was pregnant. The first week of February
2001, I began cramping and bleeding. It
was confirmed through blood work and an ultrasound that I was miscarrying. Again I was devastated. I knew that Shawn and I had been promised another
baby. God had given me a vision of
holding a baby in the hospital. I couldn’t
understand. We were told as soon as I
had two normal cycles we could begin trying again. It was months of
disappointment after disappointment when my monthly visor would arrive and my
dreams of a baby were just that, a dream.
After months of trying without getting pregnant, at an
appointment with my OB/GYN we decided we were going to try an IUI procedure. When I went in for the bloodwork a few weeks
later, to my surprise I was pregnant.
Surely this was God’s way of coming through and giving us that
baby.
To our dismay, at approx. 9 weeks, on a Friday in the
middle of February 2002, I began cramping and bleeding again. I was in shock. I could not believe it was happening again when
I called my doctor’s office, I was told my doctor was out of town but I could
come see the on call dr. I was
comfortable with seeing this doctor, because she had been the one to deliver my
friend’s baby. I remember how
compassionate Dr. Nelson was. She
listened to me as I cried in her office.
I didn’t understand why this kept happening to me. She didn’t offer any answers, only
listened. She told me follow up with my regular
doctor the follow week once he was back and I went home. Again, feeling a bit hopeless, confused and
crushed. The next week when I saw my
regular OB/GYN I sat in his office after he examined me and again began
crying. I asked his if there was
anything they could do, tests they could run to see if there was a reason why
this kept happening to me. I looked at
me and said, “you know woman have this misconception that just because they see
a positive pregnancy test they are going to walk out of here with a baby. Well, that is just not the reality. Let me tell you what, you go home, give your
body time to heal and come back in two months with your husband and we can
talk.” I was shocked! I was pissed! How could a doctor who had walked with me
though all this, been my doctor for years and given me hope that he could help
me look at me and say such horrible things.
I went to my car and cried until I felt like I had no more tears to
cry. That afternoon I started to think
about changing doctors. I don’t remember
how much time passed, but it wasn’t much when one day I got a call from a
nurse. She told me she worked for Dr.
Nelson and that Dr. Nelson was in CA at a conference, but she had been touched
by me when I was in the office and after talking to some other doctors found
out my insurance would pay for some testing and wanted to see if she could help
me. I went in a few days later and had
something like 14 tubes of blood drawn, and ultra sound done and was given an
appointment with Dr. Nelson for when she returned from her trip. The grand findings were…..They couldn’t find anything
wrong. That was good new right? Her conclusion was that based on the timing
of my miscarriage she felt it was due to an issue with the idea that Progesterone
is made early in pregnancy by a cyst on the ovary called the corpus luteum. The
corpus luteum continues to produce progesterone until about 10 weeks, when its
production is taken over by the placenta. In the first trimester, levels of
progesterone rise exponentially, and then they plateau. She believed somehow there was a dip in my Progesterone
levels before the placenta took over, therefore causing me to miscarry. She gave me some Progesterone pills and told
me to hold on to them, start taking them immediately when I found out I was
pregnant again and make an appointment ASAP.
So, here we were again on the monthly rollercoaster of “trying”. After months of trying and not getting
pregnant, I began to seek answers from
God. I questioned what I believed was
clearly a promise from God. I started to
listen to the voice of others, who would ask if I was sure Shawn & I had
really been promised our own baby. Maybe
you are supposed to adopt or something?
We prayed and talked about adoption, but God never gave us peace about that,
he gave me another dream in which I was VERY pregnant and was sitting in a
nursery. I held on to that and trusted
God.
The summer of 2003 was hot and busy. Ashley was playing
soccer non-stop and was chosen to play on a state games team that June. Over the 4th of July we decided to
go to Alabama to visit my aunt and uncle.
After a fun and relaxing weekend I realized I had not started my
period. I asked Shawn to stop at a
Walgreen’s on the way out of town so I could get a pregnancy test. Once I bought it I was scared and worried to
take it. What if it was negative? I finally decided I would wait until I got
home. Once we were home I decided to
wait until the morning. After months of
being anxious to pee on that little stick when I was all but hours late for my
period, here I was actually late and scared to death! Finally I got the courage and the seconds
felt like hours as the test turned positive.
Could it really be happening? To
say I was scared is probably the biggest understatement. I dug up those Progesterone pills the doctor
had given me and called to make an appointment.
I remember the first time I saw Dr. Nelson after it was
confirmed I was really pregnant. I was given a due date of March 14th.
It was July 11th, and she did an ultrasound and I was too early to
even seen the speck of a pregnancy sack.
I was scared to death, but she assured me it was just because I was too
early. I saw Dr. Nelson every week early
in my pregnancy, she did an in office ultrasound each week so I could watch as
things progressed. First a little
peanut, then little arms and legs showing up.
The plan was to keep me on the Progesterone through the 13th
week of my pregnancy, just to be safe.
Things plugged along and the time came to quit taking the Progesterone. I was so scared and wanted to trust God with
every fiber of my being. It was hard to drown
out the voices in my head that kept telling me I was going to lose this baby
too. As the days passed and turned into
weeks, I felt myself actually letting myself get excited. Shawn and I talked about names, we picked out
nursery furniture I did things that “normal” pregnant woman do.
February was always a hard moth for me. Aside from my first baby being born the 9th
of February, the end of February for me had been filled with heartbreak for 3
years in a row. After Ashley’s birthday
I often felt like I went into this depression, this mourning for the baby that
may never fill my arms. God is funny
that way though. Psalm 30:5 says, “Weeping may stay for the night, but
rejoicing comes in the morning.”
As God would see fit, our little miracle, our answer to prayers came
into this word on February 28, 2004. I
can tell you that until that moment I could tell you the exact day I found out
about losing a baby, but from that moment in time, God used a little boy named
Levi Nathaniel to wipe away my tears and my sorrow.
God had a plan from the beginning, he knew that one day a
spunky, stubborn, kindhearted little boy name Levi was going to join our
family. God knew all the pain and
heartache we would go through to get to that point. I do not believe that we suffer in vain. God uses all things to good according to his
purposes. I have been able to share my
story with numerous people over the years.
God placed an angel in my life at just the right moment. Her name was Virginia Carney-Nelson, without
her I do not believe Levi would have made it into this world. I walked though one of the hardest times of
my life, but through that time I learned about myself, I learned to depend on
God and trust him in a way I never did before, I fell in love over and over
with a man who held me, cried with me and walked through hell with me. I met people who loved me, prayed for me, let
me cry and listened to me when I was broken in pieces.
God is good! I didn’t
always seen it at the time, but he was there.
He carried me through, he was true to his promise and he trusted me to
be Levi’s mom (not always an easy task).
He built me faith, he showed himself faithful and he confirmed that even
when no one else sees it, HIS promises are yes & amen!
