“Oh, Crap!” is really the only appropriate title I can think of

I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant, because, well, who would, after the last time, right? And as it turned out, being pregnant after a miscarriage is — well, at least for me — worse than the miscarriage itself. And by that, I don’t mean a chemical pregnancy/early miscarriage — those, too, I am familiar with. I’m talking about a post-heartbeat-viewing-ultrasound miscarriage, the one where some people feel so safe that they run out and BUY THINGS OH MY SHIT. NO NO NO. LET ME BE YOUR GUIDE IN SUCH THINGS, NO.

I knew almost immediately, even though I was in denial, avoiding taking a test until well after I’d missed my period — incidentally, just before we left for Las Vegas. Because who DOESN’T want to go on a hedonistic drinking-type vacation and NOT BE ABLE TO DRINK AT ALL? (As it turned out, I didn’t want to drink anyway, because GODDAMN, the desert is dry. I couldn’t even drink COKE. I just wanted WATER.)

I was stressed out and terrified every second of the day. I was feeling myself up to the point of insanity. Honestly, I don’t think I went five minutes without sticking my hands into my bra, desperately feeling for soreness, which, fortunately or unfortunately, was always present. I almost bankrupted us buying pregnancy tests, peeing on them so often that Sam took to opening a package herself and holding them under her crotch, peering into the wrapper for whatever she thought I was looking for. I skipped the digital tests, for they had no real GAUGE of how things were going. Pregnant or not pregnant, there was no in-between on those suckers, when by now, we ALL know you can be a little pregnant.

Were they getting darker? I swore they were, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d pee on one a day, comparing it to the previous day’s, examining every nuance in color, using that, along with my dizziness and boob soreness, as a bizarrely unscientific algorithm to determine how things were going.

I had my first ultrasound at seven weeks on the dot, according to my calculations, which, without going into detail, are close to iron-clad. The ultrasound showed up with a strong heartbeat, but a baby measuring six weeks on the dot. To them, it all looked fine. To me … not so much. It was Pete and Repeat up in here, for that is precisely, and I mean PRECISELY, how things went down the last time. I sobbed while a nurse acted as though I was insane for being upset, and tried to tell me how rare it was for people to have two miscarriages in a row, how I needed to RELAX, how every pregnancy was DIFFERENT. I was waiting for her to give me a reason NOT to punch her in the face, but she never did. Somehow I refrained, and instead, I went to the front desk and made an appointment for a viability ultrasound for exactly one week later.

The next one wasn’t any better. The baby grew, but the heart rate didn’t. Steady, but exactly the same: 115 bpm. The prognosis I was given was 50/50. “It could really go either way,” my doctor said. Obviously, they wanted it higher, but she’d seen it happen before, just like this, so I hung in there.

And then I got sick. Dry heaves at every corner, a craving for nothing but McNuggets and an affinity for Liberte yogurt. I felt … hopeful. Better. More positive! HA HA!

I went back for my third viability ultrasound feeling almost cocky. I was sick as a dog! I was about to faint! I had eaten copious amounts of McNuggets!

No heartbeat. Apparently the baby had died just after my ultrasound the week prior, but my body, in an effort to keep things pumping along, went into crazy overdrive. So basically, every comforting sign I’d ever been given about a “healthy” pregnancy was completely shattered. Visible heartbeat? Statistically worthless until 10 weeks, according to my other doctor who, as it turns out, is a renowned miscarriage expert, so I believe him. Morning sickness a good sign? A total lie, as I learned first-hand.

I really hope that the OTHER myth is that alcohol is bad in pregnancy, because I don’t see how I’m going to get through another one of these without being drunk 24/7. I plan to make mint juleps an active part of my prenatal diet, along with folic acid, because SERIOUSLY.

I mean, really. I am, rationally or irrationally, completely freaked. I’m terrified, of course. I know it happens — more often than people even know, I think — but for some reason, the majority of the stories I got in those first 24 hours were people trying to commiserate with me by sharing stories of how it happened to them/their sister/their sister’s friend/their friend and MY GOD, THE STORIES. Of how this happened, and the lonely horror that ensued! The DECADES of infertility and, in at least one case, DIVORCE. DIVORCE. And I just … well, I feel terrible saying this, but it sent me into a Very Bad Place, because it’s one thing to be able to talk about that stuff with some distance, quite another when you’re in the thick of it.

I say this not to be an unsympathetic asshole, but just to say that if you have a horror story that ended badly, I might not be in the place to hear it, OK? It’s just … where I’m at right now. I know people go through, and survive, much worse, and I know I’m lucky and BELIEVE ME, I am grateful for Sam, BELIEVE ME, OKAY? It’s just that I’m still upset. I’m still scared. And the next person to say, “Well, at least you have ONE healthy child!” gets a dickpunch, because I KNOW, but that doesn’t make this suck any less, I’m sorry, it doesn’t. And recognizing that this sucks doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate Sam. They are two unrelated entities in my mind.

Forgive me, as I am a little sensitive bordering on crazy.

Tomorrow — well, today, Monday, by the time many of you read this — is my second D&C (D&E, really) since January. My parents were already in town for my brother’s MBA graduation in Amherst (congratulations, Justin!), so they were kind enough to make the short trip over to help us out with Sam — and me, as Adam’s traveling for business Tuesday, and I was pretty out of it for a few days afterwards last time.

At what point does this move from sympathetic journey to CIRCUS SIDESHOW!! is what I want to know. I’m thinking three might be the magic number.

Much love to everyone who’s been so kind. Your notes and tweets have meant a lot. We’ll be fine – we always are, so long as the three of us have each other. Oh, and Sunny. God, Sunny, who can forget SUNNY? I’m sure this is causing a great deal of intestinal turmoil that we’ll have to clean up later.

It’s just a bump in the road, I suppose. A sucktastic festering boil of a pothole-y bump, but a bump nonetheless.

Catch you on the flip.

153 comments May 15th, 2011