My husband and I got married in February 2010. About 4 months later we decided we wanted to try to start a family and so we did! We tried for one month and found out we were pregnant right away! We were so excited and grateful that it didn’t take us long to get pregnant! We had heard some stories from other people about announcing your pregnancy so early so we wanted to wait until that 12 week safety mark to tell everyone. So we did. At 12 weeks, we announced it to the world, we were so excited! It was the first grandbaby on my husbands side and the second on my side. Everyone was so excited for us. We immediately went out and bought baby clothes and some essentials we thought we would need.
A couple weeks later, I was at work and I started to feel some cramps, and had some light bleeding. I knew that implantation bleeding was not possible as I was too far along. I went into the doctor and my doctor assured me that everything was ok and this is quite normal. But, she made me an ultrasound appointment anyways to ease our minds. I waited a few days to get into the ultrasound and those few days were the longest of my life, even though my doctor assured me everything was ok, I kept bleeding heavier and heavier each day and getting more and more stomach pains. But I kept myself positive anyways. We went in for the ultrasound, it was really long, about 45 minutes, she kept going over the same spot over and over, and eventually, she stopped and all she said was “Your doctor will be in contact with you.” As soon as she wouldn’t let my husband in I knew we lost the baby. We had had a few other ultrasounds before this and they always let Luke in, so I knew, and our hearts broke. About 20 minutes later, my doctor called me to come in right away. Even though I knew we had lost it, I still held out hope that it was still somehow there. But it wasn’t, I walked in the room, and he said, “I think you know why I called you in....”
The doctor explained to me that I would have to have a D&C, which stands for dilation and curettage, essentially, they scrape out your uterus. This was devastating to hear, I couldn’t even imagine the thought of not being pregnant anymore without bringing a baby home. I went in the next day for a D&C, the nurses were very empathetic to me and treated me very well. At 14 weeks, we lost our baby.
For weeks after, I remember crying all the time, sitting at my desk at work, my co-workers would come by and give me hugs and tell me they were sorry and I would burst into tears. I never had the heart to share with everyone that we had lost our baby, which in turn, actually ended up being harder for me because I would run into people at Walmart or the grocery store and they would ask me when I was due and I would have to break the news to them and that was really hard to do.
About 3 months later we were given the go ahead to try for another baby. I was SO nervous, I took the pregnancy test after one month of trying again and found out we were pregnant again, but I didn’t feel excitement, I felt scared. We didn’t tell anyone. Not even our parents. Sure enough at about 7 weeks, I miscarried again, in my toilet, at work. We had another ultrasound to confirm it and now we had lost our 2nd baby. We started to feel like maybe it wasn’t in the cards for us to be able to have kids. We cried a lot for the next several weeks. And we decided we were going to try one more time, if it didn’t work this time, we were going to look at other options. About 3 months later, we got pregnant again, after the 1st try. Again, we felt scared. Everyday, I waited for the bleeding everytime I went to the washroom, we hit the 8 week mark, and sure enough, came the bleeding. I couldn’t believe it. How could this happen to me 3 times? We immediately made a doctors appointment and had an ultrasound the next day. We went into the waiting room, the ultrasounds tech took me in, and I started to cry, I just wanted her to tell me and get it over with. Then....she went and got my husband...I was so confused....I thought, why would she be doing this, she isn’t allowed to do this. Then she pointed to the screen, put the sound on, and said, “Do you hear that strong heartbeat?” We couldn’t even believe it.....she told us our baby was healthy and not to worry about the bleeding. After the initial bleeding, I never had it again, and on September 28, 2011 I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl and she was happy and healthy!
I went on to have a little baby boy 3 years later, I unfortunately suffered another miscarriage at 7 weeks after my second child, but went onto have a third baby, a boy after that! Now we have 3 healthy, beautiful children, but I never don’t think about the 3 we lost every day! I realized in going through these things that it is more common than I thought and having someone to talk to about it, would have helped a lot for me (at the time, I didn’t have anyone). It’s nice to know that there are resources in town that can help women and their families for things like miscarriages now! Listening to your stories, Alicia, has helped me realize that there are so many women that go through so many struggles and we really have a great community of women to support us through our tough journeys!
Thank you.
Brittany Rechsteiner
Photo Credit : Sevan Photography