Coping with a Miscarriage

Losing a baby to a miscarriage is one of the hardest events a woman can face. Though their child is not yet born, many women become mothers the moment they find out they are pregnant. When a pregnancy is desired a woman celebrates the news that there is a life growing within her that is half her and half her partner. She embraces and loves the child in her heart and plans for the future with excitement. She imagines her world with her child in it and is in awe of the tiny being forming beneath her heart. Finding out that this life has been lost is devistating and a woman can grieve the death of this child almost as much as if it had been born and she had been able to hold it in her arms.

One of the most important things a woman who has a miscarriage can do is acknowlege the loss and allow herself to grieve for her child. Allowing herself to cry and feel the pain allows her to find some closure. Another important fact that a woman who has a miscarriage must remember is the loss is not her fault. A woman can do everything right and still lose her baby.

I myself lost a baby girl in the first trimester of my first pregnancy. The pregnancy was unexpected but not unwelcome and my fiance and I looked forward to entering our child into the world. I bought the pregnancy books as soon as I found out I was going to have a baby and read them cover to cover. I drank orange juice, stopped drinking coffee, took folic acid and prenatal vitamins, and I stopped drinking diet pop. We told our parents and close friends that we were going to be parents ourselves in the coming year. We talked about names and wondered if the baby was a boy or a girl. We fell in love with this child very quickly.

I was six-weeks pregnant during the Christmas holiday and on Christmas Eve noticed some spotting. I called my doctor and she said it was probably breakthrough bleeding but wanted to see me the day after Christmas. When I went to her office she did a sonogram. She said there was some bleeding into the embryonic sac but the baby seemed to be okay. She also said that it appeared there had been another sac and that I might have been pregnant with twins and lost one. She told me to go home and take it very easy.

I went home and stayed off of my feet for the most part. My fiance did the shopping and housework and I relaxed as much as possible. A week later on New Year's Eve I went to the bathroom before we were going to leave to go out to a nice dinner. That is when I noticed bright red blood in an amount that was more than could be considered spotting. I didn't even wait to call my doctor but instead went to the emergency room. I was told that I was probably having a miscarriage but there was nothing that could be done and I would have to see my doctor after the holiday. I was terrified that I had lost my baby but held onto a little bit of hope. After all, probably did not mean definitely.

I went to the doctor a couple of days later and had some tests performed. My pregnancy hormone levels had decreased and when a sonogram was done it was confirmed that my baby had died. It appeared that my body was holding onto my baby as much as my heart was and I was going to have to have surgery before I got very sick.

The next day my fiance waited in the waiting room while I had a D&C. The doctor had to sedate me before putting me under because I could not stop crying and shaking. I did not understand why this was happening. Why had my baby died? Why when I wanted it so much had it been taken from me? The procedure was simple and I was sent home the same day, but it would take a long time before I would recover mentally from the miscarriage.

I remember sitting at the top of the stairs in our apartment with my fiance holding me as I sobbed and screamed "I want my baby back." Thinking of this time still brings tears to my eyes. My doctor ran genetic testing on the baby to find out why she died and found she had trisome-16. She had three copies of the 16th chromosone and no babies with this condition make it to birth. She asked me when she called if I wanted to know the babies sex as she had been able to tell in the testing. I said yes and she told me I would have had a daughter. I remember hanging up the phone without saying goodbye and just sitting and stairing at the wall. The pain I felt at that moment was so intense I could not even move. I was going to have a little girl and now she was gone.

What helped me a lot was getting pregnant again a half a year later. I felt so much grief and an absence of hope until the day I realized my period was late and I took a home pregnancy test that came back positive. While I was happy to think that I had again been given a chance to be a mom I did not let myself truly embrace this child until I was twelve weeks along and the miscarriage risk was low.

I now have two beautiful children. A son who will be two in a couple of months and a newborn daughter who is just three months old. These babies have changed my life in ways I cannot describe and I love them more than I ever thought possible. Though I have these precious gifts in my life I can never forget the little girl who is sitting God's arms in heaven. She will be a part of me always and I know that many years from now when my life has ended I will see her and finally be able to hold her in my arms.