Heartbeat

When you are pregnant women there is no better sound than hearing your unborn child’s heartbeat for the first time. You lay on the bed looking at the ultrasound screen as they scroll over your belly waiting in such anticipation to hear that first heartbeat. It’s feels as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders when that heartbeat is heard. You have this sense that everything will be okay. You will soon have a baby to hold and love more than anything else in the world.

You never think that the heartbeat you heard will be taken away before you can hold your baby. You’re in cloud 9 thinking we are going to parents; we are bringing a little life into the world that we created. Miscarriage was always that thing that I knew could happen to me but I never really thought much of it, I always thought I’m one of the lucky ones that will have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy delivery.

When you’re pregnant the doctor always tells you to be careful of this and that because you don’t want it to cause a miscarriage. What if you do everything right, you follow all the rules the doctor tells you too. You drink water consistently, you make sure to eat more fruit and veggies. You keep yourself as a healthy as possible to keep your baby healthy too. What if you do all that and it does not work? What if you can’t prevent a miscarriage?

What if you hear your unborn child’s heartbeat, the heartbeat is strong, the doctors tell you Congratulations! You look at your husband with such excitement and enthusiasm.

Then in the blink of an eye it’s all taken away.

All women have a certain intuition about them; we know when something is wrong. I have begun to know this feeling all too well. Trust me when I say when you are pregnant woman and have that gut feeling something is not right there are no words to explain the emotions that come over you.

My first miscarriage I knew something was wrong with the pregnancy from the beginning. I went in for my 8 week check-up the heartbeat was really slow. I went back a few days later for another ultrasound these were the words that broke my heart “Unfortunately the little heart has stopped beating”. I have never said those words out loud after that moment; even writing them brings a frog in my throat. As the days went on I traveled through a lot of emotions. I went from blaming myself, blaming God, to hating my body. A co-worker told me “One day you will wake up and you will not think about it.” I thought she was crazy, but in reality she was right. I did wake up one day and didn’t think about the baby we lost. I stopped blaming myself and stopped blaming God. What I had to realize was that God did not do this do to me. Nothing I did and nothing anyone could have done would have changed the outcome of June 30, 2014. I have never actually written that date down…

Time passed and we found out we were pregnant again. I was beyond excited! We were due in June which was perfect timing with my teaching schedule. I called the doctor to make my appointment for my 8 week checkup. I requested to get blood work done to check my HCG levels, I needed the reassurance that my levels were going up. Well…they went up but not like the doctors wanted them to. In we went at 6 weeks for an ultrasound. We waited patiently to hear that precious sound. Finally the heartbeat! 120 beat per minute, a perfect little heartbeat. When I say we breathed a sigh of relief that would be an understatement. 2 weeks later we went for the 8 week check-up. A tortuous to 2 weeks it was. Again we waited in the ultrasound room for that precious sound of our babies’ heartbeat. There it was! 175 beat a minute. We breathed a sigh of relief again. They sent us on our way with Congratulations, well see in 4 weeks. Or so we thought…3 days later I got that feeling that something was wrong. This time though I did not want to believe it. So I pretend like everything would be fine, God wouldn’t take another baby from us again would he? I left work to go to the ER for an ultrasound. As I was laid in the cold ultrasound room, I looked at the ultrasound tech and I saw it in her face. I still did not want to believe it then either. Living in denial is a great thing right? The doctor came in with results these were her words: “The radiologists looked at the test results, there were no fetal heart tones” It felt like someone ripped out my heart and threw it against the wall. I could not keep it together. October 31, 2014 our lives were changed once again. I have never written that date either. I pride myself on keeping my emotions together. When someone tells you, you lost another child there is no possible way to keep yourself together. The next few days were a blur of depression and every other emotion you can think of.

Again, eventually I didn’t think about as much. There is never a day that goes by that I do not think of my angel babies. I know they are both looking over Logan and keeping him safe.

I have learned through all of this there is not a reason for everything. Unfortunately, things just happen without an explanation. That took a while to come to understand.

Count your blessings because you never know what life has in store.