This is Definitely NOT Our Year...

If you remember, last month at my first ultrasound appointment they found a blood-filled cyst on my left ovary. When I made my next regular appointment for 4 weeks later, they wanted to do a follow-up ultrasound to make sure the cyst had gone away. That appointment was yesterday. The good news is the cyst is gone. The bad news..... so is the baby.

When I was pregnant with Brigham, I had a doom and gloom feeling the whole time. Long before we knew he had any problems. I was always antsy and uneasy. When we found out about his defect, my doom and gloom feelings made more sense.

With this pregnancy I never had the doom and gloom feelings. Until yesterday. It was about noon, Carrie and I had just gone to see our weekly summer movie and were now browsing around Hobby Lobby. I suddenly felt awful, and had a horrible doom and gloom feeling. I knew something was not right. I was silently praying (almost chant-like) saying, "Heavenly Father, PLEASE let the baby be OK, please let it be OK". After a few minutes, when nothing was immediately proving doomy and gloomy, the feeling faded and I reassured myself with a reminder that I was going to see the doctor in a few hours for my regular appointment anyways.

Today, when I told my mom about this feeling I had, she suddenly remembered..... "Dad had a bad feeling too. Almost exactly at noon. He couldn't put a finger on who, or what his bad feeling was about, but he said out loud that something just felt wrong...Off.... Like something bad was going to happen. He felt physically sick."

Remember how I was annoyed that at my first ultrasound they said the baby only measured 6 weeks when my dates said I should have been 8 weeks? They moved my due date backwards and I grumbled..... Well, this time, by my original dates (which I'm absolutely sure about) I should have been 12 weeks at this appointment, or at least 10 weeks if we went by the first ultrasound's calculations. And the baby only measured 8 weeks.

The doctor explained that miscarriage, although still difficult to cope with, is not really all that uncommon. It is usually caused by a chromosomal abnormality that disallows the body to continue to grow and develop. The fact that the baby measure 8 weeks and "should have" measured 10 weeks lead her to the conclusion that the baby stopped growing 2 weeks ago. I have a different theory though. I was thinking about it last night in the absolute middle of the night when I woke up at 2:45am and couldn't fall back asleep for two hours.

It would have been impossible for me to have only been 6 weeks at the first ultrasound. The dates don't add up. My thinking is that whatever was wrong with the baby's body, caused it to grow at too slow a rate. In the first 8 weeks, it only grew 6 weeks worth. In the past 4 weeks, it only grew another 2 weeks worth. My thinking is that maybe the baby only died in the past few days; Or my latest theory (that has only been re-enforced by my dad's bad feeling coinciding with my bad feeling) is that the baby died only yesterday around noon.

The doctor had me get my Hcg levels drawn this morning, and we'll re-draw them on Monday to confirm that my hormones are decreasing and my pregnancy is no longer viable. Either way, there was no heartbeat in the ultrasound. I have another appointment on Tuesday and if I haven't miscarried on my own by then, we will likely plan a D&C (an outpatient procedure that "surgically miscarries" for me).

As for the likely chromosome abnormality with this baby, Justin and I both had a momentary flash of "Oh no. Could this be related to Brigham? Is there some genetic incompatibility between the two of us?" I quickly quieted those thoughts as I reminded myself that they suspected chromosome abnormalities with Brigham and did an amniocentesis to rule them out. AND BRIGHAM'S CHROMOSOMES WERE COMPLETELY PERFECT. He had absolutely nothing else wrong with his body but the hernia; And obviously, Carrie is perfect. It is not dangerous or even remotely discouraged for us to try to have more children. The stumbling blocks we've had have been completely random. We will have more children. We can both feel it.

We're having a rough time emotionally, as can be expected. Another thought that came to me last night was that yesterday was the 6 month anniversary of Brigham's death. I'm pretty sure 27 is my new un-favorite number. If I were superstitious, I would think that was eerie. Instead I think it's divinely coincidental.... I think more than mourning this actual baby, I'm mourning the loss of the chance to bring a baby home.

Like I was just whining about in my last post, I was ready to bring a baby home 6 months ago. I was already a little miffed about having to wait another 13 months to bring this baby home. Now, we've been encouraged by the doctor to wait at least 3 months before we try to get pregnant again. That means even if I can get pregnant immediately, it will be another year from now before we can expect to have another baby! 18 months after we "should have" brought Brigham home.

A smaller more selfish part of me is feeling annoyed because now I don't have a reason to have belly chub... Dumb, I know, but it's just another thing to add to my list. Now I still feel early-pregnancy (or postpartum) chubby, but I have neither a pregnancy or a cute new baby to show for it.

I've never really had a problem getting pregnant, but I think I'm starting to get a sense for what couples who struggle with infertility might feel like. I know it's a little different, but I understand wanting a baby and not getting one (or in Brigham's case, not getting to keep him here). I think we've had more than our fair share of tragedies with our children this year (Knock. On. Wood.)

Thank Heaven for Carrie. I don't know how I would have handled this year without her. And of course, Justin has been amazing through all of this. I've loved to see him grow and develop as a father and be supportive and sympathetic (because he's not actually experiencing the physical pregnancies) and empathetic (because he's certainly experiencing the losses with me). We know we'll be OK, but I'm getting a smidgen sick of OK. I want to be GREAT even if it's just for a little while.