Getting There............

Last week Jared and I had the unfortunate experience of losing our baby just shy of 14 weeks.

Last Sunday I starting having some "not normal" bleeding so I made an appointment with my doctor the first thing on Monday. They got me in quickly, my doctor did an ultrasound, placenta was fine, the baby was fine and had a nice strong heartbeat. I felt a bit relieved, but still felt like something was off. On Tuesday the cramping started and progressively got more painful. Wednesday night I hardly got any sleep because I kept being woken up every 15-20 minutes with very intense cramping. The next day I made another appointment with my doctor. He did another ultrasound and the baby was still fine and still had a nice, strong heartbeat, although it was lying a bit low in the uterus. He also did a vaginal ultrasound with showed that my cervix was dialating and I only had about 5mm holding the baby in. He said there was a chance I would be able to continue carrying the baby, but his gut was telling him we would end up miscarrying. He put me on bedrest and prescribed some Lortab for the pain. He also told me to prepare for the pain to get worse if I was going to miscarry.

We went home and set up the laptop in our room so I could stay down without getting too bored. The Lortab worked great until about 1100 pm. I had been taking one Lortab every 4 hours, but even after taking 2 of them, the pain was not going away. It was more intense and I had more cramping than not cramping. When it got to a point where I could not talk through the pain, we decided it was time to go to the ER. We got there a little after 1200, got right in, I somehow managed to change into my hospital gown, and then sat on the side of the bed leaning into Jared waiting for them to the put the IV in me. While we were waiting, that is when all the blood and fluids came and so was the baby. They got the IV line into me and then wheeled me over to get an ultrasound. With the ultrasound they confirmed what I already knew: the baby was no longer in the uterus. It was half in the cervix and half way in the vaginal canal. Shortly after we returned to the room the baby came all the way. They gave us the option of looking at it, which we did opt to do. It was very heart renching for me to look at. That is our little baby. They were totally healthy, but for some reason my body felt it was necessary to abort it. That is the part that bothers me the most. We were in the ER for another couple of hours waiting for the placenta and giving me a chance to recover a little. After they gave me some potassium pills (my K was 2.9), they finally let me go home. We got home after 4am and Jared and I both crashed.

Luckily Jared did not have work or school the rest of the weekend so we were able to spend that time with each other. I felt great physically and was out and about and staying busy the next few days (my way of helping me cope). Emotionally is a different story, although we are doing pretty well. This was our first pregnancy and miscarriages happen often. Ours was just a little bit different than the average miscarriage. We will definitely give it another shot down the road, but for now we are leaning on each other. Now there are just a bunch of "what if" questions, but I am trying not to think about it too much. We will see what happens with the second go around and will go from there.

Jared and I are obviously upset, but we are working through it together. I definitely have moments where I break down, but I learning to work through those. I am sure some things will trigger emotions down the road, but I feel I will be able to deal with it. I know our Heavenly Father loves us and that these trials are given to us to strengthen us. I know that even in this last week Jared and I have become closer as a couple (which I was not sure was possible) and we take our turns supporting the other. We are still very excited to be parents.........we will just have to wait longer than we thought.

We appreciate everyone's love and prayers. It has definitely been felt by both of us.

Hope all is well with each of you.

Love, Jared and Kat