Our five-day baby.

To fully tell this story, I need to back up a bit. Before we went to Disney World, I really thought I was pregnant. I was having some symptoms, and I just felt pregnant. But test after test confirmed that I wasn’t. I took one more test the day we got home, and again, negative. I was still confused as to why I was having symptoms, so I called my doctor and asked to get my blood drawn so we could make sure I was ectopically pregnant. I wasn’t, but I had started having some pain in my abdomen, so we made another appointment to go see him. He wondered if it was maybe appendicitis, so we did another blood draw to check my blood cell counts, and all were normal. Four days after that I was in a lot of pain, so I went in for an ultrasound and found out that I had an ovarian cyst. I wasn’t upset by this, because our bodies make cysts for a living, and one cyst isn’t anything out of control, plus if it is something that has happened before, it kind of explains why it took us a little bit to get pregnant with Carter, but that’s a story for another day.

My doctor was out of town when I found out about the cyst, and was gone for two weeks after, so I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it before my follow up appointment. When we went back in (two weeks after finding out about the cyst), the ultrasound tech told me that the final ultrasound report said that my cyst had actually ruptured (which would explain why I was in so much pain the day I went in) and that we didn’t need to do a follow up ultrasound because the cyst was gone. For some reason, I felt like being naggy and kind of insisting that she do another ultrasound. She said she would just do a quick scan, and if she saw something, she would do a full exam. She looked at both ovaries, and they looked fine, then did a quick swipe over my uterus and said “I think there might be something there.” I said “like a baby?” and she said “I think so!”

We ended up doing a full exam, and found out that there was indeed a tiny baby with a little heartbeat! Brandon and I were so surprised. We just kept looking at each other and shaking our heads and laughing. We hadn’t anticipated being pregnant, but I was so glad I pushed for that ultrasound! It was just crazy that I stopped taking pregnancy tests when we got back from vacation, but that was when I should have started (tmi but oh well!). We went upstairs to meet with the doctor, and everyone was so excited for us. The first thing he did when he came in the room was give both of us a hug haha.

The appointment that day was exactly 39 weeks, almost down to the minute, from the day we found out we had lost Carter. That whole day had been kind of crappy, but finding out we were pregnant on such a hard day made it a little easier. I measured 5 weeks 6 days, and our tentative due date was set for March 22, which meant that with our early induction due to our losses, we would have a baby a day or two before my birthday.

That night after our appointment, we went directly to our neighbor friends (who are also loss parents) and shared the news. We went to a wedding the next day and had to keep the secret from Brandon’s family, and it was so tough! All weekend we were so excited. I kept wanting to call our parents and tell them, and it was so hard to be patient! We let ourselves get really excited, talking about bringing the baby home and all things baby. A friend, who didn’t know I was pregnant, sent me a rainbow blanket she had made me herself, and we got it the day after we found out we were pregnant. I thought it was a sign that this one would stick, and that we would get to bring it home. In retrospect, I should have known that getting too excited would jinx it.

Monday morning at work, I went to the bathroom and found that I was bleeding. I called Brandon as I was leaving work, and he met me at the doctor’s office. The doctor looked me over, said I wasn’t actively bleeding and that there were no signs that we were losing the baby. We even did an ultrasound, and the baby still had a very strong heartbeat. For the moment, we were safe. He sent us home with orders to rest and eat lots of ice cream. An hour and a half later, I bled more, and I knew it was over. I called my doctor the next morning to tell him I had been bleeding all night, and he said we were probably losing the baby. We went in for another ultrasound Wednesday afternoon, and even though the sac was still there, the baby was gone. We had lost another baby.

The rest of this last week has been spent recovering and dealing with the physical pain that accompanies a miscarriage. Our doctor said that ours was just a very typical miscarriage, and that unfortunately, they are very common. He said that it in no way relates to either of our other two losses, and was just another stroke of bad luck. He also said that this should not deter us from trying again. It was nothing we did, nothing my body did (and not caused by the cyst or my thyroid meds or anything), and that we should try not to be discouraged. Then he sent us home again with orders to eat ice cream, and to plan another trip instead of going to the gym. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times, but he really is the best.

We’re sad, obviously, but we have to keep moving forward. If someone wants to make me a giant banner that says that, keep moving forward, I’d love to hang it in my house somewhere. It has definitely been our motto for the past nine months.

Even though we’ve been dealing with another loss all week, my heart has felt so full. Brandon is the most incredible husband; I couldn’t have asked for someone better to go through all this with, and our babies are so lucky to have him as their dad. Together, we have two little angels, and another little baby that brought sunshine back into our lives for just a few days. Our house is so empty, but our family keeps growing. Even though our family is not the most traditional one, we are still parents, and our children are ours to love forever.