I am taking another brief hiatus from my (semi) hiatus this month to bring you part 2, my second pregnancy loss.
October 15th was pregnancy and infant loss awareness day. One in four women will experience a miscarriage in their lifetime. I do not think miscarriage should be shrouded in secrecy. This is our story of our second pregnancy loss.
I had been taking ovulation predictor kits as I had with our first son to pinpoint the best time to conceive. I noticed between Dec 25th and Dec 26th the kits looked darker, but I never did receive a positive result. In other words, technology told me I never ovulated that month.
Nine days later I had my telltale sign of extremely sensitive nipples. I was still breastfeeding my older son so that symptom was quite evident. Also in the shower I could not even stand facing the water without nipple pain.
I decided to take a test and I got a slight positive! I immediately scheduled an appointment with my doctor’s office (per my doctor’s advice) for a lab appointment to check my hcg levels. I may have neglected to call my husband (whoops!)
So, I got home from work that evening and my husband is on the phone with my OBGYN and he asks me “ummm did you have a positive pregnancy test today, here talk to her.” 😂 The answer was yes and she told me my hcg (pregnancy hormone) levels were in fact slightly elevated and to schedule another blood draw for 2 days later to make sure the value doubled (the #1 indicator of a viable pregnancy).
I am a good and dutiful patient so I scheduled my lab work for 2 days later and got the call that afternoon that my values had not doubled, they had sextupled. I asked my doctor what that meant and she said all she could tell me is that is good. And that she wanted to see me in 6 weeks gestation for an ultrasound.
Our first ultrasound was in January, 5 days after my birthday, we were there to make sure that the pregnancy we had conceived after our miscarriage was viable.
The ultrasound tech showed us how we had a healthy looking gestational sac/yolk sac and that it was measuring 6 weeks gestation as it should. We were thrilled.
Then my OBGYN came in, took the ultrasound wand and showed us another, smaller, gestational sac and told us that was our “failed twin.” (I still find that term to be incredibly insensitive).
Some of you may remember during our first miscarriage I wished that we’d had a twin pregnancy that had turned into a singleton pregnancy as that was the only way my drop in hcg levels could yield the healthy baby I so desperately wanted. Well, I did get that, but the second time around. Which meant we had lost another. 😔 Of course I regret ever wishing that. The emotions when you find out you have one healthy baby and have lost another are very mixed and confusing.
The easiest way for me to explain what happened with this pregnancy loss is this. I did in fact ovulate - actually TWICE. I produced two eggs. Both eggs were fertilized. Both eggs implanted in the uterus, both formed gestational sacs and even placentas. But something went wrong with twin A and that one did not survive.
I am not saying I *wish* I’d had twins. My younger son is more than a handful and always has been. Sometimes I wonder, with how terrible a sleeper that child is/was if I even could have survived having two. In the end I am sure I would have made it work, but we will never know. I have ultrasound pictures, pregnancy tests, and, ironically, the other placenta which ai planted in our yard under some flowers in remembrance of the baby we lost.
My pregnancy with my younger son (twin A) remained on the right side of my body the entire time. I only had stretch marks on the left, I only felt him on the left, and he never did engage into my birth canal and had to be delivered by c-section.
When he was born I noticed immediately that his right calf (the one facing my left side) was very muscular. While his left calf felt like jelly. When he learned to crawl at 10 months he did a scoot with his right (stronger) leg and left knee. He never did the traditional army crawl or hands and knees crawl. It wasn’t until he was almost two and proficiently walking that the strength in his legs finally evened out.
I am so thankful that my younger son is here and healthy and doing great. And that we are lucky enough to have two beautiful children.
This month I'm also remembering the two we lost. I’ll never know their genders or anything about them, but my mother’s intuition tells me they were girls (my mother’s intuition also correctly predicted my two boys). And I am not one of those moms who wishes my boys would have been girls. Not even close. I love them exactly how they are more than I could even begin to describe.
That being said, the first baby we lost would have been named Vera Elizabeth and the second baby we lost would have been named Emilia Lynn (Emmie for short). And this is what I call them when I remember them.
We used to ask our older son if he thought the baby was a boy or a girl. His answer was standard every time “it’s a boy and a girl.” Still gives me goose bumps. He he has predicted pregnancies and genders of my friends kids too. The kid is quite perceptive.
One in four women lose a pregnancy. It is not just a statistic. It's me. Twice. And I don't think it should be a secret.
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