...the heavy stuff.

So, remember when I would get to the heavy stuff later? I guess this is later. This is going to be quite the long and emotional entry, so please be prepared.

Many people recognize October as National Breast Cancer awareness month. What most people do not know is that it is also National Pregnancy and Infant Loss awareness month. October 15th is the offical day of rememberance, which is today. Everywhere in the country, in their respective time zones, those who have lost their babies will light a candle at 7:00 pm. I will be lighting two.

My husband and I found out we were pregnant only about a year and a half after we got married. We had been together for six years before marriage though, so starting a family only seemed like the next step. Although we weren't really trying, we weren't really preventing it from happening either. When we found out, we were so happy.

Not too long after we had the positive test, I started noticing some bleeding. Nothing too major, but still something to be concerned about. We had an early ultrasound at only seven weeks and everything was looking fine. I was afraid I was miscarrying, but according to the doctors, some bleeding is considered okay as long as it isn't like a period. Which it wasn't. The pregnancy progressed on. I had a little morning sickness but nothing too major. I was constantly worried about the bleeding, which continued off and on. We had our 12 week ultrasound and NT scan and things came back normal. Everything was great until week 16. That's when things started to go downhill. At work, I felt wetness in my underwear. Thinking it was just urine leakage, I didn't think too much of it. I mentioned it at my check-up after work that day and the doctor did a fluid test to make sure I didn't lose any. It was negative. I was glad for that, but at my next ultrasound, my fluid levels were looking very low. Nobody could understand it. Had my water broken? Did I have a leak? If so, why were the tests coming back negative? Was the baby not producing any? It was a giant mystery. At this point, the doctors were very negative. They told me without fluid, the baby had a very low chance at thriving. We were both at risk of infection. Because of this, at week 18, I was put on bed rest where I stayed until week 20. The first day of the 20 week mark, I started having severe pain in my abdomen and a fever. I was really scared, so I called my doctor who instructed that I go to L&D. I went, was checked for contractions, and was sent home. I think about this today still and I am so mad. They sent me home and no less than four hours later, I was back in. I was in so much pain I could hardly stand. I was vomitting and the pain came in waves. I was contracting. My water soon broke. I was in labor throughout the night and delivered my precious baby girl, Harper, the next day on October 24th, 2011. I had trouble delivering the placenta, and I ended up having an infection. I stayed in the hospital for a few days, where I stayed in a haze. Today, I still can't remember what happened afterwards. I think my memory has blocked it out.

I do however, remember just crying. Crying and just not understanding. How did this happen? What happened to me? Why? How come the doctors didn't know why? Weren't they the ones who were supposed to protect my baby? Weren't they supposed to know?

At my follow up appointment, my doctor did not have a clear answer for me. She said she checked the placenta, which showed signs of infection, but it was mostly because of the low fluid. We opted out of the autopsy, but she just kept saying, "I don't think we'll do anything different next time. I really think there was something wrong with the baby, and that is just nature's way of handling it. There's nothing you or I could've done." I didn't feel completely comfortable with her answer, but nonetheless, my husband and I decided only three months later, to try again. I wanted a baby so bad. I was nowhere near the point of being emotionally ready to try again, but the urge was just so strong. I couldn't fight it. I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I could do it, that it wasn't my fault that Harper didn't make it.

It only took one month of trying and we were pregnant again. I can't even describe the mix of emotions I felt. I was happy, yet I was terrified. We had been given another chance. I couldn't quite believe it. I almost didn't want to. I didn't want to get too excited in case something went wrong again. We told our families and close friends first, who were very supportive. After a few more weeks went by, I started to tell more people. Coworkers, my boss, random people in the store who would be in the same baby clothing aisle as me. I wanted to start buying things, but I couldn't bring myself to do it just yet. I didn't want to jinx anything. I was too afraid to go through it all again.

We had our 12 week ultrasound and NT scan. The baby was doing great, but the doctor there read my history and explained to me that she would like to have a cervical length scan done on me around week 15. She wasn't my usual doctor, and said she would forward that recomendation on to mine. Results came back normal for the NT scan test, like the last time. I celebrated a little bit, but still stayed cautious. I felt so completely normal. I felt physically perfect. I wasn't very sick. I was having cravings. I was starting to feel movement.

Then, at week 18, I had an accident at work. I do interior design work in a retail enviroment, and I work early in the morning at the same time as the replenishment crew. As I was going through a door, a power pallet jack came bursting through the other side. I kind of caught the  doors as they flew open with my arms out and my knee, but it shocked the hell out of me. I wasn't sure where it hit me, so I opted to go get checked out just in case. I was beyond upset. Here I was, having the perfect pregnancy, no bleeding, hardly any sickness, and then this happens? I went home to meet up with my husband, who had the day off, and we went up together. My doctor checked for the heartbeat and it sounded completely normal. She didn't sound too concerned. I wanted an ultrasound but she didn't think it was necessary. Just as I was about to demand one, she looked at my chart and said, "Oh, it says here that the doctor who did your NT scan recommended a cervical length done on you at week 15. I guess we missed that. We can go ahead and do that today if you'd like. I don't think it's necessary, but it wouldn't hurt either." I had completely forgotten about the CL recommendation. I was angry. Shouldn't my doctor had followed up on that with me?

We did the cervical length measurement in the ultrasound and the technician discovered that my cervix was looking a bit strange. She explained that it was changing lengths, opening and closing and moving. This was not normal. In pregnancy, your cervix is supposed to stay long and closed. Mine was not measuring very long at all and it was even opening up. I was in shock. When they called me into my doctor's office to discuss these new findings, she was baffled. It looked like I had what they call a "dynamic cervix". It just does whatever it pleases. And it could possibly be the reason why I lost Harper. Gee, thank you doctor, the one who didn't think I needed the test done in the first place. She put me on immediate bedrest and instructed that I meet with a perinatologist to discuss cerclages and progesterone shots. I felt like I had just been punched in the gut. One day, I'm having a breeze of a pregnancy, and the next, I find out that I am centimeters away from losing another baby.

My husband and I met with the perinatologist, who was a very nice man. He suggested that I get a transvaginal cerclage placed in my cervix to try to help keep it closed and prevent preterm labor. He said there could be complications, but it was the best option we had. He also wanted to put me on progesterone shots to help as well. He wanted to do the surgery but he would be out of town and suggested I get it done right away. I decided to go ahead and schedule with another doctor.

The surgery wasn't bad. I was awake for it with a spinal to numb me up. I remember a lot of tugging and pulling and just wanting it to be over with. It was fairly quick, and it when it was over, I was instructed that as long as I could pee before the end of the day, I could go home. As the numbness started to wear off, I noticed that I had the sensation to pee. I had the nurse come in and help me and I sat down and waited. I felt like I was pushing to go but nothing was happening. I sat for awhile, and looked in the pan they give you to pee in over the toilet to measure how much you've gone. All I saw was blood. The nurse assured me this was normal after that type of surgery. So I waited and went just a tiny bit. I still couldn't get full relief. It felt like a UTI. I kept telling the nurse this and she said that feeling was normal as the numbness wears off. Then I noticed a lack of control. I was dribbling and it was just kind of coming out in little puddles, but I made the pee amount quota and was sent home. I still didn't feel right. I thought that I should be able to pee normal by now. It had been hours since the surgery and I could walk just fine.

Overnight, I noticed more pain and more inability to control the urine leaking out. I couldn't figure it out. It was getting unbearable. It felt like the world's worst urinary tract infection. My husband insisted something wasn't right. I called my doctor's office and explained what was happening, and they insisted I come in right away. When we got there, I had lost all control. I had to keep changing pads because they were soaking wet. I was in so much pain that I couldn't stop pacing. The doctor who saw me, who isn't my regular doctor, was almost positive my water had broken and that it wasn't urine leaking out of me, but fluid instead. I got an untrasound and what do you know, my water was perfectly normal. But the tech noticed a weird anamoly on my bladder. She said to me, "I think they stitched your bladder." I  almost wanted to say, "I told you so." We rushed back to the hospital, where we should've gone first, where I had to endure more ultrasounds. With confirmation that my bladder was indeed stitched along with my cerclage, and I was scheduled for emergency surgery. That cerclage came out, a new one was placed, and I now had to wear a foley catheter for a week while my bladder healed from the trauma.

What a freaking nightmare all of that was. I stayed on bedrest where I lay with a catheter strapped to my leg for an entire week. My husband is a saint. I can't explain this enough. He was there by my side for it all and was the best he could be. I loved him even more that week, which I thought was impossible because I already loved him so much. Everyone in my life stayed positive, hopeful and told me I was doing what it took to save my baby. Everyone thought that this cerclage would do the trick, that it would "fix" my defective cervix. I thought so too.

My catheter came out on a Friday, week 20,  and it was the best feeling to finally be able to pee on my own again. I went to a follow-up with my doctor on Monday, where everything looked "just fine" but there was still a risk of water breaking and infection because of the cerclage and all of the complications I had had. The next morning, as I lay sleeping in bed, my water broke. I thought it was urine. I thought my bladder was somehow broken and I had convinced myself this as we drove to the hospital. Unfortunately, the doctors confirmed it was indeed my water. I was a failure, once again. They gave me some small hope, saying some women deliver full term after their water breaks even at 18 weeks, but being there before I knew this wasn't very common. I knew my story. I had lived through this before. After a full day in the hospital and being monitored, I came down with a fever. The doctors told me that they were going to have to induce labor and deliver the baby. I was coming down with an infection and there was nothing they could do. I delivered my precious baby boy, Eli, on June 27th, 2012. Because there was so much infection, my placenta would not deliver and I had to have an emergency D&C. I lost so much blood that I had to have a transfusion. I stayed in the hospital until Friday.

I think traumatized is the best way to describe how I feel. A few weeks after Eli's birth, at my follow-up appointment with my doctor, she basically told me I had no chance at ever carrying a baby full-term. She said that I had an incompetent cervix, that the idea of me trying to have another baby made her very nervous and that she didn't recommend that I try again. Imagine how that feels. To be told that you can't carry a baby to full term. To not have any children. To crush my dreams of having a family of our own.

I am still trying to heal from everything. From the loss of my two percious angels. Haper and Eli. I love you always.