A Miscarriage

This post has been getting in my way.  I have been wanting to blog about more light hearted things (like how I am redoing my bedroom and am in LOVE with it) but then there has been this post that needed to be written.  Chronologically this is where it fits and as much as I don't love talking about it it needs to be written.  At least for posterity sake and probably for my sake as well.

From now on every time I go to the doctors and they ask about my pregnancies I will now answer I have had 4 pregnancies and 3 live births.  I never loved that question and now will hate it even more.

On August 17, 2015 I took a pregnancy test that came back positive.  I was really surprised since we weren't planning this pregnancy and everyone of our other children have taken some planning to get here.  This was the first time that I took a test without McKay being there with me so it got to be my little secret for a few hours before he got home and I broke the news to him.  He was so surprised too and very excited.  We both were, although my excitement came with some nerves.  I was really nervous about how the first trimester would go with the morning sickness and just lack of motivation in general.  Taking care of 3 kids and growing one in my belly needs A LOT of motivation to make it work.  But I buckled down and prepped for it.  Planned how meal time would go, coached myself about not feeling guilty for letting the house get a little messy and kept my schedule to the bare minimum.  I was ready, but the sickness never really came.  In fact there was only one day where I had to lay down for a few minutes or I thought I might get nauseous.  I didn't know what to think about this lack of morning sickness, but I definitely wasn't complaining!  This was going to be our first baby born in the spring and I was really excited about that since it definitely seems like an ideal time to have a baby.  I scheduled my first doctors appointment and looked forward to seeing a little heart beat.

Then a few weeks after taking that positive test we headed out to Colorado for a family reunion with McKay's siblings.  We were SO excited to hang out with everyone.  This was the first big reunion that they had ever done and I think we were all looking forward to lots of girl chats, cousins playing, and fun all around.  I debated and debated about telling his family before we left about the pregnancy, but something just kept holding me back so I decided to just keep quiet for a while.

Well sadly while we were on vacation I started spotting, then bleeding, then cramping.  I was scared from the second I saw blood because I just knew.  This pregnancy had not felt normal and bleeding in the first few weeks has never been normal for me.  I hung on for about a day but eventually spilled the beans to everyone.  Only an hour after I opened up about everything the cramping got bad enough that I didn't even want to stand up.  So we headed to the nearest emergency room to get things checked out.  IF there was still a baby in there I wanted to do all that I could to keep it safe and healthy.

So off to the hospital we went.  After many blood tests and a pelvic exam and finally an ultrasound they discovered that there was just an empty sac inside with no growing baby.  It really felt like a cruel joke and we were so sad that this baby was not meant to be.  I am not very good at handling these kind of sad situations, but I feel like our very LONG visit at the hospital really helped us talk about and realize the situation that we were in.  We were sad, but felt ok.  I was grateful that I was not very far along (7 weeks).  I also really felt like the fact that there was never actually a living baby inside my body helped me not be too sad.  So we snuggled baby Declin that got to come with us and showed him off to all the nurses.  

After leaving the hospital they just had me let the miscarriage run its course.  With the help of ibuprofen I tried to keep the cramping and bleeding to a minimum while we tried to enjoy the rest of our vacation.  The day after the hospital was probably the worst and I had a splitting headache that made it hard to do anything along with the intense cramps.  But McKay's family was an amazing support to us, truly I am SO grateful for the help and love that they showed to us.  I wasn't a huge help with all of the cooking and cleaning that comes with a big gathering, but they picked up my slack and didn't complain.  They were there to distract us with all sort of fun things and they were there to talk when I needed to.  They are awesome and I am so glad we get to be family. :)  

I realize for many this is nothing.  There are so many worse situations out there and I have no room to complain or ask for your pity.  But I do think this needed to be said, talked about and shared.  While not a big deal it still happened and it hurt.  I am grateful for the healing that has come little by little.  I know we will have more kids some day and we look forward to that day.  At least I will be grateful next time I get morning sickness because that will mean that I will actually be pregnant.  :)

But for now I will just snuggle these cuties and count my blessings.  Truly they are the greatest and completely worth it.