The Recovery

Around 1% of women experience recurrent miscarriages. Of those women that choose to undergo testing for a diagnosis, about 50% (or 0.5% of women) will never find an explanation for this deep loss. I am part of that 0.5%.

In blogging, it's difficult to know how much details to share and how much to keep to yourself. It is extremely difficult to blog about something so sensitive and with so many details that people may not care to know. I have chosen to blog about my recovery from my last miscarriage because I do hope that, perhaps, it can help people struggling with the same problem, or people who want to understand what it might be like. If it has more detail than you are comfortable with, you are welcome to choose to not read the rest of this post.

This last miscarriage was my hardest for several reasons. It was the healthiest of all the pregnancies that we’ve lost. First, it was difficult emotionally. We saw the baby, its heartbeat, and already loved it when we heard that it was no longer living. I had shared the news publicly (mostly through this blog) and needed to try to find words to express our deep loss when I didn’t even know how to or necessarily want to share it with my husband.

Second, it was difficult physically. Although it was my fourth miscarriage, it was the first time that I had a D&C rather than the long wait for the natural miscarriage. The surgery itself went well, and my angelic mother-in-law drove 2 hours to stay with our son so my husband could accompany me to the hospital. She then welcomed my son and I to her house the week after (Spring break) so she could care for us while my husband worked on his thesis. I had very little bleeding and was able to walk with my son to the park, the petting zoo, and many other things. Then, once Spring break was over, I began to have heavy bleeding and very, very large clots. The doctor did an ultrasound and wasn’t too concerned, but it continued for three more weeks! And it might help to mention that during these three weeks, I had comprehensive MA exams, final projects, and many other responsibilities. The blood would randomly come with a large clot and there were times that I dreaded having to leave the house to go to school because I didn’t want to face having to clean up in a public bathroom, as I had to several times at school.

The thing is, with tragedies like this, life must go on. I could not cancel the classes I was teaching, I was too close to graduating to just drop out from those I was taking (and finishing later would have been even harder!), and I still had a precious son to care for, and a husband who was in work and in school. To say we were overwhelmed might not describe it accurately. To say that was the hardest semester of the hardest three years of our lives might begin to do so. I also had outgrown all my clothes, looked and felt post-partum, but had no sweet baby to ease those pains.

But even more than the physical, mental, and academic hardships were the emotional ones. We loved and wanted that child. We know that he or she is now an angel being cared for by the Lord, but we still yearn for children to raise in this life, for those younger siblings for our sweet living child. And while we have faith that we will have such blessings, we still do not know when they will happen and how many more miscarriages we will need to suffer beforehand.

I honestly don’t know if I will blog about future pregnancies early on or not, because of how difficult this has been. It took me several months just to be able to describe my recovery; I was only able to write about it after most of the healing and pain had taken place. The only motivating force behind it would, again, be to possibly help other women facing recurrent or those who would like to understand a loved one with similar struggles.

I do still stand convinced that the Lord loves me, that He loves us, and that He will help us through our deepest, darkest trials if we put our faith in Him.