I decided months ago that on this journey I would opt for transparency in many aspects. The journey of pregnancy loss and infertility is ugly and lonely, but if I can help others not feel as lonely I will do so.  Below is a short video of one of my ugly days, it’s real, it’s raw, and it’s open. It’s me.

Twenty days into the second month of 2019 and I still haven’t written my first post. Mainly out of fear and avoidance. Avoidance because I do not want to deal with all of the complex emotions.

The beginning of a new year brings about desires for new resolutions and goals for the fresh start. This year I find myself with none of those desires. In the past I entered into each New Year with some new goals and some of the same ones. Whether it is saving more money, getting closer with God, reading more, or buying a new car, resolutions often change from year to year but there are some that remain the same and don’t change. I can tell you that for as long as I can remember one of my constant goals have been to lose weight, some years I meet my mark and others I don’t and I am ok with that. However for the past four years one of my goals has remained, to get pregnant and have a baby. I remember entering 2018 full of hope, praying and wishing that 2018 would be the year that would bring me new life in the form of a child…another year broken and unmet “goals”.

2019 is different, I find myself with no desire to think of my goals for this year or what our family plan should look like. All I know is that even though I haven’t decided on what my resolutions/goals (or whatever you prefer to call them) I haven’t given up. Though I am at a place of great loss and pain I choose to still see the light, I choose to believe that this is not my end, I choose to remember the words of an old song “He has not brought me this far to leave me”. So although this year a baby isn’t on my list I have chosen to focus on things that I can “control”, things like my prayer life, what I consume (literature, TV, music, food), travel, my spending, and my outlook on life, posting on a regular basis.

2019 is different. The difference is complex and I cannot unwrap it’s complexity in this one post but I promise if you stick with me we can unwrap it together and you can join me on my incredible journey.

I was personally dreading the upcoming holiday season, the 2018 Holiday Season was supposed to be different. I was supposed to be big and round with a belly sticking out. Thanksgiving weekend we would have traveled home to NYC for my first shower and the weekend after would have been my second shower, where we live. Those weekends, they came and went. The sadness stayed.

This Christmas would have been different, I had dreamed of taken amazing silhouette pictures by the tree, of wearing cheesy outfits and of snuggling my growing bug. This holiday season won’t be as expected. I have spent the holiday season wrestling with myself regarding how I feel and I have come to the conclusion that two contradicting truths can exist and often go hand in hand.

I can be in a place of grief and mourning yet still be thankful. I can have an attitude of gratitude and still be sad. It doesn’t have to one or the other, it can be both. In this season of grieving, I have learned a lot, I have learned what works for me and what doesn’t. I have learned to put the process of my emotional healing first and I have learned to be unapologetically me, despite the ugly things this type of grief brings out.

I have learned to be kind to myself and that it may look different for everyone and may vary from day to day. So what does “be kind to yourself” mean to me?

• It means to not beat myself up for how I feel. It means to embrace where I am for the moment, to cry when I feel like crying and to laugh when I feel like it. It means to not feel guilty for feeling happy or embracing moments of joy. Often times when you lose a child you feel like you are betraying them if you feel happy, laugh or sing. But I’m not betraying them. I’m embracing life and living it.
• Being kind to myself sometimes means giving myself a gentle nudge to get out of my funk, sometimes it means to force myself off the couch and do something else. But sometimes it means staying on the couch and do nothing else.
• Being kind to myself means treating myself with love and respect, to be patient with myself, to understand that I need to make this journey my own.

In this holiday season I have learned to embrace that my normal will no longer look the same, I will have a new normal, my life has been forever marked by the loss of my child. In my new normal I need to learn how to have joy in the midst of loss and that is a task that is not easily attained. So this Christmas we decided to start new traditions, traditions that we would have hoped to start once we had kids, but why wait?

I’ve never had a real Christmas tree before and this year we decided would be the year to start. We went to a beautiful tree farm, spent an hour in the cold and snow to find the perfect tree for us. So let me tell you, even though we don’t have our baby with us we were able to have found and enjoy the start of something new!

This Christmas I would encourage you to embrace your season, dig deep within yourself and don’t be afraid to live!

After what seemed like an endless week Friday finally came and I went to see my doctor. Thankfully the bleeding had slowed down and the pain was responsive to painkillers so I no longer felt like I was dying.

SN: I gave a urine sample at the beginning of my appointment.

I explained to the doctor how I felt and gave her all the excruciating details only to have her tell me that she didn’t think it was a miscarriage and there was no way to prove it. She assured me that it was probably a heavy period and that I would be ok. She also asked if I was interested in birth control and I said no because even though we weren’t actively trying I would like to get pregnant soon. At that point I felt a little hopeless because it was as if my miscarriage didn’t happen and as if my baby didn’t exist. The doctor says bye and tells me to schedule a follow up in 3 months in case I need “help” getting pregnant. So I go to the check-out window and as I am about to walk out they ask me to step back into the room. The Dr. explains that they used my urine sample for a pregnancy test and when the nurse checked it was negative but she forgot to discard it. When she walked by it again it was positive which meant that either I was pregnant or still had HCG[1] in my system.

Hello dreaded bloodwork (more on this later)… in order to see if I was still pregnant or miscarried I had to do a series of blood tests to see if my hCG was increasing or decreasing. If it increased I was still pregnant and the pregnancy might be ok, if it decreased I miscarried. After 96 hours of waiting it was confirmed that I miscarried which brought on mixed emotions; relief because at least I knew and sadness because a baby that I never knew existed but yearned for died. At least I knew that I wasn’t crazy, and I knew that I could say with certainty that everything that happened was not “normal” it was a miscarriage.

Had I known it was a miscarriage I wouldn’t have thrown the tissue out, I would have tried to go to the hospital 1) For confirmation 2) For closure and guidance 3) For pain management. I have ideas of what I think the tissue was but I really have no clue…could it have been skin from the baby (I think the baby had been decomposing for over 2 weeks but I won’t truly know), could it have been a part of the placenta[2]? or I don’t know I don’t think I’ll ever know. . .

Looking back at that day I feel sorry for myself, I wish I could tell her to breathe and not be ashamed of going to the hospital for herself. I would hug her and hold her tight, I would tell her to take time to heal and to slow down, she was stuck in a whirlwind. To not just pummel through this because she might think she’s getting rid of her emotions but she is simply burying seeds of sadness that will in turn produce trees of depression, anger, self–doubt, isolation and fear. I would tell her to grieve. I would explain to her that what happened was a traumatic event in her body and her soul so she must treat it as so. I’d tell her to seek help and sometimes to seek help outside of the church (not outside of Jesus). I’d tell her that her body just went through labor and that those terrible “cramps” were contractions, I’d tell her to invest in self-care and that her and her husband needed to be kind to one another. I’d tell her that she’s a warrior but that it’s ok to cry. I’d tell her to buckle up because the journey had only begun.

The following post is sensitive and may have some triggers

It was August 14, 2015, and I had been bleeding for about a day or two but because I had taken test after test I didn’t think anything of it and just thought I was finally getting the period I had missed for 4 months. Well on this day I bled heavier than ever. I was in what felt like excruciating pain, the cramps were normal at first and then got worse and worse as the day progressed.

At the time I was unemployed so I had started a small daycare in my home, that day I had two children to look after so despite the pain I had to go on. I played with them, fed them and then finally nap time came, I figured I should probably try to lay down and maybe the pain would subside but I was wrong. As I laid in the bed the pain became more intense and worsened so I gave up on napping. I moved to the couch and felt such intense pain in my lower abdomen and vagina, I had no clue why my “period” was so bad this month. I sat up on the edge of the couch and suddenly I had an overwhelming need and desire to push. Many thoughts went through my mind but I specifically remember thinking this is either a massive clot or somehow I am having a miscarriage. I pushed the thought of a miscarriage as deep and far as I could. So then with the next “cramp” I pushed. I pushed and got a sense of relief, then I got up and headed to the bathroom because I had to check and see what came out. I sat on the toilet and heard a “plop” when I checked I couldn’t see anything so I think whatever came out sank straight down in the toilet and drifted (at this point I have no clue that I am miscarrying).

Because I knew that something was definitely off with my body I used my fingers to check my vagina. I pulled out a very large piece of something that was the size of my palm, flesh-colored, and kind of looked like a piece of chicken breast, and at this point I am internally freaking out. Once again I tried to push the thought of a miscarriage as far back as possible as if trying to expel it from my brain. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe just maybe it was a miscarriage. I stayed on the toilet for a while because although my body expelled a large piece of tissue I still felt an urge to push. I waited for what I suspected to be a contraction and with it, I pushed more clots and tissue came out and I knew then that I was miscarrying. I texted a friend who’s a mom for some support and guidance because I felt like I had no idea what was happening to my body or what to expect. I told her that I thought it was a miscarriage and explained how everything was happening and she agreed.

At this point, I felt so alone. My family lives in a different city and I felt like there was no one I could call/ I didn’t know anyone that had experienced a miscarriage so there was no one I could reach out to. I texted my husband and gave him a heads up. Then in the middle of the madness, I get a phone call from an older friend (who is like a mom to me) explaining that she fell from her porch and might have broken both her ankles. So now I’m truly freaking out because I’m almost 100% sure that I am having a miscarriage, my dear friend is on her way to the hospital, and I have two small children whose nap is about to be over. So I clean myself up, I clean the toilet and the floor from the remnants of the massacre that had just occurred. I push my emotions and feelings down because things need to get done. I knew I had a few minutes before I had to wake the kids up and a few hours before my friend got out of surgery.

I used my few minutes to call my doctor’s office and the conversation went like this:

Me: hi yes I’m calling because I think I’m having a miscarriage

Secretary: what makes you say that?

Me: well I just had a horrific amount of clots and flesh colored tissue come out of me

Secretary: well did you know you were pregnant

Me: no, but I am 100% sure that this is what is happening

Secretary: well if you say so, what’s your name and date of birth?

Me: I provide the info.

Secretary: it looks like we can get you in at 9:45 am NEXT FRIDAY

My brain: —–, didn’t I tell you I’m having a ——– miscarriage and you want me to wait 7 days?!?!

Me: Well is that the earliest you have?

Secretary: yes.

Me: ok, then I guess I’ll take it.

I got off the phone feeling so discouraged. This was my OBGYN office, I was hoping I would get a little more compassion from them or that they would say “hey can you come in within 20 minutes or an hour or we don’t have anything available but can you go to the emergency room to make sure everything is passing as it should”. But no, instead I got a very cold reception and was made to feel as if I was dumb or stupid. I take 8 ibuprofens, wake the kids up and give them their afternoon snack. Once their parents come I get myself ready to go to the hospital to go to the ER to get meds and make sure that my body was ok. FALSE I did no such thing, I wanted to do that but instead I put my body and emotions on hold and drove straight into caring for my friend who needed me. I spent the rest of the weekend in the hospital with a few breaks here and there to shower and change. I wish I could tell you that the physical aspect of the miscarriage was over but it wasn’t. I cried every night because my body was taking its time shedding and getting rid of the pregnancy.

The pain was immense and felt unbearable, the amount of blood I was losing was scary but because of my previous phone encounter, I did not want to call the doctor’s office or go to the emergency room since the receptionist made it seem like I was just exaggerating my period symptoms.

To be continued…

I decided to start blogging for many reasons, some of which I can’t even begin to articulate. But below I detailed a few reasons.

1. I decided that I needed to do this as a small way to honor the life of my son. As if in some way I could share the impact he had on my life by sharing my story.
2. As a place of support. Infertility, miscarriage, and loss can be such taboo topics that often times we stuff the pain down and therefore feel alone. I wanted to share my life and stories as a place where others can find hope and if nothing more at least where they can know they are not alone.
3. To document my journey. I don’t believe this is where my story ends, though there were some days that in the midst of my pain and desperation I prayed for death. I know that this has only been a few chapters out of a very long book. I want to be able to look back and see where I came from and what God has done in my life. I know that my story will continue and we will be blessed beyond what we can think of.
4. To help me cope. Because this is a taboo topic we don’t feel comfortable discussing our feelings even with our closest friends. Infertility and miscarriages throw us into deep pools of grief and confusion that we don’t know how to fully navigate. For me, writing helps me cope, it helps me put into words the complexity of my emotions.
5. I wasn’t able to find many blogs from people that are still currently struggling/dealing with loss and infertility. I found blogs that deal with this topic at length but they are a little older and I wanted a real-time blog.

“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you” – Maya Angelou

– JT

Here you are and probably thinking, what’s the deal with this chick? So let me give you a quick backstory about our journey in trying to have kids. We got married in 2012 and before we said I Do, we had decided we wouldn’t try to have kids for at least 2 years that way we had time to enjoy ourselves before adding to our family. Fast-forward 3 years to 2015 and we had our first 2 miscarriages, then one in 2016, one in 2017 and most recently the loss of our son when I went into premature labor.

So when it comes to trying to conceive (TTC) we’ve had our share of pain. In this blog I will go into details about each of our losses and how I/we coped with each one of them. Hopefully you will find hope in our story.

– JT

This is a working document and I will be constantly updating this, if you notice that I have missed something please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

TTC: Trying to Conceive

IVF: In Vitro Fertilization

IUI: Intra-uterine insemination

hCG: human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone produced by our bodies during pregnancy

Trigger Shot: an injection of synthetic hCG that is used to trigger or cause ovulation. (Typically self-administered)

Timed Intercourse: when you monitor your ovarian/ovulation cycle and have sex around the time of ovulation

TWW: Two Week Wait, typically the amount of time that you have to wait (after either IVF or IUI or Timed Intercourse) before testing for pregnancy

PCOS: Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This name confuses a lot of us because it seems as if it is just an issue with ovaries but it is more in-depth than that. According to Mayo Clinic PCOS is a hormonal disorder that is common among women of reproductive age. Symptoms: irregular periods, facial hair (this affects my everyday life), hormonal imbalance (like we produce more male hormones than we should), and ovaries that might be bigger and contain little sacs of fluid. Weight gain around midsection and insulin resistance.

D&C: Dilation and Curettage is a process where they dilate your cervix and special instruments are inserted into your uterus to scrape the lining.

Cerclage: A procedure in which a stitch is used to form a loop or ring around the cervix, this helps the cervix remain closed.

Miscarriage: According to WebMD it is the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks, medically known as a spontaneous abortion

Incompetent Cervix: According to the Mayo Clinic, an incompetent cervix, also called a cervical insufficiency, occurs when weak cervical tissue causes or contributes to premature birth or the loss of an otherwise healthy pregnancy

Transabdominal Cerclage (TAC): The University of Chicago defines it as follows:  In a transabdominal cerclage procedure, a gynecologic surgeon makes an incision in the lower abdomen near the bikini line. Through this transabdominal incision, the surgeon places a small, woven synthetic band high on the cervix. The band supports the cervix, preventing it from opening and losing the pregnancy.