I dreamed I was miscarrying again last night. It’s a recurring nightmare I’ve had off and on since I learned I was unexpectedly pregnant for the fourth time. I have never sustained a completely natural pregnancy. The quiet ache in my uterus whispers that I am not capable of doing it this time either.
When my husband and I first started trying to conceive five years ago, I was 35. I got pregnant the first time we tried. We were elated. “Take that!” I thought to all the naysayers (imagined and real) who’d warned me I would never have children if I waited too long. We planned. We dreamed. I miscarried at 7 weeks. I was alone in a cheap hotel room in Waikiki for work, and woke up bleeding at 4:30 in the morning. I am fairly certain I accidentally flushed my baby down the hotel toilet. It was so tiny, and I didn’t know what to look for. I was devastated and empty.
I was told to wait a few months before trying again. Once we were in the clear, I conceived again right away, and miscarried again just as quickly. I had held myself in check a little more that time, but I honestly didn’t think it could happen to me twice, and I remember when I saw that telltale sign of blood on the toilet paper, I chastised myself: What made you think it would go differently this time?
The doctors were able to test the tiny bits of fetal tissue I salvaged that time, do blood tests, ultrasounds. Nothing conclusively explained what was causing the miscarriages, and I was told that at my age, two miscarriages were not unusual. Fertility intervention was not generally recommended until I had had a third, statistically more meaningful miscarriage that would indicate a real infertility issue. I was fairly certain I could not emotionally manage losing a third baby. And I felt the creeping chill of urgency. I didn’t have time to miscarry again. I needed to do something, so that I didn’t feel I was just sitting there waiting for another baby to die inside my body.
I started acupuncture and a progesterone routine to help boost my hormones, in case a lack of hormonal response was the reason I had not been able to sustain my first two pregnancies. We got serious about tracking my ovulation and timing everything. I would lie in bed with my legs in the air after intercourse, just in case it would help. I started traveling to Honolulu to see a special doctor. A year went by, and I hadn’t conceived again.
I decided to try Clomid. As I understood it, not only was it supposed to encourage my ovaries to release more eggs, it was supposed to improve the quality of the eggs that were released, so they would be more likely to result in a viable pregnancy if fertilized. Nothing happened the first month. The second month, I was pregnant again.
I began taking vaginal progesterone suppositories to provide additional hormonal support to the pregnancy. When we went in for our 8 week ultrasound, I kept telling my husband — and myself — we needed to prepare ourselves for the likelihood there would be no heartbeat. I gripped his hand and asked the ultrasound technician if there was a heartbeat as she searched around my belly and my vagina with a wand full of jelly. Her response: “Not only is there a heartbeat; there are two.” Twins! I was elated. My husband was terrified.
The next week, I jumped up to cheer during a football game I was watching on TV (Stanford vs. Oregon — a game involving strong emotions). That night, I started to bleed. I knew I was miscarrying. I called my naturopath. She came to my house and put needles in my toes and waved a burning herb stick called moxa around my belly and my feet, and miraculously, the bleeding stopped.
I was put on a modified bed rest. I could stand up and walk around the house, and I could drive, but that was basically it. No walking. No swimming. No lifting. No prolonged standing. Feet up as much as possible. No airplanes. Fortunately, my job was reasonably sedentary and I worked from home on my computer and my phone, so I could sit at my desk or on my sofa and get all my work done. The bleeding continued off and on for four weeks between my 9th and 13th weeks of pregnancy, but my naturopath was able to stop it with her moxa hocus pocus and little needles every time.
Once I hit the second trimester, I no longer needed the progesterone support, and stopped taking the suppositories. The vaginal bleeding stopped at the same time, but we were never able to determine if the bleeding was caused by cervical sensitivity to the progesterone suppositories, or if it was caused by something else. Either way, I was thrilled to be in my second trimester, and I put my faith in the magic of my Clomid-progesterone-acupuncture-moxa-bed rest-no flying cocktail that this pregnancy had enough support, and I had come far enough that it would last. But I still held myself back from total immersion in the joy of motherhood-to-be. In case something terrible happened again, I did not want the agony of surprise and anger at myself for being taken unaware a third time on top of the devastation of losing my babies. At one point, someone said to me that they hoped at least one of my babies survived, and I remember being furious — losing a life is losing a life, whether that baby is a singleton or a twin. I know they meant well, but the thought of losing one of my babies already sent that mother fear through me deeply. When I explained the mix of terror and self preservation I was feeling around my pregnancy to a dear friend, she looked at me knowingly with her own precious babe on her breast, and said, “Kimmy, I know everything is going to be OK, but you are not going to feel safe until you hold those two babies safely in your arms.” She was right. Not until I clutched two perfectly healthy 5.7 and 6.1 lb babies to my breasts simultaneously did I feel the elation of motherhood that I think many women feel during pregnancy. I had two beautiful baby girls, already so unique from each other, and our family was complete. Nevermind that I had hemorrhaged two liters of blood in the process, and had landed in the ICU. I had my babies.
Now here I am, on the verge of 40, apparently scheduled to have three children under the age of three this coming November. I am 13 weeks along. I check for blood every time I go to the bathroom. I beg fervently for a miracle each night before I go to sleep. I haven’t bled a drop. I have had to modify my previously very active exercise routine down to a gentler movement regimen. I can no longer carry both babies at once, as I was used to doing all day every day in my beloved Twingaroo carrier to go to the store, the post office, and basically anywhere else. My girls will turn two this month, and their combined weight exceeds 50 pounds, which my doctor felt was too heavy. I have had uterine and lower back pain almost every day of the pregnancy. I have believed I was miscarrying at least ten times. My doctor told me recently that the likelihood of miscarriage at this point is less than 1%, and my other tests have come back with a low likelihood of the most common chromosomal abnormalities that can be more likely in the pregnancies of older women. All of this information is an enormous relief. And I am beginning to allow myself to start planning the logistics of having a third baby. Our office will need to become a nursery at some point in our very small house. Our Prius will most likely need to be traded in for a mini van. My girls might start pre-school sooner than I’d planned. I will have to reacquire much of the baby gear I’ve long since handed down to friends and family. All of these logistical challenges are whispers of hope that I harbor like a fragile light between my bare hands.
But if you see me, and you congratulate me, and I seem somehow not alive enough to the fact that I am pregnant, please know that I am going to be ecstatic in November, when I am holding a healthy baby in my arms, a boy, we just found out. But until then, I will most likely be a neurotic, anxious mess. And while I may seem like a complete train wreck (or, alternately, an automaton) to you, I am doing what I need to do to cope with my terror of losing a third baby; a baby who has not been supported by the magic Clomid-progesterone-acupuncture-moxa-bed rest-no flying cocktail that safeguarded my baby girls; a baby who, if he arrives safely in my arms, will be a miracle and a mystery to me. I will relinquish my heart to him completely. Until then, I ask for your gentle understanding of the wide-eyed crazy pregnant lady you may run into at the post office. She is hopped up on hormones and gripped with fear that she has not yet been able to lay to rest.