Pain Like No Other

It seemed like the longest ride home from the hospital. I stared out the window. I bawled. My eyes were sore and puffy. I went home, laid in bed and stared at the ceiling sobbing. My skin was soaked in tears. My mouth was dry from crying. My voice was almost gone. I prayed that this was just a nightmare and I would wake up. I prayed that surely this was just a mistake made by the doctor. I prayed that tomorrow I would wake up and I would still be pregnant.

 When I woke up the next day I felt my already deflating tummy, I felt the stiffness around my tear soaked eyes. My pillow was full of mascara. My contacts were dry and fogged. It was real and there was nothing I could do about it. 

I decided I would pray that it all happen quickly and be over with. Please don't make me carry around my deceased tiny baby. I was told it could start anywhere between a few days and possibly up to 4 weeks. The thought of walking around with my lifeless little baby was gut wrenching. I begged God to please just let it start as soon as possible. That day, my husband and I went on a walk. We walked to the park. We did a lap around the walking path. I was numb. My mind was cloudy. We didn't do much talking, I was practically unable to speak. I started to feel slight cramping. I knew it was coming. On the way home, a man with a tiny puppy walked by. I asked to pet the puppy. It was a goldendoodle. It was the first time I had smiled in 48 hours. 

My prayers were answered. The next day, on Mother's Day, the heavy bleeding and physical pain started. It was hard for me to function. I had terrible contractions from 8pm that evening that carried into the next day. I went from my bed to the toilet back and forth back and forth crying, bleeding, and pushing. The pain was unbearable. I would curl up in my bed and scream in pain and run to the bathroom with this awful urge to push. I was puking and thought I was dying. This went on from around 10pm and got worse and worse. I am surprised our tenants didn't come down. I was screaming.

I could tell my husband was freaking out a little inside. He asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. He didn't know what to do. Neither of us really knew what to expect. I forced him  to go to work around 5am. I didn't want him to see me in such distressed. I assured him I would be fine. Little did I know what was going to happen.

I called my mom around 5:30am and she immediately came over. Around 8:30am she rushed me to the hospital during morning rush hour traffic. I was screaming my head off in the passenger seat with my feet up on the dashboard the entire way. The pain was unbearable. These contractions were now super close together and excruciating. We arrived at the hospital at 9:06am and I delivered my tiny baby, sac, and placenta at 9:10am. They pulled it out from under me and placed it in a small "tub." Before this all happened, the day we found out we lost the baby, my doctor gave me a small specimen jar to collect any tissues from the toilet. I was told I would not see anything that resembled a baby. I was told it would just be a heavy period. They were wrong. They asked if I wanted to see it, I chose not to look. I asked the sweet nurse to just tell me what I just pushed out and how big the baby was. She told me I pushed out the placenta, the sac, and the baby was in the sac. She told me it was "a good size," whatever that means... It was the most traumatizing experience of my life. My husband rushed over as soon as he could.

I was asked if I wanted genetic testing on the fetus, maybe to get some answers. Well of course I did. Of course I wanted to know how and why this could happen to me. I was told insurance wouldn't cover it and it was $6,000. We clearly opted to skip it. Still in tears and shock, I was bombarded with papers to sign and decisions to make. Burial? Mass burial? Cremation?  Was this really happening? I felt like I was living a nightmare... and I sure was. I was issued a death certificate. To this day, I still haven't looked at it. It is sitting in my home office drawer. This was the first time I realized that the term "heart ache" is real. My heart throbbed. We left the hospital with a folder of grieving information, a death certificate, and broken hearts.

That night I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. My throat was sore from crying and my eyes were swollen and red. I noticed a tiny little spider in the corner of the room. I turned to my husband, who I would usually force to kill anything with legs on the walls and ceilings, and said, "Look at that little baby spider." His reply was "Want me to kill it babe?" I didn't want that at all. I found comfort in watching the tiny little spider walk around the ceiling. We both held each other and watched the tiny spider move about the ceiling until we fell asleep. The next morning I looked for "my spider" and there it was. I watched the spider move around and checked on it frequently. For a few days we both watched it before bed until we fell asleep, and then it was gone.

I would never be the same. I could never be the same. My life was changed forever. I was a different person.