Loss

For eleven days, we lived a dream. 

For eleven days, we were parents.

Fourteen days after our third IUI, there were two pink lines. Something I had waited years to see. 

There were kisses and tears and excitement flowed between us. We tempered our excitement with realism, knowing we needed to have a blood test for confirmation. The blood test came back positive. But my HCG levels were low. Only a 24. Low, but ripe with promise and potential. 36 hours later, they were at 60 and on track for a steady rise. We scheduled a 6 week ultrasound. 

We let close family and a few friends know. We held each other close. I prayed every day, saying "strong baby, healthy baby," over and over. I named our little angel "nugget" and hoped that he or she would hold on and be ours forever. 

I bought pants that would stretch with me for a few months. I started thinking about paint colors for the guest room. I read everything I could about having a healthy first trimester.

My body changed. I was exhausted. Sore. In desperate need to upgrade my bra size. Moody. Hungry, Bloated. Slightly crampy. Nauseated. 

Then, nine days after the test, five a half weeks into my pregnancy, the pain started. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were awful. I didn't sleep. I couldn't go to work. I clutched my tummy and just prayed it was progesterone side effects. The pain stopped. I went to work on Thursday morning. I started bleeding lightly. I threw up in the bathroom and left work immediately.

I went home, called the doctor frantically. I went in for a scan, and the ultrasound didn't show anything. No yolk sac. No heartbeat. It was still early, and possible that nothing would show up. I was sent to get blood work done. We held out hope that things were okay. 

Friday morning, there was a gush of red, and we knew. Our angel was gone. Tears and sobs and desperate aching. My blood levels showed a miscarriage. "Spontaneous abortion" was the official diagnosis.

So now I wait. Wait for the bleeding and pain to stop. Wait for the nightmare to end and dawn to break. Wait to be able to choke out a sentence without feeling like I am going to vomit. 

Three years. Three IUIs. Countless shots. Thousands of dollars. A million wishes and prayers and hopes. Gone in a moment and in a rush of blood.

I am exhausted and weak and broken. I do not understand. 

I awoke this morning with a horrible thought. The thought that I flushed my baby down the toilet yesterday morning. 

There are those that will try to placate me and say, "it was so early." Or, "it wasn't a baby yet."

They don't understand. In that magical moment when divinely appointed conception occurs, it is a baby. It is a life. It is full of hope and promise and that baby, small as a poppy seed, contains all of the promise of life. 

I know that early miscarriages happen because things aren't right. Genetically. Developmentally. They are Heavenly Father's way of mercifully taking care of things as gently and naturally as possible. 

Mercy hurts like hell. 

So we wait. And we pray. And I bleed. And I yell and cry and hit the wall. And I love my little angel that I miss desperately already.

We're not ready to talk about things in depth, but as we have opened our life and struggle to so many, we share the new of this tragedy and our deep sorrow as well. 

We'll try again. And again. And again. We will have a family.

And someday, we will meet our angel baby and my tears of sadness will turn to tears of joy and understanding.