Our Miscarriage Story...

The title of this post says it all. We miscarried.

We are heartbroken at this loss, but, just as I did with our conception story, I wanted to share this with you. I've read so many miscarriage stories that helped me, and I hope this one helps you.


On Monday, October 19th, I woke up to spotting. Nothing serious at all. The toilet paper was slightly pink when I wiped and so I wasn't too worried. Spotting in pregnancy, especially early pregnancy, is normal, so they say. I heard that if I was in pain I needed to get to a doctor, but there was no pain at all.

That week was shaping up to be a busy one. Aaron and I were scheduled to leave on vacation the following Sunday. If you follow "The Simple Life" you know that I am not the type of person that can just leave my house any old way when I'm out of town. It needs to be clean, and ready for me to come home to before I leave. So I had a lot of cleaning to do, lots of laundry to catch up on, packing, a shopping trip for snacks, my sister in law and her husband were putting on a haunted woods on Friday night and on top of it all, my car was in the shop. So i did what I could, when I could. I would do 30 minutes of a task, and rest for 30 minutes. I wasn't working through my list as quickly as I'd anticipated, so my Mom offered to come and help me that Saturday (the 24th).

On the 23rd, she and I made a trip into town where I did my shopping. The spotting was still present, it had been very off and on the entire week, but it was so light that it really didn't make me worry. That night was the Haunted Woods at my sister in law's house. Originally I had planned to be in it, but after discovering I was pregnant I decided I'd rather skip it. I went over to their house anyway and helped them get their makeup done and just hung out with the girls before the shin-dig started. During a potty break, I noticed that now I was bleeding. It was light, but it was bleeding, definitely more than spotting. I would consider it day 5 of a period (and my periods run 5 days, fyi.) But it freaked me out. So I got my things and told two of my sister in law (one of whom is a nurse) that I was going home. Aaron was already somewhere out in the woods ready for the show, so I told them to let him know but to not rush home. If I needed him I would call my niece and have her go find him for me. I came home, showered, and rested. And the bleeding stopped. Ok.

The next morning, I woke up to a phone call from Aaron, who had taken my car to get worked on. He said it would not be ready for us to take on the trip the next day, and I started to freak out. My hormones were out of this world and I cried nearly the entire day. My mom finally got to our house, helped me get calmed down and helped me clean the house. She took Tabby home with her to keep her for the week, and we packed and went to bed.

The next morning, still spotting. It was heavy spotting, but still, according to my doctors office, whom I had been in contact with every day during this time, it was normal and it was perfectly fine for me to go on this trip if I felt up to it. And I did. I wanted that vacation so badly.


We arrived in Pigeon Forge around 1pm and got settled into our cabin. I felt so pregnant. So bloated, so tired. I was having to pee every five minutes, my breasts were hurting and all I could think about was a nap. After a few hours of rest, we went out to get some groceries at the Kroger just down the road. While we were there, I started feeling horrible. I was cramping and by now the bleeding had picked up to where I needed to wear a pad. We got what we needed and went back to the cabin.

During The Walking Dead, which we cannot ever miss an episode of, I felt fine, until it got toward the end. I was cramping so bad, so frequently that I couldn't even finish the show. Aaron, who was truly amazing during this time, ran me a tub of warm water for me to soak in, It was a heart shaped tub - slightly tacky, but whatever, it was a godsend - and it sat to the side of the bedroom. So he put a movie on for me to watch while I was in there. The tub trick worked so well that I fell asleep. He let me sleep for a good hour, and then woke me up, and got me ready for bed.

It was about 2 in the morning when I woke up with the cramps. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I'll never forget that I was wearing my pale pink nightgown and that we slept with the TV on because the power button on the remote didn't work. I'll never forget that the only light for a while was the pale blue/gray flicker of the television. I went into the bathroom where I discovered I was bleeding much more heavily. Like day 2 of a regular period. I've always had really rough periods, ever since I first started having them. And I've had worse cramps and bled more on a period, and that's what made it so hard for me to believe that we miscarried. But I knew that bleeding like this while pregnant was not a good idea. I also found that when I would wipe that I was passing small clots. About the size of the home button on an iPhone, maybe a little smaller at times. And that's when I started crying. It woke Aaron up and he came running, flipping on the tiny bathroom's light. He sat with me for hours while I cried. I was crying because of the pain, I was crying because I knew that I was losing the baby.

Finally, the pain subsided and I was able to go back to bed. In fact, I dozed off sitting on the toilet leaning on Aaron's shoulder first. I called my Doctor the next morning and she suggested I take another pregnancy test and see if it was still positive and dark. If it was negative or lighter than the last test I took (which had been the previous Saturday and it was dark) to go to the ER. The test came back positive, dark positive, immediately. And because I was feeling better, but still bleeding, we went about our day.

I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we went out to eat, I'm glad that we went to the Hollywood Wax Museum. At least we have some good memories to look back on from this hard time.

Monday night, I was aching again. Aaron gave me two Tylenol - the dr said to take them if I needed them not to tough it out and be a hero - and put me back in the tub. I watched Dancing With The Stars from there, and finally went to bed well after midnight.

Tuesday we didn't have the best day. We'd been somehow roped into a time share presentation, but at the end of it all we ended up with tickets to some of the shows down there for a third of the price. A 90 minute presentation turned into nearly 2 and a half hours, and every minute of it had been walking. I wanted to take Aaron to see the Ripley's Aquarium so badly, but I was feeling so so horrible that we decided to go home and rest.

That night, we went to the Comedy Barn. It was the most fun we had during that trip. I felt pregnant still. My belly was so bloated that not only was I wearing maternity leggings but the chambray shirt I was wearing I had to leave the bottom unbuttoned to accommodate it. I laughed so hard, and was so proud and tickled when Aaron got to go on stage during the last skit with Eric Lambert - it was a dream come true for him. So check that one off the bucket list for him.


Wednesday morning, I woke up with a leg cramp. The leg cramps had been so horrible during the early days of the pregnancy that i was dreading having to spend the day fighting another one. So I got up, paddled into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet.


If you don't want to read the full description of what happened and what it looked like (we did not take photos, so no fear of that) feel free to skip ahead, you won't hurt my feelings.

I did my business, just a little tinkle. I sat there for a second, like you do when you first wake up, trying to get my bearings, wake up a little bit more. The feeling started deep inside, and I could feel whatever it was sliding downwards. I knew it wasn't good. I just knew it. Suddenly... plop. Into the commode it went. I opened my mouth to scream for Aaron, but decided not to, until I saw how badly I was bleeding. So I wadded up some toilet paper (that felt like cardboard, btw) and wiped. When I looked I saw a strip of tissue... it looked a little bit like boiled meat, had sort of a gray/beige look to it. It was probably a little over an inch long, and surrounded with mucus and blood. Not. Good.

I called for Aaron and he jumped up out of the bed. I handed him the toilet paper, and reached into the toilet to get whatever I had passed. When I pulled my hand up and saw it, while it didn't look like a baby, it didn't look like much of anything, I knew that that's what it was. it was about the size of a marble, not perfectly round, sort of egg shaped. it was black, like a big blood clot. It wasn't perfectly smooth, it had a few lumps and bumps on it. We both looked at it under the lights for a few minutes and thought we saw what looked like a cord coming from the top. It was about the width of a strand of spaghetti. I remember saying "oh... that's it."

I put on a clean pad (still wasn't filling pads or bleeding a whole ton) and called my doctor and explained everything to them. The nurse advised us that the safest thing to do would be come home. She said come to the ER to get checked out. So in record time, like 10 minutes, we packed everything up, including whatever I had passed, called the rental place, got a refund and headed home.

Our 5 hour car ride was very somber. Neither of us said much of anything. Aaron was a man on a mission, his eyes focused on the road while I sat in the passenger seat with my feet up and a pillow wrapped around my middle. I wasn't in any pain anymore. The bleeding was coming and going by this time. We called our family and told them what was going on. We held hands the whole trip and silently prayed for a miracle and for the strength we needed to endure whatever waited up the road for us.

We didn't even go home to drop off our bags. We drove straight to the ER. Thankfully they weren't very busy and I got in right away. 4 hours, a really uncomfortable blood draw, a painful catheter insertion, and an internal ultrasound later, all they could tell us was "we don't know." The ultrasound showed nothing. An enlarged endometrium was the best they could offer us there. My urine test showed there was blood in my urine, and why they were surprised I don't know, and my blood worked showed that my hCG level was 122. They said I was either 5 weeks pregnant, or I had miscarried. They kept the plastic bag of what I'd passed. Go home and rest was the verdict. So we went home, and kept the secret close to us for a few days, aside from telling family.

The following Friday they wanted me to come in for more blood work. So Aaron and I got up and got dressed and went down there together. Then it was a wait all weekend sort of thing. Over the weekend we decided to share what was happening on Facebook so that our friends could pray for us, but we knew we weren't fooling anyone. We knew that the pregnancy was over.

Aaron had to go back to work on Monday the 2nd. So I was home alone when the call came that morning. My hCG level had dropped to 60 from Wednesday to Friday. I had miscarried. We wish that we had never left the bag with the ER. At least we would have had something to bury.


Thank the Lord for good friends. The outpouring of love has been really overwhelming. That Monday night Aaron's cousin came by with a cake and a warm hug. One of Aaron's cousin's wives dropped off ice cream and Reese's cups for me on Tuesday. Today a friend is bringing by lasagna for our supper. The same ones that were beating down our door with car loads of baby things are beating down the door with things to comfort us in our time of trial. It really is like that song says: "you find out who your friends are." I am overwhelmed at the kind things people have been saying to us on Facebook, our friends and our family are offering us such inspiring things, saying how they believe that we are meant to be parents and that one day it will happen.

Monday, after I heard the news, all I could think about was the Beatles' song "Let it Be." When I find myself in times of trouble.... there will be an answer. Let it be. I will not pretend that I understand the mind of God. I will not even begin to try. I don't know why God does what he does, when he does it. I don't know why, after nearly 3 years, we finally got pregnant, only to lose it 7 weeks later. I don't know. It's not for me to know. You can't change what God determines, because He knows best. God's plan is perfect. His will is perfect and nothing else in this universe is. I believe that we will have a child. We will have our rainbow baby. God put a rainbow in the clouds after the flood, he can put a rainbow in our lives too. God's plan is not for me to know or understand. If we knew what was coming in our lives, why would we even get out of bed. If the people that walked onto the Titanic that day in April 1912 knew that in a few days they would be drowning and freezing to death after a shipwreck, would they have gotten on board? No way. I've always believed that life is an adventure, and not all adventures turn out to be good. I sometimes joke with my friends and family that I'm a bit of a professional when it comes to grief and loss because I've had to deal with it so much in my lifetime. Maybe now it's not so much of a joke.


So now we are on the path to recovery. Physically I feel pretty much like my old self. I'm very tired, and the bleeding stopped by Friday. I'm fighting internally and emotionally about 99% of the time. I'm the type of person that needs to "keep busy" during really stressful times. I'm a cleaner, so I clean. I'll lose myself in a project, perhaps I'll finally get my living room painted. Might even repaint my kitchen too. I'll fall into movies and books and my writing and maybe even make a little headway on my novel. I'm going to be over affectionate to my dog, and I'll stick to Aaron closer than I ever have.  I'm going to keep losing weight, I'm down 15 so far, and I will try to take better care of myself. It looks like it will be in January when we get the OK to try again so for the rest of this year, my plan is to focus on my marriage, myself and my home. Today hasn't been a very good day, and that's why I decided to sit down and write it all out.

Please pray for us during this hard time, and pray that one day we may be able to have a successful pregnancy.




There will be an answer.... let it be.