Michelle’s Story- Pregnancy and Infant Loss Series

Some people you will encounter in your life have the special ability to say the right things at the moment when you need to hear it the most. This is Michelle. Her voice to encourage others is soft, healing and comes from a place where she is all too familiar. I cannot begin to count the times where her words has helped heal myself and others when the wounds were deep. I think for her, it is through her pain and hardship that she is now able to be this light in the dark place. I read her guest post below thinking to myself,  “this same person is the ever present encourager, yet her grief left her silently grasping for away to escape the depths of loss .”   A juxtaposition if you will. Read on to learn about her story and what words helped send her on her path to healing, hope and the ability to inspire others. Thank you Michelle for sharing your story with us.

Michelle’s Story

It was November 2010. I remember the newest, much anticipated Harry Potter book had come out. I remember my stepson was struggling with a class in school. I remember I was broken. My body was whole but it felt as if two lives had been lost.
It had been our third pregnancy. I’d come to terms with the other two. After the devastating news of the first miscarriage, the statistic of 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage helped me wrap my head around our loss. I explained away the second miscarriage as a fluke and just plain bad luck. But this third one? My mind was not able to comprehend it.

We’d gone to the ultrasound with a little less trepidation this time because we’d already had one a couple weeks earlier and heard the heartbeat. So our usual anxiety level was not as high. My obgyn was awesome and had been through our entire journey. Week 12/13 was the week I usually lost the baby so she’d scheduled a follow up for us. My husband and I made small talk as we waited for the tech and glossed over any anxiety as just excitement. But then we saw “the look” in the tech’s eyes. She made uncomfortable excuses about needing a doctor and as she left the room quickly, we knew.

We sat there numb. We held hands, prayed and cried trying to understand how this could happen to us for a third time. My tears instinctively flowed but honestly, a part of me just shut down. The doctor came in and her words were a blur, garbled and just floating about the room. We were moved to another room and had to wait for the paperwork to be completed and yet another D&C scheduled for as soon as possible. The wait was tortuous. The waiting room had pregnant, hopeful women. The walls were closing in and it felt as if the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. Once I got outside I realized that the location didn’t change what I was feeling. It still felt like my world was closing in.
I got home and mechanically remembered that the doctor had strongly suggested testing be done on whatever came from the D&C to try to help figure out what was happening. So in my numbed grief, I called my insurance and got to explain to no less than three people that I’d just had a missed miscarriage (two of who did not know what this was so I got to explain that to them) and that I was trying to find out how much testing would cost. First off, no one said they were sorry for my loss and secondly, all I got was the runaround. No one could tell me anything. Finally after back and forth calls to the doctor’s office, the outpatient surgery center doing the D&C and the insurance company my numbness had turned into hateful tear stained anger. I was not nice on the phone. In the end I could only find out that a) yes they could do testing, but b) they could not tell me the cost, only that it could be anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to a few thousand and they could tell me once it was billed for and c) their rebuttal to my plea that testing could help end these outpatient surgeries was a very cheerful, oh that was no problem, they would cover as many D&C’s as I needed but no they would not cover any preventative testing. And yes, the lady tried her very best to put a happy and “aren’t you lucky” spin on that last fact, much to my disgust. I do not remember my words to her, but I do not imagine they were nice.

Once my anger subsided, the numbness settled back in. I could not sleep. I could only think about this lost life. I could only think about this little being dead and lifeless inside me when only yesterday he was my everything, growing and thriving. I felt my body had betrayed me. My womb was broke and killing instead of nurturing life. The part of me designed to grow and sustain life was failing me. These thoughts continued as I sat in the dark all night, numb.

The next day was the D&C. The people were lovely enough. I don’t remember a lot. I remember filling out paperwork and having to fill in the area that I had two previous pregnancies but zero live births. This part always hits me the hardest. Full of melancholy I always wonder if I’ll ever have a live birth and just how many zero live births are going to be tallied up for future genealogists to look at. Sigh. And I remember I shivered the moment I walked into the back. As with the two times before, they warmed saline bottles and packed them around me to keep me warm and brought me blankets fresh out the microwave. Other than that… a blur.
But this time was harder, this time hit me entirely differently. Previously the D&C was my cut off and jump off point. I mourned hard from the moment of the ultrasound until I was put under but after I woke up, I moved forward, I would be ready for the next try. But not this time. This time I looked blankly out the window as my husband drove me home and went straight to the couch in our bedroom. Where I stayed for close to two weeks.

My life consisted of staring at the weave of the cushion on the back of our couch. Of switching sides when my body got sore. I didn’t want to watch television. I didn’t want my phone. I didn’t even want to sleep on the bed because memories of how I dreamed of this little being and rubbed my belly waiting for it to show the love inside flooded over me. After a few days I tried to immerse myself in the new Harry Potter book. And it worked for a little bit, while I was reading my mind went with the words and I forgot for about the pain. But then it came back as soon as I put the book down. So I read voraciously to escape and all too soon I was finished.
Days and nights blurred. My husband and stepson’s visits blurred. I do not recall anything much other than the weave on the couch cushion to be honest. The world outside that room seemed too vast and I could not deal with it. I honestly was worrying even myself. Finally one night my husband somehow convinced me to step foot into our living room and turned on an ESPN show he’d recorded. Numbly I listened, not really caring where this was going. It was an interview with the Pittsburgh Steeler’s coach, Bill Cower. He was recounting a particularly rough time in his life and quoted Vince Lombardi…

“It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many time you get back up”

He might have said more but my mind stuck on that. My husband knew that would speak to me.

The next few days, yes still on the couch, my mind started thinking. The quote ran through my thoughts and in my heart. My loss was devastating to me but life is full of events that take you to your knees. My stepson was struggling in school to the point of tears sometimes. For him it was a big deal, as big of a deal as what I was going through in his brain. I suddenly realized that I HAD to get back up… I could not let this beat me. I did not know if I’d ever bear a child… my husband now carried that hope for the both of us… but I knew that if I did, I didn’t to be able to look him or her into the eye when they were struggling with something devastating in their lives and tell them I understood, and that I understood how hard it was to ask them to rise up but that I once did and they could too.
It wasn’t easy but I got off the couch eventually and got back into my life. I still felt numb and defeated and utterly devoid of hope. I clung to that quote and how I knew I needed to live it regardless of how I felt because I couldn’t face my stepson or my husband or family if I didn’t.

My story does have a happy ending in that I did eventually get the amazing child that I so longed for. That quote was my first step to “recovery”, then came an amazing group of women who helped me feel not so alone and finally being my own advocate on the journey… but those are stories for another day.