Trigger: Yes, I’m trigger warning this. 1. I’m a liberal so apparently that’s just what we do (insert tongue into cheek) 2. This is actually a sensitive topic for many and can trigger feelings that maybe they want to avoid. 3. My loss is minor compared to what others may be dealing with or have dealt with (including infertility) but I write this as it relates to me and how it felt in my life. So trigger warning for miscarriage and living children.
I am one in four. One in four women have a miscarriage, a stillborn baby, or lose an infant. 25% of women. I don’t write this post for sympathy or as a pat on the back. I write it simply to talk about something that has been a huge part of our year and to let people know that if you’re 1 in 4, you’re not alone. Even if maybe it sometimes feels like it. I’ll be here to talk about it if you ever want to. And I have talked about it to people. I recognize that it also makes people uncomfortable but I keep talking. So many women on the loss boards I frequented this spring felt alone. But they aren’t. 1 in 4 can relate. I hope that by being open, if someone I know has a loss, they’ll remember me and feel less alone.
I also write this story to explain how we are both adopting and having a baby within four months of each other. I want to share how that happened and to explain why it happened. No, we haven’t completely lost our minds. And yes, THIS BABY WAS PLANNED. Ya’ll can stop asking! (Yes, a few people have just openly asked.) For the record, you probably shouldn’t ask. Kind of rude even though I can only imagine how curious everyone has been.
Here goes nothing.
To start at the beginning, we’re going way back to the summer of 2016. We knew we wanted another child. We were also pretty sure it was only going to be one more. For a while we went back and forth between wanting to foster (and hopefully adopt) or have one more baby. We knew we had to choose. We ultimately chose to foster and became licensed in December of 2016.
While we were told there was a desperate need for homes, we only got one placement for all of 2017 – A little guy who was with us for 4 months. We started to get restless and decided to start trying for another bio baby in January 2018 and whatever happened first would happen.
On Valentines day they called us with two girls. One within our age range and one in preschool. I had to say no. I cried and cried with frustration that we weren’t getting a call from we could take. The next day I found out I was pregnant. Due late October. We were so excited. We chose to keep our name on the list for the time being just in case something happened, and planned to just turn down any placements.
Then in the beginning of March, when I was six weeks pregnant, we got a call. This wasn’t the usual call. This wasn’t a fostering call. This was an adoption call! We’ve only ever been on the fost/adopt list, never on the straight adoption list so I was shocked. They had an 18 month old girl who was likely going to adoption. They told me her name. They told me a bit about her. What were the odds?! How did we even get the call? Turns out, her social worker had talked to our licensing social worker whomet us over a year before and she mentioned us when the talk of a home came up. Someone talked to someone else and that’s how we got a call. I knew hubby would never be on board, but I had to call him. I told the social worker I’d call her back and called my husband.
Almost right away I knew he was on board. It meant 4 kids. It meant so much work. But this was a kid who needed a home and we had room and could take her and love her. It wasn’t a maybe situation like fostering. It was a pretty cut and dry adoption case. I asked if hubby wanted to know her name and I could hear him laugh as he said “no”. I think he knew that once he heard the name he was done. And he was. I asked if he wanted me to wait to call her back until the next day so we had time to think about it. Nope, we called back and told the social worker we were ready to meet the little one.
About a week later we met her in person. Her foster mom at the time brought her to meet us in a small visiting room at DSS. It was surreal. Watching this small person walk in and know that she might be our daughter. She was so petite. So blonde. Big blue eyes. We moved forward. We learned about her history. We set up a schedule to help her get to know us a bit with visits, then overnights, before she moved in. We began to plan for what life with 4 kids would be like.
A few days before Easter she moved in. Two days after Easter we went in for my 10 week appointment and for our first ultrasound. She was with us. Big girls were with a friend. The ultrasound didn’t go as planned. The baby had developed, had even made it to the point where it had a heartbeat. Sadly, that heartbeat had stopped about 3 weeks prior to my appointment. My uterus was huge. I still felt pregnant. My body was sure I was still pregnant. But the tiny little gummy bear shape in my uterus wasn’t alive and hadn’t been for weeks. I had a missed miscarriage.
I’m sure the NP thought I had lost my mind. I was simultaneously laughing and crying. I was so sad but also saying how now I could go on the rides at Disneyland. Some of my family has a very dark sense of humor. Part of me had almost expected it because I’ve been so lucky, I felt like the other shoe had to drop eventually. I had also struggled to find a heartbeat via doppler but hoped it was just because I was heavier this pregnancy.
We had already had the “what if” conversation weeks prior and hubby was of the opinion that if something went wrong, we’d be done. Babies are a two yes, one no situation at our house. Meaning if one person isn’t on board, there would be no more babies. In that small room I told the NP we weredone but hubby piped up and said maybe not.
We went to a second appointment to confirm and then scheduled a D&C procedure for the next day. I was supposed to go to Disneyland the next week with family. I had no desire to miscarry at home with 3 children and knew that it might take awhile considering my body was still hanging on 3 weeks later. I also really didn’t want to worry about a miscarriage at Disneyland. So surgery seemed like the logical choice that allowed life to go on as planned for our three children.
The next day I went in for surgery. I was okay until the doctor came in to talk to me. He was an angel and held my hand while I sobbed. Told me that his wife had the same thing happen with their first pregnancy. They put the medicine in. I remember being wheeled back. The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery area. I was told I could try again immediately, that it was likely a chromosomal issue.
Those next few days were brutal. Not able to sleep, crying in the shower at 11pm types of brutal. Hubby told me he wasn’t kidding when he said maybe we’d try again in the doctors office but he wasn’t sure. I asked him to decide sooner rather than later, but told him I was okay with whatever he chose. I just acknowledged that I may need therapy if it was a no to fully process my grief and to let go of that idea of one more pregnancy.
He said lets go again. We were used to the idea of 4, and so that was that.
At the end of May we found out we were expecting again. Every time I saw the NP those first few appointments, I cried on sight. The women who worked at my office were excited to see me back. I’m pretty sure they all saw me cry at least once. When I went in, my blood pressure would be sky high from anxiety. I had my first ultrasound at 8 weeks and multiple days of blood testing to make sure my HCG was going up appropriately. We even had early genetic testing for the first time; but here we are at 22 weeks and I’m feeling the baby everyday now.
That’s how we got here. I don’t really believe in much of a higher power these days, but it definitely feels like something was at play here. The odds of an adoption call coming in at all are crazy. The odds of it coming in while already pregnant even crazier. If we hadn’t had her in our lives when we lost the baby I cannot even fathom how we would have grieved. Or if the call came and we had said no. We are meant to be together with her. Everything worked out in ways I couldn’t imagine.
So yes, the pregnancy was planned. In a way that idea came first. We just had some grief along the way. We are going to have 4 kids. We are going to adopt our youngest and then have another baby less than four months later. We’re happy and frazzled, but this is our life. Turns out we never had to choose between adopting and one more bio baby.
