Mara Elidi

This is a first trimester birth story, the story of my fourth child.
I give this as both an opening and a caution, because parts of this story may trigger anxiety especially for those who are currently pregnant or have experienced miscarriage at home. There are also physically graphic parts to this story to describe the events following my miscarriage.

On May 1st, after 9 months of trying to conceive, a little help from letrozole, and a cross-country move... we learned I was pregnant.
That day and the weeks that followed were full of anxiety but also of intentional faith and thankfulness. Nausea, headaches, tenderness, fatigue, and emotional instability all made me so happy to feel. Knowing I feared attaching to this baby, I attached anyway. We took advantage of BabiesRUs going out of business and bought a bassinet and swing. We were requesting Ryan be placed in follow on courses so I could deliver here before we move again. We were speaking like we would bring a living baby home in January. It was pure joy every time we saw a heartbeat on the sonogram screen. 

Today, it has been one whole month since her birthday. Since we held her and kissed her and smelled her. I was 13 weeks pregnant when I had her at home. 

At 12 weeks 5 days (and the day after the 3rd anniversary of Eden's funeral), I went to the ER. I was having abdominal and back pain with little relief and felt something was not right. I told my husband he didn't need to come, because I had hoped I was just being worried. Pregnancy after loss after loss after loss can make someone feel like they've gone insane with worry and assumption that they are no longer carrying life.
He went to work, and I headed to the hospital. They'd seen me there four times already, for pneumonia once and three times for fear that something was wrong. This time, something was. 

A quick note about my experience in the ER this time- it was terrible. It was cold, cruel, and rude. No one would speak to me during the ultrasound. They all spoke over me and addressed each other without answering my questions or requests to see my baby. I knew, and no one would tell me. There was time between the scan and the nurse practitioner coming in for me to call and tell Ryan he needed to be there, for him to drive all the way from post to downtown, park, and come in to calm me down. I still held hope that I was being silly, because surely someone would have come in by then. The nurse practitioner smelled like cigarettes, because she took a smoke break and discharged me before she came in to tell my that my baby had died. She shrugged her shoulders when she said it. We were rushed away on a day that they'd already told us they weren't busy. It was gross. My experience with my Baby Errol at 6 weeks was exponentially more gentle. When I feel comfortable, I'm going to write a letter and take some doula materials up there, to show them the importance of kindness and bedside manners during bereavement. I hate that so many mothers find themselves in this kind of experience when their babies die before 20 weeks.

That afternoon, I was able to see my OB doctor. He came in compassionately and sat with me, laying my options on the table: wait and let the miscarriage begin naturally, have a D&C, or take the induction medication at home.
My decision was based on past experiences. Mason had been gone over a week before I found out, and it was almost two weeks by the time I was induced. I couldn't bear to wait for my body to take it's course, as it was betraying me even in that moment. Secondly, I wanted to avoid the sadness and lack of closure I had with Baby Errol. I knew I had passed him. I saw him in a tiny sac, in my toilet, and I flushed my baby. I wanted to see, hold, and kiss my baby. A D&C would not allow for that. I chose the induction at home. 

This happened on a Tuesday, and we wanted to prepare and spend the time we had with her as well as the immediate time after without rushing, worrying over work or anything else. We chose Friday morning as a time to start the medicine, understanding I could take up to 24 hours of the medicine (cytotec) before a D&C would be the next step.
The days between gave us time to prepare for a "home birth". We bought little blankets, a new nightgown, a box to stain and carry her in. We chose a jasmine and wild orange oil blend for her scent memory. I took self portraits with her inside me. Ryan made arrangements for cremation at the funeral home. We prayed over the coming days. We named her. 

Mara was a character in the Bible, Ruth's mother in-law. Her name was Naomi until she changed it when her sons and husband died, declaring that the Lord had dealt bitterly with her. It felt appropriate that week. I prayed candidly, telling God that I was confused and bitter. Yet, I was so thankful. From the moment we had a positive pregnancy test, we referred to this baby as "Baby Sunny". She came when we moved away from the gray skies found the literal sunshine. We found the name Elidi, which means gift of the sun. Together, these names fit our girl perfectly.

Friday morning was spent quietly listening to music and crocheting two tiny blankets (one for her, one for us) from the one I started the day Ryan returned from deployment and we began trying to conceive. Ryan came home around noon, and the quiet labor began to pick up. I laid on a heating pad and sipped tea. The waiting was peaceful, the pain had a purpose. It was a centered and spiritual experience.

In the afternoon, I felt my water "break". I had no bleeding before this point. Things happened quickly afterward.

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On July 6th at 4:19 pm, our sweet baby was born to me in the bathroom, by the yellow bathtub.

That familiar silence was so loud.

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I caught her, called Ryan in, and rinsed her off gently. 

We took her in the kitchen, where we had flowers and candles and her blankets near her box.

We took pictures of her alone and with each of us. I heard myself keep repeating, "Oh, she's just so cute!" because she was really cute and I was just in awe. Her face looked to be smiling, her hands together, her legs folded. This was the first time any of my babies has been outside of me and still inside my home. The dogs stayed close by, curious and gentle. It's so special to me that it happened this way, truly a generous answer to prayer that I just wanted to hold my child.

It wasn't long after that when we tucked her into her blanket and the box we picked just for her, then took her to the funeral home.
In the car before we went inside, my precious husband blessed our baby. We're probably not "qualified" for this but nonetheless we felt the presence of Jesus in the front seat of my Kia. He dedicated Mara to the Lord, we cried, and carried her inside.

When we left I began bleeding heavily, through my pants into the car seat. Ryan rushed me home and the bleeding kept picking up. I wanted to seem okay physically, and we were both hungry from not eating all day. So I sent him to get supper. I started getting dizzy, wondering how much water I'd really had through the whole process.

He walked back in the door 20 minutes later with Chick-fil-A, which has been our "after baby" meal every time. I simultaneously walked back into the bathroom to change the chux pad I had been cutting to fit. The next thing I knew I was nearly fainting, sitting on the toilet with Ryan running towards me and yelling to keep me alert. I then drifted off, I couldn't see at all and I could only hear myself sobbing, overcome with what had happened hours earlier. I don't remember anything else- how I got up, cleaned up, or got to the couch where I had a wet washcloth on my head and was being fed and given water when I finally came to. Once I ate and drank a few more cups of water, I fell asleep and slept through the night. The next few days were a blur of crying, sleeping and watching mindless television.

The following Monday I went in for a follow up, but when I explained that I was still bleeding, my OB was concerned that the miscarriage wasn't complete. The ultrasound showed that some placenta tissue was left behind, and the next course of action was to take a "less intense" version of the induction medication, this was called Methergine. It was familiar to me because I had taken it in the shot form for retained placenta after Mase, before my D&C. I didn't remember anything about it because I had an epidural. The problem was, for THREE days, my pharmacy nor any pharmacy in town had it and needed to order it. When I finally started it, I realized that it was not less intense by any definition. 

I had every non-life threatening side effect, the worst being the back and abdomen pain. 

I writhed on the couch for three days. I have never felt that kind of pain before. I didn't sleep, couldn't eat, just cried and moaned while my uterus was being forcefully emptied. I was passing huge clots like the night she was born during the entire time. I passed the little placenta on day two. 
Also on the second day, before Ryan left for work (he wasn't able to miss class without being reset) I asked him to call the doctor and tell him I just wanted a D&C now. Helpless, he got on the floor beside me and held me. I'll always remember what he said that morning: "You have done the hardest thing you'll ever do, four times now. You've already survived something that doesn't make sense to survive. You can do this, you know you can." He said it, knowing that at this point, a D&C would not reverse or prevent the pain I would continue to feel from the medicine. It was already started and would continue even if I skipped the rest of the doses. There was no sense in getting the surgery. It would have not made it better, simply worse. Yet, he did not say that. He was being a doula to me, and gave encouragement instead of presenting the wall even I knew was there in my right mind. 

I finished the doses and the pain subsided with a little residual soreness. I finally stopped bleeding a few days ago.

At the end of that first week, our baby's urn had arrived. At the funeral home, Ryan transferred her ashes into the urn carefully as I watched. We brought her home and placed her on the mantle, next to her brother. I have matching urns for two of my babies now. 

I wanted to go to SC for my sister's wedding shower and planning this month, and the pain went away just in time. I even took a little detour on the way back home to spend a few nights in Helen, GA and be alone. Two weeks in, I had not yet grasped that my baby was gone. I was focused on physically trying to heal that I  blocked myself from grieving properly. It was a completely traumatic month for my body. My time alone was to force myself to understand and begin to grieve, and I'm not sure it even worked then, because the emotion and clarity is just starting to sink in.

The commotion has now gone away. The calls and cards and flowers come in the early days, and we are so thankful for the immediate answer of love and support to our hurt. We know we are cared for.
But it's always especially quiet when the hard days actually start. And a month later, as I begin to understand what's happened, it feels very lonely. Maybe even lonelier this time than any time before. I feel people have grown tired of this. I know I have. I wish my daughter were here, living inside me. I wish they were all here and this was a stupid mom blog about fun summer activities when you're pregnant with three more under four. 

That's not true, though. The truth is my baby died, again. I know its hard, what is there to say? Nothing. There never has been a script I could hand someone and, damn, aren't we all so exhausted of this happening? I know it takes energy to support a mom who has lost her baby, I've gotten so much of it over the past three years. Now I'm adjusting expectations of others and of myself so I can be gentle with us both. I'm in a place of fresh grief for the first time in two years, and I'm thankful for this "business break" I've been taking so it can be my sole focus. This is all so familiar and foreign at the same time, and I'm going to take my time navigating it. The start for me was writing Mara's story today, writing my story of my sweet fourth baby. Now I'll be reading it back to myself until it doesn't sound like someone else's anymore. 

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far 

outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Carrying the Weight of Eden

When someone tells you their unborn child has a fatal diagnosis and will not live outside their womb for long at all, but then tells you of plans to carry the child as far as they can... you can guess some of the pain they will face.

You can guess on your own that there's something particularly hard about carrying a baby but not setting up a nursery.

You can guess that the doctor's appointments would get really old, really fast.

You can guess that all the expectant mother will do is worry every minute that it may be her last one pregnant, and then it will hit her how limited her time with her child really is.

You can guess that the expectant father begins putting away his dreams and expectations for that particular child, hopeful for another to dream for one day.

You can conclude that it must all be very difficult, and you'd be right.
On D-Day (Diagnosis Day), I knew that I would be facing those hard things.

But there are some things you just can't guess.
She was 6 lbs and 15 oz. But I carried a lot more to birth than just the little girl in my womb. I carried so many feelings, too. I wonder every day if they made the load heavier, or if allowing myself to feel them made the weight I carried a little lighter.

And it's still different case to case, so even someone who's been through the same situation could still not have guessed what I would walk through. Someone who's been through the same situation could have guessed, too, but may have not been bothered by the same trials. That's why I changed the name of this post from "Unexpected Hardships of Carrying to Birth" to be more personal.. My experience is unique because my daughter is unique.

Feelings I felt and didn't expect to feel were:

Hurt when the conversation turned to how large I was getting. I always thought that when the time came for me to receive comments on my super huge belly, I would take them so proudly. But, when I started retaining amniotic fluid since Eden couldn't swallow it well...the comments weren't received as graciously. Who even ever had the idea to comment on a pregnant girl's size anyway? I knew that the reason for such a big belly was that there was something wrong and it made me super sensitive. At 30 weeks, a clerk asked me how far along I was and I just told her 38 weeks.

Panic when a stranger asked about the due date, made comments about life after babies, etc. To begin with, I would just pretend to be normal and talk about her due date and say that pregnancy is fun. Then I started lying to these strangers when their questions turned from pregnancy to preparation. "Oh yes, her nursery is already finished and we've got the carseat ready to go." Near the end, I gave up on trying not to make people uncomfortable and just gave them the truth.

Confusion as I danced between attachment and detachment to my baby. Here's a raw truth: The first few months of my pregnancy, I went through a short "pre-partum" depression and afterwards had a very hard time attaching to my unborn baby. Of course I loved her, but I felt funny talking to her or singing to her, and with Ryan being gone for I just wasn't in the mood to celebrate what was happening in my body. I didn't want to do anything baby related until Christmas time when we decided to go ahead and register. I finally started attaching to her when he came home and we went to find out that she was a girl. She had a name I could keep saying, and her kicks were getting to be visible instead of just tangible. D-Day was just a few weeks later, and every day after that was a tug-of-war between getting to know her and stepping away from her. Why would I want to get attached to a baby I'd have to let go? Honestly, there was no stopping it even though I tried. She will always be a part of me.

Rage from seeing other women ignore healthy pregnancy guidelines. From the moment I even suspected I was pregnant I was stepping away from any alcohol. I never ate lunch meat without it being heated and I was very wary of my California rolls. I stayed away from soft cheeses, dropped caffeine altogether for the entire first trimester. I wouldn't stand around anyone smoking, and I was careful with my physical activity. I triple-checked before taking any medication, even if it was prescribed to me. None of this was hard to do, nor was it super stressful, and I don't need a pat on the back for it. Putting my unborn child first was never an inconvenience. CDH has no known cause and there is no cure yet. There is absolutely nothing I knowingly did to give my baby a birth defect- and nothing I could have done to stop it. Naturally, I continued this way for my whole pregnancy, even knowing I couldn't save her. So it made (makes) me kind of super angry to see other women not striving for the healthiest pregnancies and therefore knowingly putting babies at risk for so much more than what can happen out of the blue. I know way too many women struggling to get pregnant, struggling to stay pregnant, and struggling after losing children to be ok with it. Sorry (not really) for the rant. *If you are unsure about guidelines for a healthy pregnancy, you can click this link to WebMD.

Sadness passing infant sections in stores. Sometimes I would wander in just to touch the baby dresses. Then I'd leave without getting whatever I came for, afraid someone might see me ugly cry.

Fear when I had to be alone. Every day I'd spend hours with Jenae until it looked like Ryan would be home for the evening. I'd try to strategically have something planned to do when he wanted to go for a hike. I'd go shopping just to be around people! When my mom finally came to stay in early May, I could finally breathe. The whole time she was here, I was never alone with my thoughts... and she even enjoyed time with my friends and shopping too.

Anger as I tried to plan a funeral for a baby that was still kicking my insides. "I wrote an obituary and left spaces for the dates and times", "I really like this poem for the program", and "Let's finish squaring away the funeral homes this week" turned into "I should not be doing this", "This is so freaking backwards", and "We can just take care of it when it happens because we aren't being fair to her obvious presence or ourselves". It seemed that every time we tried to plan something or even talk about it, she knew and would commence a fit of hiccups or begin a soccer game. We eventually just had a basic outline and left everything for after her birth.

Alarm at every. single. thing. I went to L&D about seven times. I believed my water was leaking, that I had a blood clot in my lungs, that she wasn't moving enough, that her heart stopped beating. Every time I experienced a little heartburn, I thought that something was terribly wrong. I don't know if I'm glad I did this or if I wish I would have relaxed a little. I just kept saying to myself as I left the hospital feeling like an idiot, "better to go and nothing be wrong than to not go and it all be wrong."

Uncertainty when we'd have a discussion about family planning. I have a heart for adoption and Ryan's certainly not against it, but knowing that we can create life makes us want to create more. Except there's the part where the only life we've created had a horrible birth defect. What's next? Then, we'd always said three was enough (I actually always said seven was enough but three seemed to please my husband for the time being), but did we mean three altogether? Three to raise? What we ended up saying is that we'll just cross bridges as they come, we don't need a itinerary for parenthood.

Doubt when people encouraged me. I heard "you are so strong" about ten times a week, but I kept thinking that if they really knew how I felt, they wouldn't say it.

Alienation when receiving *PREP FOR BABY* emails and coupons. (Like, c'mon post carrier. I think you're delivering my share and the share for every other parent's house in the neighborhood. I heard those diapers suck anyway.) The emails are the worst- especially when it came time for the gestation to focus completely on the lungs- things were supposed to be happening that I knew were not.

Annoyance at the comments made by those who meant well. I had quite a few people tell me, "There can still be a miracle, don't just give up on your child", and that always bothered me. Was it not miraculous enough to be pregnant? Was it not miraculous enough to carry Eden just one more minute? She was and always will be the miracle of the whole situation. God didn't not show up just because she wasn't healed. And while we never lost sight of hope for her healing, we couldn't actively pray for God to change His already perfect creation. At the same time, I know that people just need something to believe in during such trying times. It's just that when you know things are going to be a certain way, its time to stop praying to change them and start praying for the peace to deal with them.

Guilt when I said "I can't breathe". Before she started to drop, she was so high in my ribcage and crowding my lungs that I never could catch a good breath. I would automatically complain, then I'd start wondering if her entire short life would feel like that. Then I'd hate myself and start having a panic attack, during which I really couldn't breathe. I tried to have a sobering perspective on whatever discomfort I felt while it was all for her.

Overwhelming LOVE with each reminder of her existence. I knew as I tried to detach from her that I loved her, but I grew to love her in ways I never could have imagined. I would bargain "Take me instead of her" over and over every day. Her kicks when I would sing or her punchy reaction to her dad's voice, my big belly as I tried to roll over out of bed, all the clothes that stopped fitting, the swelling, and the infinite number of stretch marks she placed on my stomach, hips, and thighs all gave me the warmest feeling of adoration. None of it will ever compare the the feelings I had when they placed her in my arms, though. Each day I loved her increasingly more. Every minute I got to spend with her (in and out of my body) was the best minute of my life!