Every baby deserves his own birth story, even those with unhappy outcomes. Please do not read if you mind blood and personal details, and please do not read if you yourself are pregnant.
Last March, I found - to my infinite surprise - that baby #8 had joined the party. I really wasn't expecting a new little one soon - or, considering my age (41 at the time), perhaps at all. It was a bit of a shock.
My pregnancy nausea started that same afternoon - as always, suddenly and definitely. My reaction to this was intense irritation, as in, Really? I don't even have time to tell my husband before this nonsense starts up again - AS USUAL? (I have rather lost my patience with pregnancy nausea, as you may infer.) Unfortunately, it was real, strong, and following the usual pattern of growing intensity. Depressing.
However, this is not an entry about pregnancy nausea. Suffice it to say, over the following several weeks I made an exciting discovery of something that really helped with pregnancy nausea, and I shared about that in this blog post. I hope to learn more with time, and should we be blessed with another child, I will post about how pregnancy nausea goes in that pregnancy. But moving on with the story of this baby...
Besides nausea and fatigue, the pregnancy proceeded normally through the spring. And then, at 10w6d, everything changed. On that day, I noticed the faintest tinge of pink staining.
Blood.
Just the tiniest amount. But, as any mama knows, blood during pregnancy is really, really not good. Sure, it can stem from any amount of innocent causes. But on the whole, it is usually a sign that something is wrong.
And thus began one of the wildest and most stressful weeks of my life. I said nothing to my husband, and prayed that nothing would come of it. But the next day (11w0d), it was back. And there was more. The next day, more. At that point (11w1d), I sat down with my husband and said, "I don't know how to say this, but I think that there is a chance that we are going to lose the baby." He was devastated - but, as is his wont, inclined to look on the bright side and be hopeful. (In all life situations, I am the dark pessimist/realist, and my husband is the carefree sunny optimist. It's how we roll.)
I prayed so hard that week. Over and over, God, please spare this child. Please let the bleeding stop. Praying all day, and then waking up in the night, and praying some more.
I also contacted our midwife and let her know what was going on. She and I both knew that there was nothing that could be done, but she was sympathetic, and she stayed in touch with me.
On Friday, the spotting really picked up, and it also changed from pink to red. We knew that - barring a miracle - a miscarriage was going to happen, and we needed to prepare for it.
The first thing that we did was to get in touch with one of our priests, and he gave us a lot of really valuable direction. He told us, firstly, that our baby needed a name. This surprised me, as I had not really thought seriously of naming a child whose gender could not be known. (I know that there are early gender tests, but we were not planning on using any of them.) However, he said quite firmly that no, each baby needs his own name. So, after some brief discussion, we picked a name - John Paul Thomas, after both John Paul II and my favorite disciple (being a born doubter, how could I not love the apostle Thomas?).
(If baby was indeed a girl, then I suppose it would change to something like Joanna - not my first pick, with apologies to all Joannas in the crowd, but it would do. As I said, we were in a hurry.)
(Later, in looking up feminine variants of the name John, I found the following as options: "Jackie, Jacqueline, Jana, Jane, Janet, Jeanne or Jeannie, Joan, Joanna or Johanna." Good to know.)
This was quite different than our usual naming process, which usually stretches for months at a time. But this time we were in a time crunch, and we found our name within 20 minutes.
It was very odd - nightmarish, actually - to be picking a name for a child who one believes may be born dead. And there was still that bit of hope - maybe this will all stop, and everything will be okay. But one way or the other, we had no time - it was an incredible rush.
Secondly, our priest gave us the name of a cemetery that accepts pre-born babies for burial, and we got in touch with them. They were wonderful - we really appreciated their sweet and compassionate communications with us - but we found that they accepted only children for burial who were born at 20 weeks gestation or later. So this was something that was put off for later.
On Saturday morning, my bleeding was really picking up, and I knew with finality that this was really going to happen, sooner or later. When the rest of the family headed out the door for our daughter's morning at ballet lessons, not knowing anything else to do, I just sat down to wait. And within just a few minutes of the family leaving, I felt a gentle pop that was identical to SROM (spontaneous rupture of membranes, or one's water breaking), but instead of amniotic fluid, it was a sudden and massive rush of blood.
At that point, I realized that I had been quite foolish - I had marooned myself in the kitchen, a room in our home that is completely surrounded by carpeted floor. But there was nothing for it but to run for the bathroom, using my skirt as best as I could to staunch the blood. Thankfully I made it there without incident.
However, once I got to the bathroom and started dealing with things, all chaos broke loose. The baby's gestational sac was born immediately - which, not having the ability to deal with it at that time, I set aside. Then I started trying to deal with the blood.
It's hard to describe the amount of blood that was going on. Even now it's hard to describe. I was frantically trying to make giant pads out of paper towels, which only lasted for a few minutes each, while trying to wipe up blood off of the floor - and, at some points, the walls, as it was hitting the ground that hard. There was blood everywhere.
Afterwards, I realized that I should simply have spent the afternoon sitting in the bathtub. That would have been the only sensible thing to do. However, that was hindsight. In the moment, all I could think about was trying to keep up with the mess. And I was totally unused to blood loss of this variety, so totally unlike a birth, in which there is usually a big rush of blood and fluid, and then the uterus clamps down and the blood flow is reduced to nothing more than a heavy period (or less). This was totally different - the blood just kept coming.
I realized at the time that there was a danger of hemorrhage, but my thought at the time was that "as long as I'm not light-headed, I'm probably okay." I have no idea if that was true. And I think I may have gotten a little bit giddy. But not being a trained birth professional, I am completely unable to estimate my blood loss. However, when my husband - the next day - saw me lugging a garbage bag full of blood-soaked paper towels out to the trash, he said, "Um, that's a lot of blood." Yes, it was.
The blood flow continued crazy-heavy for about six hours, and then it finally slowed down to a reasonable level, and I was able to start moving around a bit and restarting normal activities.
[One interesting thing was that my morning sickness - which I have heard often stops when an unborn baby dies, prior to the actual loss process - continued unabated through the week of waiting, and did not start to wane until the evening after the miscarriage process began. In all honesty, this was an added source of stress to me, as I kept thinking, "The baby has to be okay. I'm still sick," - which was not at all true.]
The following day was Mother's Day. (A word to the wise: Don't go on social media on Mother's Day when you've just suffered a loss.) We held on to our secret for most of the day, and then in the evening told the children the basics: "The baby has died, and Mama is no longer pregnant." They were very sad, and so were we.
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| One of our winter Arizona sunsets. |
*****
But the story doesn't end there.
That evening, I sat down with my husband and told him that although we had not made it to the end of a healthy pregnancy, I still needed to treat the post-loss time as a "postpartum" period, i.e. trying to stay in bed and rest as much as possible. I knew that I had lost a lot of blood, and that I was also recovering from both a miscarriage and from having been pregnant. He agreed completely.
However, I didn't really take my own advice. Two days later I was up and driving out to pick up our grocery orders. The next day, I drove the crew several towns away for a dance performance. Although I knew I shouldn't, I went back to normal life almost immediately. (Though I did do my best to sit around more than I normally would.) It is surprisingly hard to be still and relax when there isn't a living baby in the picture, with all of the rituals of birth and the demands of breastfeeding a newborn to remind one to slow down. I'm afraid I didn't slow down nearly as much as I should have.
The miscarriage was on Saturday, and throughout the whole experience, there was very little pain - no more than mild to moderate period-type cramps. However, on Wednesday morning, I experienced severe cramps - what I call "four-Advil-level" cramps. I found this curious, but didn't think much of it.
But it happened again - this time in the middle of the night (on the same day). Weird.
On Thursday, I got up at my usual time and thought that I was okay. I began my day. But I canceled a doctor's appointment that I had that morning for one our children, without really knowing why. Later in the morning, I went to church for a special service (was it Pentecost? or Ascension Day?), but as soon as the music started, I burst into tears and from there alternated between crying and wondering why was I feeling so incredibly awful? I only lasted about 15 minutes into the service before I simply got up and left. When I got home, I marched into the house, told my husband that I was going back to bed, and did so - and stayed there, just feeling worse and worse.
At some point, my husband came in and gave me the wild-eyed look that meant, "Are you really going to stay in bed when I'm trying to work from home and the children are bouncing off of the walls?" - to which I replied with firmness (and, I'm afraid, grouchy firmness) that I was feeling awful and was not going to be getting up, period. He was puzzled, but he kindly rolled with it.
At some point, I realized that I was feeling scary-bad, and so I went into the bathroom to try to find a thermometer. (At our house, we can never find a thermometer. Ever. And if we do find one, it is either broken or battery-less, with the kind of batteries that one never, ever has around the house.) Miraculously, though, I did find a working thermometer, and, sure enough, I had a fever. Moreover, it was going up every time I checked it (about every five minutes).
At this point, I knew that something was really wrong, and that I needed my husband to call our midwife. By that time I was feeling so awful that I didn't feel up to going and getting my husband, so I just prayed that he would come in - and shortly, he did (prayer answered!) and I asked him to call up our midwife. Unfortunately, it turned out that she was on a plane leaving the country on a trip, and she had to forward our request to one of her colleagues. However, that midwife immediately got in touch with us, and told us exactly what I expected to hear - that I had some kind of post-miscarriage infection going on, likely due to retained material, and that we needed to head to the hospital right away.
And that's what we did. Thankfully one of our children was old enough to babysit, so we were able to be on the road in just a few minutes. I asked my husband if we could travel about 30 minutes away so that we could check in at my favorite hospital, and he graciously agreed. (Here in Phoenix, we are surrounded by hospitals, but I do have a special love for one in particular.)
When we checked in, we were immediately started in the system. But it's a long process, as anyone who's ever gone to the ER knows. We ended up having every test known to man, in a long process took about ten hours (1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.), and ended up with my being admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics for a diagnosis of postpartum septic endometritis (sepsis).
Two of my big worries thankfully turned out to be groundless: (1) I did not have an ectopic pregnancy going on, and (2) there was no retained tissue. Both of those were a big relief.
I ended up being in the hospital for four days. My stay was lengthened by the complicating factor of my fever returning at the 24-hour mark, a sign that a bug was eluding the current antibiotic regimen, so another antibiotic was added into the mix. A most amusing side-effect of this antibiotic was a strong and unpleasant taste in the mouth - which I at first attributed to my fevered imagination, but later concluded (rightly so, it turns out) that it must have had something to do with the antibiotics.
Being in the hospital, and feeling mostly okay for much of the time, was actually an interesting experience. Though I learn toward naturopathic healing modalities, I have the utmost respect for dedicated medical professionals in the Western system, and I met many wonderful nurses, techs, and doctors. Additionally, I had time for some serious, all-day reading - something I haven't had time to do since college. One day was taken up with a book of Oscar Wilde's plays, and another day was devoted to C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (the third book in Lewis's science fiction trilogy).
That second day, indeed, was really a spiritual retreat for me - reading, praying, and contemplating. I came to a lot of good conclusions. Mainly, I realized that I needed to stop taking blessings for granted. Children, pregnancy, marriage, health, home life, cooking, cleaning, life in general - all of them are blessings - blessings that can be removed without notice. The life of a large-family homeschool mom is one of never-ending struggles, of exhaustion and being overwhelmed - and personally, I struggle intensely with finding contentment, and avoiding the sin of discouragement. The experience of losing the baby, and temporarily losing my health, my home life, and my family, was a good wake-up call, and the C.S. Lewis reading was an added spiritual experience on top of all of that. I came away from the experience with the feeling that my stay in the hospital had been a blessing.
I came home from the hospital with oral antibiotics - which, incidentally, made me feel awful - and spent a good couple of months feeling exhausted and rather wretched before perking up in mid- to late summer. I'm not sure if the exhaustion was from the pregnancy, the miscarriage, the blood loss, or the antibiotics - or perhaps all of the above. It was nice to realize that I was finally feeling better after a few months had passed.
Our church family came around us with a gift of a meal train while and after I was in the hospital, and that was an immense blessing. Ladies, meal ministry is such a blessing to those in your church and community. It is such a good way to support families who are struggling! We felt very blessed during this time, especially as I was feeling too tired and sick for several weeks to cook.
*****
And there you have it - our birth story for baby #8. The outcome was not what we planned or imagined, but the Lord held all in His hands, and we trust His judgment. Each baby is precious; each baby is remembered; each baby has an eternal soul and is precious in the sight of God.
*****
A few reflections to finish up:
(1) Why and how did I come down with postpartum sepsis?
It's an interesting question, and I'm not really clear on any answers. I practiced good hygiene throughout the process, and I have had seven previous pregnancies with no issues of any kind.
In my reading, I did see that postpartum sepsis is more common after hemorrhage. I don't know if I qualify for that, but I did bleed heavily. Additionally, as I noted, I did return to my everyday activities far too quickly following the loss. And there were probably factors at work that I simply will never know.
(2) I have heard for many, many years that miscarriages can be very physically traumatic, and even a danger to one's life.
Folks, they weren't kidding.
Don't mess around with miscarriages, especially those that happen further on in pregnancy. Respect them and respect the process and don't be foolish or careless. Miscarriages can be extremely dangerous.
Additionally, a friend possessing an antique medical book on obstetrics told me that the author of the book wrote strongly that mothers who suffered miscarriages needed to be treated even more carefully than mothers who had completed full-term pregnancies - the reason being that childbirth is the natural and healthy outcome of pregnancy, and thus is lower-risk than a miscarriage, which by definition is the unnatural and unhealthy outcome of pregnancy. Thus, if my habit was - as it is - to stay in (or on) bed for two weeks after a birth, then I should have stayed in bed even longer following a hard miscarriage. Whatever practices I had for a normal birth should have been followed more stringently for miscarriage.
Needless to say, I didn't follow that policy. Perhaps if I had, I would have had a healthier outcome following our loss.
(3) This miscarriage followed a week of prayer and worry. I knew even at the time, that I could have simplified matters by requesting an ultrasound, which my midwives do have available.
But I didn't.
Why?
I'm not quite sure. Possibly I wanted to hang on to hope, and not to have to see what I knew I would probably see. Denial.
On a practical level, getting over to my midwives' office would have been a serious headache, requiring me to request my husband to make special arrangements with his work, etc., and I wasn't really up to the challenge (both being a worried wreck and still being quite ill and/or exhausted with pregnancy sickness).
If there's a next time, would I consider it?
Perhaps.
(4) Similarly, I have learned - and I knew at the time - that there are early baby gender tests (by blood test) that we could have taken advantage of in order to know baby's sex. Normally I am an absolute paranoid freak about not wanting to know baby's gender before birth, but in the case of an impending miscarriage, it might be nice - both for naming and for remembrance.
Again, I didn't take advantage of this. Why?
And again, I'm not quite sure. Possibly because of the extra cost; possibly because of the extra trouble during a time of grief and physical illness. Possibly because early miscarriage is usually cloaked in mystery - one does not naturally know the sex of babies lost in early miscarriage - and so I didn't feel an overwhelming need to know.
But I would consider it at a future time if it was needed.
(5) Something odd that I noticed:
After the miscarriage, I was overwhelmed with grief. Anything and everything could start the flow of tears - and I am not one for crying. It went like this: Walk around a corner in a store. Start crying. Etc.
But.
Once I was thoroughly sick and in the hospital and receiving treatment, that overwhelming, soul-stopping grief suddenly evaporated. I do not mean that I no longer grieved - I did. But it became a gentle, longing regret, rather than an unstoppable and uncontrollable physical response. It almost felt like the grief manifested as my physical symptoms of sickness during the sepsis, and left my body. I cannot explain this, but the sudden transition was too abrupt not to notice.
(6) This was my first real experience with a life-threatening illness. It was mean, it was brutal, and it moved super-fast. This is the first time in my life that I have thought, if it hadn't been for medical intervention, I don't think I would have survived. That's an interesting thought. Two hundred years ago, my cause of death, at age 42, would have been "childbed fever after a miscarriage," and I would have been one of the many women whose deaths were linked to childbearing - a very common fate throughout the course of history. An interesting thought on human mortality.
(7) Speaking of childbed fever (the historical name for postpartum sepsis), I was speaking to a young OB, later during a follow-up appointment, and found, to my surprise, that she had never heard the phrase "childbed fever."
What?
Are they no longer teaching history to doctors? Especially to OB/GYN doctors? I found this astounding, as the history of childbed fever is foundational to the development of both obstetrics and modern medicine (sterile technique, handwashing, etc.), and I cannot conceive of someone receiving an 8+ year education in medicine and obstetrics without knowing the history of childbed fever. I found this most curious.
And enough meditations.
*****
Thank you for sharing this journey with me, dear friends! I know that so many of you have suffered losses of babies during pregnancy, and you are in my thoughts. May God comfort all of those who have lost little ones during pregnancy - and beyond.
