To everything, Turn, Turn, Turn...

So I was saying that a lot has been going on these last several weeks. In addition to some really great stuff, we've been nursing some disappointment and the sadness too. I've been debating whether or not I wanted to post anything at all about it, but what is the point of keeping a diary and leaving an important event out? So in the interest of honoring our the experience and loss, I'm posting what is probably going to be a long and possibly graphic story.

I was hoping that I would be making a post right about now announcing the impending arrival of our second child, but sadly I won't be able to make that announcement at this time. We learned I was pregnant about a week before thanksgiving. We were pretty stunned -- I had just barely recovered from my gallbladder removal (done in the hopes that any subsequent pregnancies would be easier for me), and we had just started trying. It was clear from the get go that it was going to be very different than Hank's pregnancy -- I wasn't experiencing physical symptoms, had nearly no morning sickness, and all of this left me feeling a little worried, and not really believing I was pregnant. Nevertheless, a few nights before thanksgiving, with all our family members crowded around a cozy table at a local italian restaurant, we decided to announce that I was pregnant. It was a wonderful treat to share the news with everyone at once, and made for a very bright spot in our thanksgiving week., and even though things have not worked out, I don't regret making that announcement for a second.

Things kept cooking, but I continued to not believe I was pregnant, and even forget that I was pregnant. I rarely felt sick, and felt kind of relieved when I did feel my stomach turning. I never developed my Super Sonic Sense of Smell, kept forgetting to call and make my first prenatal appointment, and I didn't have any heartburn. The only 'symptom' (if you can call it that), was blind rage and cravings for weird foods like doritos and bread and butter pickles. (in fact, I joked that I should have known I was pregnant when I nearly ripped the head off a postal clerk who refused to release a package sent for Hank's birthday to me because Hank and I did not share a last name, and then went straight to safeway for a bag of doritos -- something I haven't wanted to eat in years).

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks (and if you don't want to read about things like blood, clots, and cramps, maybe skip the rest of this?), I started spotting brown blood. This is pretty normal in early pregnancy, but it made me uncomfortable, and when it didn't stop after several days, I called kaiser and wouldn't let up until they made an appointment for me to come inthe next day. At that appointment I had an ultrasound and we saw the eggsac and the embryo inside, a flickering heartbeat. The doctor measured it and said that it was measuring a perfect six weeks, four days gestation, exactly right for when we think I ovulated. Needless to say the ultrasound gave us some degree of reassurance, and we left the appointment feeling like we might actually be headed towards having another baby.

The spotting continued for another day or two, and then finally stopped. I was relieved. I managed to forget about it and we started preparing for Christmas. In the middle of that week I had a horrible, horrible dream in which we learned I was actually carrying two embryos and that one wasn’t going to survive, so we were going to have to have that one removed. We ended up in a horrible place with blood all over the floor, and the surgeon removed both embryos, without telling us. On the way out, I realized what had happened and I was heartbroken. I woke up certain something was wrong with the pregnancy. But there was no spotting and I think I actually had some morning sickness that day, so I remained confident.

That weekend we went out to do our Christmas shopping. We were feeling good, having a nice time, got a lot done, but when we got home, I was spotting again, much heavier than any of the previous times, and I got very, very worried. If it had been the same as the initial incidents, I probably wouldn’t have thought too much of it, but this was like losing my mucus plug before Hank was born. I was very worried, so we called Kaiser. It was a Saturday and the advice nurse was no help. She actually told me that it would be inappropriate for me to go to the emergency room for this, that they wouldn’t do an ultrasound to check on the pregnancy. (I found this hard to believe but we decided to stay home, anyway).

The next day I was still spotting brown, but we decided to go about our plans. I went out to Orinda to make cookies with my mom and our cousin Joyce, and Henry took Hank to the city to see an exhibit with our friends David and Torey and their little baby boy. In the early afternoon the spotting changed to bright red and heavy. It was clear to me right then that this was definitely a miscarriage.

Henry came to the house with Hank. We left him with my parents and went back to our apartment to wait it all out. I called the advice nurse again, who repeated that the emergency room wasn’t a good place to go during a miscarriage, as they would probably just have me sit around and wait for a loooong time, so home was the best place to be. Over the course of the evening the bleeding came heavier, clots started passing. It was very sad.

The next day, Monday, I was finally able to be seen by a doctor at the ob/gyn clinic. They did an ultrasound and immediately when we saw the screen I said, ‘it’s gone.’. It was gone. Just gone. To my eye, there was an empty, empty uterus. Nothing left.

The doctors who diagnosed the miscarriage were terrific with us – very kind and comforting. One of them said that all we could do was go on home, take to each other and love each other. While the last two of those instructions were a given, we weren’t quite sure about going home, so we went to a matinee. It was pouring rain and so, so cold.

In retrospect I can’t help saying that I knew there was something wrong with this pregnancy from the get-go. It just seemed to come from out of the blue, and I never felt much of a connection. Also, the heartbeat, even though we saw it, just seemed slow to me – slower than what I remembered seeing of Hank’s heartbeat when he was just an embryo. The doctor didn’t make any comment on it, but I still feel like it was slow. Fortunately the miscarriage was early enough that I didn’t have to have a D&C, and I was able to just let it happen naturally. It took several days for the bleeding to stop, and for the clots to stop coming.

We were really, really sad for several days, but this probably happened because of a chromosomal defect, and I would rather have my body sort it out early on than be faced with a horrible decision, or worse, down the road. I’m just glad that I’ve got a great husband and a fabulous toddler who make me feel as though if this is all I am going to get in the family department, then I am set for life, because I don’t know where I would be without these two.

A week after the miscarriage we headed to NY for a week for Christmas. While we were there we did so many things that really restored us and helped get back to feeling so much better. We took Hank for pictures with Santa – I had desperately hoped that Hank would scream and be scared of Santa this year, but no dice. He was pleasant as he could possibly be, and after an initial quizzical glance at Santa, smiled for his picture and had a great time. He definitely was on Santa’s ‘nice’ list after that!

The next couple of days Henry and I left Hank with Henry’s parents and we headed into Manhattan to explore and reconnect. The first day we went in we did the nicest thing I think I have done in months – we hiked in the snow and crisp, sunny day through Central Park’s Ramble, a wooded area surrounding a lake, with tons of birds and animals roaming about. In fact at one point I turned to Henry and asked him, ‘are there Cardinals in NY?’, because it just seemed like a perfect place to see a bright red bird. Almost as if on cue, a small flock of cardinals descended into a tree right in front of us!! I couldn’t believe my eyes! We finished that day off with a trip to the Guggenheim to see the art, walk the spiral, and enjoy a holiday concert. It was lovely. We got back to New Hyde Park feeling like new people. We went back into Manhattan the next day to recreate the first time we went into the city together. We started at Rockefeller Center where we enjoyed trendy cupcakes while watching the skaters (and hoped for a Tina Fey sighting!! No dice), then we meandered up Fifth Avenue, stopping in to lots of the high end stores to ogle pricey items, and get my engagement ring cleaned at Tiffany. We even braved FAO Schwarz to buy a couple of Christmas presents for Hank. That place was a madhouse, but so fun! You can actually make your own Muppet there! We finished the day off with hot chocolates in a hansom cab ride at dusk, as the lights of the city came on all around us. After that we zipped over to the Times Square area to go to one of Henry’s favorite old haunts, Ollie’s Chinese Restaurant – it was terrific.

Christmas eve and day were mellow and lovely – time with family, and Henry’s friend Steven and Christina were able to come by a couple of times too. The day after we took Hank to a petting zoo where Hank was attacked by goats and a llama (I’m still surprised we got out of there with all of Hank’s fingers intact), and took a train ride with his daddy. And of course Hank spent countless hours going UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN the stairs, over and over and over again. He only had one bad fall, after which I was certain we were headed to the emergency room, but fortunately he bounced right back after the tears were moped up (mostly mine!!).

Now we’re back home and getting back into a routine. We are feeling pretty much recovered from everything, but I still have sad moments (like when I saw a baby wearing the same kind of hat that we lost the day the miscarriage started – I almost demanded the mother to tell me where she had gotten the hat! Can you imagine??), but for the most part the experience has become just that – an experience. Granted, an experience that we would have preferred to skip altogether, but an experience that is part of our lives, and now we can move on.

And of course while all this has been going on, I've also been trying to start a business of my own and sort out a mess with the EDD (my boss denied my unemployment claim after laying me off -- we have to have a hearing on it! It has been such a huge stress). So we've had quite a lot on our plates. The last few months of this year have been pretty rough, so I for one, am happy to see a new year come in to play right now.

Thanks for reading, and for those of you reading who were supporting us through the whole thing, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is so incredibly good to have friends and family who are so kind and I can only hope that we are able to give back half as much as we receive from you.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I’m going to go roughhouse a bit with my little guy! He is so, so much fun these days and he has no idea what comfort he’s given us both recently. He’s getting more and more verbal – he points at things as says ‘oh! Wa dat??’ {oh what’s that, or I want that, depending on inflection and tone) and ‘oba deh’ (over there) and ‘aw doh’ (all done). Oh and he runs from place to place now and wears real shoes. When did my baby become a toddler?? Shocking. His latest thing is climbing in and out of a giant suitcase over and over again. Sometimes I give him a book, his wooden tomato, and a blankie, and he just kills time in there with those things. Pretty cute. Must take some pictures.