In July of 2014 I was pregnant for the third time. The second month of this pregnancy was when I should have been delivering my first child. It was comforting to have this pregnancy to hope for when the July 11th date came and went but I still remembered that child to which I had dreamt to hold. No other pregnancy could take away the loss of that child.
This time I was on progesterone and baby aspirin just to give a feeling like I was doing “something” to help this pregnancy. But in realty there was no cause for the previous miscarriages so no one thing to make sure I kept this pregnancy.
I was definitely feeling pregnant the whole month. I experienced my first food aversion. I couldn’t handle meat which was so hard for my husband because we are very much meat eaters. He had to do most of his cooking outside on the grill that summer. I survived on dairy, bread, and crackers. I tried to eat as healthy as I could but it was just trying to keep food down so it wasn’t too healthy. I just was in survival mode for the pregnancy and had very little will power.
I had morning sickness all day and tried various things. I ate crackers before I got up in the morning. Kept bananas by the bed for night time snacks. I also heard the more active you were the better the morning sickness got through out the day but I was the opposite. I tried walking my two dogs but just didn’t make it to the end of the street without feeling awful. The more I did the more likely I would actually through up in the evening. It was also the weirdest feeling because I could turn around after throwing up and eat.
BUT no matter how many symptoms and how often I had them I still had a daily fear that I wasn’t going to hold this baby. I even saw my doctor every two weeks. That meant at 8 weeks, 10 weeks, and finally at 12 weeks we had the combined screening when my husband came along and we got to see our baby fully formed. That 12 week ultrasound was beautiful.
And even being able to see my baby with a strong heartbeat didn’t subside my fear completely. I left each appointment thrilled that the baby was healthy but by that evening I would be doubting if they baby was still growing. I was for sure it was gone. It was an unexplainable fear. This pregnancy was a mind game and there were days I won and days I lost.
The week that I felt like I gave in the most to my fears was around the 8th week two friends both announced they were pregnant. They were both due the month before me and were announcing after they had completed the first trimester. I was so happy to hear that they made it past that “magically week” and that they didn’t have to experience what I had.
But that left me with another four weeks of worrying if this child would survive and what would I do if it didn’t last and I had to watch them celebrate with showers and holding their child if I had a third loss. It made some many fears rise really huge because I didn’t want to see a third loss with joy around me. It made me struggle even more because I wasn’t ever sure that I was going to have a child. To have two miscarriages in a row is not very common and we didn’t know why they had happened or if I could have children.
It was also hard to see how friends interacted with them over their pregnancy and how it was different to the interaction with me. I felt like everyone around me wasn’t sure if my pregnancy and how to handle it and me. It is one of the hardest things to explain when you are in the middle of it.
And I can tell you that the magically 12 weeks didn’t really relieve my fears. It was just another week with more fear. My doctor asked me at my 12 week appointment if I would like to still come in every two weeks but I choose to switch to four week which is the normal schedule. I think I wanted to feel as normal as possible since I was now a low risk pregnancy and had no signs of complications for this one. But I still left the appointment wishing I had said yes to coming back in two weeks to get another ultrasound. I still knew that I could miscarry up until 20 weeks.
I know every pregnancy brings some fears but unless you have had a miscarriage you don’t understand the fears that one is going through.
mymerryhome 
♡
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