Loving Baby Raisin

After searching for somewhere to share my heart and my journey through grief, I felt led to share it in a public format. Not for the attention or the sympathy, but in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, somebody else will fall upon this blog and be encouraged by the words that I have written here. I pray that if you have been led to this blog that you will know that you are not alone, you are not a number, but you are seen and heard. You are loved by our heavenly Father and He holds you close as you cry and as you grieve...

On July 25th 2014, I learned in the most horrifying of ways, that we had lost our baby. I was eleven weeks pregnant to the day and had literally just shared with friends and family that we were expecting just a couple days earlier. This was our third baby and we were looking forward to a home birth and making plans in anticipation of welcoming another little one into our lives. The oldest of the littles affectionately nicknamed our baby "Baby Raisin" and would often be found touching my stomach and talking to his baby. Everyone was excited and no one could have guessed the nightmare we were about to embark on...

For two days, I had some light bleeding. I had contacted my doctor, but held on to hope. The bleeding was light, and I had never had a problem during pregnancy before. I was scheduled for an ultrasound on July 25th to make sure everything was okay with Baby Raisin, but the night before I could not rest. I cried, I prayed, I cried out to God begging for the life of my child. I stood firm on God's word, declaring through tears that Baby Raisin's innermost being was knitted together by our Father in heaven. I finally feel asleep from exhaustion to only wake up a couple of hours later with severe cramps... I still hung on to hope that my baby was going to be ok, but as the cramps became more and more similar to those of labor, I knew deep in my heart what was happening... my body was "pushing out" my child, not a fetus, but my child. One that I will never hold or kiss on this earth... The cramps were worse than any labor pains I have felt because not only was there pressure in my midsection, but there was pressure on my heart. When one gives birth to a child, there is hope, there is anticipation and excitement, but in those hours, there was nothing to look forward to, only despair.

After four hours of heavy bleeding J finally convinced me to go to the hospital. I was still trying to be the brave and strong one, so I went by myself. My reasoning was that it was too early for the littles to get up and someone needed to stay home with them. Looking back at it now, I think I was in denial and truly believed that I would be returning home shortly. I walked right into the emergency room and continued to bleed everywhere. The doctor performed an exam and determined that he didn't see any "tissue" AKA baby. When I heard those words it meant  "there was still hope that it was a viable pregnancy" but what the doctor meant was there was no sign of the baby being "born." Shortly after that brief encounter with the ER doctor, a gentle nurse came up to me and said "it is okay to cry." Yes, I still couldn't let myself believe what was happening.

Due to heavy blood loss, I became very weak and would become very dizzy if I sat up or moved just a little bit. At one point I sat up to clean myself off and I passed out much to the nurse's dismay. That is when the doctor decided that I needed to take an ambulance to a larger hospital 20 minutes away, that it was not a good idea even for J to drive me there. I finally admitted my weakness at that point. My sister rushed to our house to take care of the littles so that J could meet me at the hospital. When I arrived at the larger hospital, I saw a sign the designates which patient goes in which room. The identifier isn't the patient's name, but the medical diagnosis/problem. It was at that moment, for the first time, the word "miscarriage" been used to describe what was happening to me. NO ONE once said to me that I was miscarrying, no one expressed sympathy over our loss or explained to me what was happening to my body.

Once at the hospital, I was put on a heart monitor due to the amount of blood I was losing. I was sent to have an ultrasound, and even at this point I was still hoping... The images that came up on the screen still remain in my mind to this day... not the images I had dreamed of seeing... Still NO ONE said anything about miscarriage.  I tried to sit up again, and passed out, waking up to half a dozen medical staff surrounding me, yelling my name and pulling me back to bed. This is when they decided I needed a blood transfusion. The ER doctor ran in at one point to tell me an OBGYN was on the way to tell me what the next steps were, but I might be able to go home. Next thing I know, he is back and telling me that I will need to take some medication to help the "process" along. Shortly after that, he is back telling me that the blood loss was too severe and that I would need surgery!

At this point I had been awake for almost 24 hours and would drift in and out of sleep from exhaustion and blood loss. I remember waking up one time to hear J crying in the bathroom. I tried to call out to him but I could barely whisper his name. I cried for the man that lost his baby and had to watch his wife go through such a trauma. I could only ask God for strength at that time, strength for both of us to just get through that day.

I was taken up for surgery, something that I had never experienced before. Before that day, I had never been in an ER, I had never been in an ambulance and I had never had surgery. J stayed by my side through the whole thing, but as they began to prep me for the procedure, so many thoughts came flying into my head. It was a minor procedure, but it was enough to make me stop and think about what is important in life.

When I woke up from the procedure all I wanted to do was see J. I was so tired and my body wanted to sleep, but I needed to see J, I needed for him to see that I was ok. PLUS, I could finally have some water after not having any for over 12 hours! J was brought back to sit with me and within an hour I was being prepared to be sent home.

At this point, my whole life had changed within 14 hours, but I was being sent home as if nothing had happened.

July 25, 2014 will always remain a day of pain in my heart. As I write this, that was only four weeks ago, and I am struggling with the emotions that day brought into my life daily. I struggle with the thoughts and the emotions.... I want to see God in this, I want to know He is here with me, and I am going to wrestle with those emotions and thoughts until I can see the light on the other side. That does not mean that I am choosing to disregard the grief in my heart, because that is far from the truth. It means, that in my grief, I need to know that He is near.