Saturday Soliloquy 56: Pregnancy Series, The Second Miscarriage

 About 2 weeks before the miscarriage Jmy told me that I was going to die in 5 minutes.

 

A few days later, Jmy told me I would die soon.

 

I was shocked and hurt and scared.  My toddlers have a tendancy to be prophetic speakers of God's words that I can't seem to hear on my own.  So, I was super scared.

 

The spotting started about 10 days later.

 

I missed church on January 11, 2015 because I'd had spotting the night before and a good bit of pain.  No more spotting until the 14th.  The 15th was the main day of the miscarriage.  Jessie worked a job at a nursing home on the 14th and went in for the 15th.  Because it was a bad situation, we'd made arrangements for him to come home in the middle of that day if certain criteria were not met.  When we spoke on the phone, I learned that he would work all day.  I told him I was definitely having a miscarriage (he hasn't known anything about the pregnancy at all until the night of the 14th when I was pretty sure I was beginning to miscarry).

 

Josh and my Mom were in communication with me.  I'd asked for prayers via Facebook the day before and updated with information about the miscarriage to ask for more prayers.  As a result of communication with Josh, he suggested that maybe Jmy's words had been pertaining to the pregnancy loss.  Immediately it all fit together and I felt an immense peace and calm.  I was able to immediately understand that the baby had died about two weeks ago... so my body was sweeping out what could not grow.  I had been very worried that my body was pushing out a viable baby.  So the peace and comfort in my heart and mind was amazing.

 

I was still sad Jessie wouldn't be around to help me through, again.  When he told me he would be working and he asked if that was okay, or something... I told him I understood and ended the conversation.

 

He surprised me by coming home with flowers and a movie in hand.  The flowers were ALIVE flowers.  The movie was, in my opinion, more his kind of flick... but still.  He sure was trying to be loving and thoughtful!  It worked... and helped!

 

I'm so thankful he was home because I needed to have a funeral.  He dug the hole for me and didn't tease me or anything about it.  We did have the funeral and the peace and comfort in my heart, mind, and spirit enabled me to pass all of the big clots that first day.  I felt a moment, as I lay in bed, where I had the choice to hold on or let go.  I asked God to make me able to let go and heal quickly and I believe he sure did!

 

The process took only a week from start to finish.  I did have spotting a week after the end of the miscarriage, but it was only for one day.  I still felt very tender and gentle toward my body a few weeks after the miscarriage finished and was not ready to be intimate with my husband yet... both because I'm not ready to consider becoming preggie AND because I want to give my insides plenty of time to be fully well.

 

Interestingly, Jessie's isn't completely okay with this. I'm pretty sure I know why, but it didn't change my circumstances and feelings.  So, I honored my needs.

 

All in all, this miscarriage was much easier to process through and deal with.  I'm very grateful for that!

 

As a note, and not "official" miscarriage stories, but definitely miscarriages to me... Before I got preggie with our current newborn, I had two slips... one in each of the preceding months before I got preggie with our current youngest babe.

 

Slips, to me, are miscarriages that happen either right before or right after you get a positive on a pregnancy test.  The first month (April 2015) I didn't get a positive, but I knew I was preggie.  The blood came before it should have.  The second slip, in May 2015, I did get a positive on a pregnancy test.  The blood came late.

 

I ordered Progessence-Plus from Young Living and started it as soon as it arrived.  I feel certain that God Led me to that purchase because I got preggie AND kept the baby!

Saturday Soliloquy 55: Preagnancy Series, The First Miscarriage

As of this writing I have had two.  One between Jmy and EmJ.  I bled that one out at the end of June 2012, which was a year before EmJ was born.  

 

Honestly, I think it was EmJ and she just needed to be born in June!  

 

The more recent miscarriage started January 14 was, I believe, twins.

 

The first miscarriage

 

I found out the baby was dead via an ultrasound.  I'd been so very happy to be preggie.  Jessie was, perhaps, less thrilled, but accepting, for the most part.  I think he was relieved when I had the miscarriage, though.

 

Perhaps I was in denial about the whole thing.  I certainly didn't really want to let go of the pregnancy.  I didn't feel supported or loved by my husband and believed I needed both of those things.  I'm sure all of that made the whole thing more difficult to endure.

 

My feelings of loss and pain were enormous!

 

My friend, Ellen, came to bring me pain medication.  Jessie was at work.  I was so hurt and angry that he went to work and left me alone to deal with this traumatic event.  He was being paid salary, so missing a day or a week... he'd still get paid.  But he believed he had to go to work.  He has, in my experience of him, put his efforts for school and work before my needs.  So this was just another slap in my emotional face, as it were.

 

I'm sure my feelings about his absence made it all way worse.

 

I also did not really fully mourn the loss during the process of it.  I think I was just so in denial and so hurt over Jessie's choices that I wasn't dealing with the actual processing of the miscarriage.

 

I picked up the tissue I thought was probably the baby out of the toilet and then put it back and flushed.  That hurt more than anything, I think.  I felt like I should've honored myself... the time invested in that pregnancy, and the baby more than flushing it down the toilet.

 

It took me months to deal with the loss of that pregnancy.  I may have been okay by the time I was preggie with EmJ about 3 months later.  Maybe.

Saturday Soliloquy 54: Pregnancy Series, My Sixth

This pregnancy has been significantly different from the others.  First, I'm sure, because of oils.  Second, because I was so much more clearly focused on Faith.  And Third... because of our choice of lifestyle.

Some of the highlights (which I so name only because they are the things that stand out the most, not necessarily because all of them were super positive):

-I didn't feel baby move much at all until right around twenty weeks!  (Super late compared to the preceding pregnancies.)

-Jessie ended up mostly unemployed through the majority of this pregnancy.

-He decided to quit smoking.

-My children caught lice and we ended up having it for months.  I attribute that, in large part, to catching it again after being free of the ghastly buggers for less than two weeks AND the difficulties inherent in the way we choose to live.

-I took a two-night, one-day, time-out in our camping van.

-My Uncle Matt killed himself (January 2, 2016).

-We took our first 'staycation'... the reason for it was so battle the lice bugs... we simply do not produce enough electricity in the winter to use a blow dryer on three girls' heads!

-When baby started moving so I could feel him regularly, I felt frequent movements all over the place.

For the rest of the story, click HERE.

Saturday Soliloquy 53: Pregnancy Series, My Fifth

I just "knew" EmJ was a girl from early on.  This was my easiest pregnancy as far as the physical side of things goes.  However, it was the most difficult emotionally and spiritually.

 

Jessie and I were having a really difficult time from before EmJ's conception.  Things just got worse and worse.  I definitely experienced prenatal depression during the pregnancy, which was, in itself, upsetting because I was so  close to being healed of depression, generally, I thought.

 

I also had a miscarriage before I conceived EmJ.  That miscarriage was really difficult and traumatic for me (I'll share about it in a post after this one).

 

Eventually, the children and I went to visit my parents after Thanksgiving and before my birthday (also before Christmas) in 2012.  We left very soon after Thanksgiving... it was such a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.  Probably our best to that point.  So it was a major bummer to feel like my marriage and life was falling apart after it.

 

I have come to believe... come to understand... that both Jessie and my family lines have generational curses and/or emotional dark spots around pertaining to that period between Thanksgiving and Christmas... perhaps covering both of those holidays.  I haven't figured out exactly what, but it's like an energetic pall that impacts us.

 

When we can define a problem, we have made the first step toward solving it.  However, I've known the problem for a few years now and still have not figured out how to resolve it.  I am working on it, though!

 

So, my four children and I stayed with Mimi and JPa for almost 3 months.  It was an important experience as I was able to see some things about my brother John and my Dad that I couldn't have seen if I wasn't there during that time.  I know I was supposed to be there.  I'm not happy that I was there under the negative circumstances that Daddy and I were experiencing.

 

We returned to Florida some time in March (before Ria and Jmy's birthdays) and EmJ was born on June 10th.  I just knew she would be born on June 10th from the very beginning.  I'm so happy she was because my sister has two daughters born on that day.  I don't know exactly why, but that's just been special to me from the very beginning of my pregnancy to grow EmJ.

 

I was in labor, but it was the night before EmJ would be born when I heard from my yet-to-be-born-baby that one of her middle names should be JOY.  I'd already settled, for sure, on Evelyn Margaret, so Joy fit nicely after that, in my opinion.  And it seemed perfect to me that we would call her by her initials.  It sounds like we are saying "MJ"... like Mary Jane.  But we know we are saying her initials.

Labor started in the evening on the 9th.  It was manageable.

 

I woke during the night to more difficult contractions.  I was able to faith my way through most... so it was hard work, but not painful.

 

Later, I felt like I wasn't able to maintain as good control and things started to get painful.

 

Eventually I woke Jessie up.  He brought the big brown leather chair to me in our bedroom and I was able to labor in that a little bit.

 

After a while, very early in the morning, Jessie called Karen and told her we thought it was time for her to come.  She did.

 

When she arrived and checked me, she told me I was 7cm dilated.  I was really unhappy to hear that because I was concerned that I would go another 12 hours just as I had with Jmy.  I should've been okay with that... I should've trusted my body and my baby more.  But I didn't.

 

I went to the bathroom and applied essential oils to my belly, to the inside of my left ankle, and did accupressure.... which is how I started labor to have Jmy.

 

The labor became very difficult and painful.

 

When my midwife, without my permission, broke my waters, I felt a horrible snap and a tremendous pain radiated out from my right hip.  I couldn't stand up as a result.  I just knew (didn't tell her, but it shouldn't have mattered because she should've asked me to break my waters - rather than doing it without my permission!) that EmJ was supposed to be born in the caul.  I feel so sad that she didn't get what she was supposed to have!  Her birth was way more traumatic for both of us, but especially her, than it was meant to be.

 

Immediately Karen felt there was cause for concern (she found meconium in the amniotic fluid) and had me move from standing up next to the crib to lying down on my bed and pushing.  EmJ was born with only a few pushes.  She was breathing very easily, but I knew she was far more disoriented than she should'be been.  I just feel so badly that I didn't protect her better... in a LOT of ways!

 

EmJ was born in Mama and Daddy's room, on the same bed as Jmy, in the same house as Jmy, in Florida.  EmJ was my smallest baby at 8 pounds and 2 ounces!  2 ounces smaller than Ria.

 

You can read more... perhaps including lots of redundancy... about EmJ's birth from when I originally wrote about it HERE.