My boyfriend and I weren’t trying, we were in, “if it happens it happens” mode. We knew there’s never the “right” time to get pregnant and start a family. I was in my graduate program when I found out I was pregnant. The first words I said when I saw those two lines were, “Oh crap, I’m not ready! Oh crud…”
When the realization and shock wore off I cried. I was now going to be a mom. I was so excited! I began to buy a few baby socks, onesies, wall decorations, rattles, wipes, etc. I told my family, I created wall art, and we talked about baby names. I thought when people become pregnant it was almost guaranteed that they’d hold that baby in their arms within 9 months. I was wrong…
I was seven weeks and three days when I lost my baby. It started out with me bleeding. After a few days it got worse which was when I went to the ER and they told me I had a threatened miscarriage. Those words couldn’t sum up the pain I felt when my baby was no longer with me.
I felt every emotion in the book and I was dead set on that it was my fault, my body wasn’t good enough to carry the child, etc. From the start of the bleeding to the end I bled for two weeks. The pain was unbearable. I was talking two baths a day and I was physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. It was the worst pain of my life.
It’ll be 7 months on February 21st and some days are harder than others; hell some weeks tear me to shreds. I did get PTSD from the experience and it plagues me at the worst times of the day. One of the hardest parts of losing my child was physically losing her but also losing who I used to be in the process. I’m a different person now and I dislike how loss has changed me.
My coping has been making a memory box, making a shadow box filled with my ER bracelet and pictures I took of me pregnant, buying tons of pregnancy and infant loss awareness stuff, sharing my story, talking to family a little, and taking life one day at a time-sometimes one hour at a time. What has helped the most was giving my baby a name and gender-to make it more real, to show that this loss is real.
Her name is Ava Pedersen and she made her heavenly appearance July 21st, 2021. She would have made her earthly appearance March 6th, 2022.
In this moment a part of me wants to start trying again but the other part of me knows that I’m not ready mentally and financially. I just miss being pregnant. I want to have that again. I want to have the nausea, vomiting, acid reflux, weight gain, mind fogginess, having a baby, late nights, mom hair, too much coffee, etc. To me that sounds like a dream compared to the experience I was given.
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You are so strong and beautiful. I love you little sis. You are an inspiration for sharing your story