It took me over a year to get here. More doctor appointments than the average woman trying to conceive, but still less than some. I was told by my doctors even once I got the okay just to begin trying with my partner not to get my hopes up right away because I needed to remember “for some women it can take some time still.”
So, you can imagine my surprise when after our first month of “trying” I began to feel extremely ill. I was exhibiting all the symptoms I had with my first pregnancies and some. It can’t happen that fast, can it? I was charting my symptoms daily like it was my job. I became far too familiar with my own body.
8 DPO… Negative and I should know better than to be trying right now.
10 DPO…Negative
I cannot begin to express the disorientation one feels when your body is telling you one thing and yet you’re being told another by your body still. My urine is saying I’m not pregnant, but my body is DEFINITELY saying otherwise.
But remember, period symptoms and pregnancy symptoms can mimic each other.
13 DPO…. I find myself taking pictures of an extremely faint line and inverting the photo trying to tell if that’s a positive or not. After opinions from my mom, my best friend, and my best friend’s mom as well as my doctor, they all agree any line counts as a positive.
My period never comes but December does, and I officially have my confirmation appointment scheduled at the end of the month. It’s very surreal when I feel like I’ve been planning and waiting for this moment for so long. I’m afraid to let my breath out, I’m waiting for the catch to come.
It does.
Wednesday night I can feel the cramping, but I try to tell myself to keep calm despite everything in my body telling me something is terribly wrong. I remember with my first pregnancy not really feeling pregnant until it was confirmed. I’ve always heard women talk about how they could just feel it in their body. They just felt the changes, they recognized the physical differences in their temperatures and bodily functions beyond that I’ll spare you the details on. I thought I wasn’t a proper woman because I couldn’t even read my own body! Now I was praying I was reading it wrong.
“…Muzik…Muzik!” I called to my partner from the bathroom. I’m bleeding. A lot. After a tear-filled phone call to my doctor, I was nursing what they called an at home miscarriage and told what to do in case of an emergency. Good thing they reviewed that.
I found myself having my pregnancy confirmed far sooner than I wanted to and in the absolute last place one would want that to happen. In the children’s ward of the emergency department as I was being told it wasn’t my fault and the pregnancy just wasn’t viable. I hate those words. Just. Wasn’t. Viable.
For the past YEAR I had watched what I ate, I stopped drinking herbal teas and coffee. I exercised. I lost weight for my health. I worked on my mental and physical health like it was my job. Because to me it was. How could this happen? What did I do wrong? Why the hell WASN’T it viable!?!?!
Prior to even being allowed to begin trying to conceive I found myself in a neurologist office, a gastroenterologist office, a cardiologist office, and of course my OB/GYN’s office. I had prayed and worked so hard for this. I was willing to wait for it if I had to, I had waited this long. But to have my baby right there within my reach so soon and have them taken from me…. I would have rather had to wait….
I’m rather proud of myself as I begin to move on and heal, trying to cope and deal with the reality of the situation. Even still I’m scared for my period to come. I talk to my therapist; I talk to my mom. I talk to God and my best friend. I talk to Muzik who is so supportive and empathetic. I try to get him to talk to me because I know this is hard for him too, I can see it in his eyes.
“Remember you wanted to know why it wasn’t viable?” God said to me.
Something was sending pains radiating through my back and down my legs beyond any cramps I had before. I was doubled over in pain being told by the EMT that all the hospitals are on divert and two of them have already turned me away. I’m 12 days post miscarriage and should be bleeding any day now but this isn’t period pains. Four hours later I found myself in a hospital bed getting pain medication and answers. A uterine cyst that had grown rather large rather rapidly burst inside me and had my pregnancy continued my child would have been at severe risk, as well as my future fertility.
I can’t say this is what I wanted to happen. I can’t say I’m okay with it fully. But I believe I will be blessed with my rainbow after the storm because I know it cannot rain forever.
Photos taken by Heart Warrior Photography.
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