Pregnancy and Infant Loss

Back in April, I read an article where Derrick and Jill Dillard were interviewed. If you don't know who Jill is, she's one of the Duggar girls, of the once popular 19 and Counting, reality show.

The article spoke about pregnancy and touched on Jill and Derrick's decision to announce theirs very early on.    Jill said something, in that interview, that struck me really deep and further confirmed my own thoughts on the subject:

"Believing that life begins at conception and that every life is precious no matter how young, - we would — even if there were to be a miscarriage — we would still want that child to be recognized," she told Us at the time. "So it was something that we thought about and went forward with."  -- Jill Dillard

This spoke volumes to me, having lost my first and long awaited pregnancy, in January.  I found out I was pregnant on December 13th and we immediately decided that we'd tell our families on Christmas Day.  (just 12 days later).     I knew, with my age, and having taken fertility meds, that there were risks associated with my pregnancy.   BUT, we also felt that, no matter what, we wanted our families to know.  We had close family members and some friends who thought that we announced it too soon.   There's that theory of "being out of the woods" before you tell everyone, because WHAT IF the pregnancy fails and you miscarry?    Oh, so if we were to handle it that way, and I miscarried, with none of our family knowing I was pregnant, then we'd never tell them I was pregnant in the first place?  Wrong. Pregnancy is not like interviewing for a job, when you're afraid to jinx yourself by telling people about it, before you get it.  People out there actually think "well, you don't want to get your families' hopes up and then the pregnancy fails".  Oh, right, I don't want them to have to go through that.   Well, how is it any different for me, for us?   I'd rather my family be there for me every step of the way, no matter the outcome.   My sister was actually at my OB appointment that day with me, thinking all was well, and it was just a follow up for some minor spotting a few days earlier.    In the room with me, waiting to see the ultrasound.  Knowing all we'd see was my little bean, but nonetheless happy and excited.  Only to find out later, after 4 office ultrasounds and 2 at South Jersey Radiology,  that it was an ectopic pregnancy.   Yes, it was awful and heartbreaking and so disappointing, but I wasn't sorry that we told our families.   

I don't regret anything.    I don't even regret getting started on my Pregnancy Journal that my 9 year old niece bought for me, with her own money, at Barnes & Noble.   I don't regret saving all the pictures of the positive tests.    I just pray that someday, I get to do it all over again, and carry a baby to term.  I was always just a statistic with fertility struggles and now I'm a statistic with pregnancy loss too.   I never knew what anyone meant, online, when they referred to "rainbow babies"..... and now I do.    I never knew what ectopic pregnancy was... and now I do.    I never knew what it was like to be pregnant... now I do.      I never knew what it was like to lose a baby/pregnancy........now I do.    I will never forget hearing a heartbeat, when I was in the ER, having an emergency ultrasound, the day I was admitted for my ectopic rupture.    The tech jumped forward in his seat to silence it, but I'd already heard it.  It was too late.    And had I not heard it, my baby would have been no less a life, in my eyes.      The day he/she was conceived, was the day WE gave him/her LIFE.   So, imagine 12 weeks later.... YES, you were very much real to me, to US.  Maybe not in the right place, to be carried and delivered,  BUT, in our hearts from beautiful beginning to sorrowful end.