Experiencing Loss

One year ago today, 10 months after almost losing my own life as well as the life of my daughter, Margaret, to HELLP Syndrome, my husband and I experienced something even more horrible: the loss of a child.

I was maybe three months pregnant—we had just begun telling our friends and family—and we were beyond ecstatic. Early in the morning on day two of our vacation in Corpus Christi, TX, visiting my brother and his wife and daughter, I noticed some spotting on the toilet paper. My heart sank, and I called my husband into the bathroom. Of course some spotting during early pregnancy can be normal, so we told ourselves that that’s what it was. On my next trip to the bathroom I knew that wasn’t what it was.

We cried. I cried. I cried long and hard, that week of our vacation, the next week at home, and for weeks and months afterwards. Now, a year later, I’m crying again. My husband told my brother and his wife in the next room what happened. They had not long before also experienced a miscarriage. Though little enjoyment could be found in the remainder of our trip, it was an enormous blessing to be on vacation—off of work, away from “real life,” able to be husband and wife, experiencing pain together—as well as in the company of beloved family who were very familiar with the deepness of our pain.

Many people—family, friends, all well-meaning—have said that there must have been something terribly wrong with the baby, and that’s exactly why early miscarriages happen. The baby wouldn’t have been healthy anyway. Maybe that’s true, but it did nothing to dull the pain. For someone who’s pro-life, miscarriage matters. Whatever deformities or disabilities or other inadequacies my baby may have had in no way diminish the love that I had and still have for my baby.

At the time, despite my anguish, I knew that what I was experiencing was part of God’s plan. For whatever reason, God had created my baby, intentionally. This baby was no “accident,” no casual misfortune. As the Psalmist wrote, “You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb… I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God created this baby, and then took him home. Or her. Someday, when God takes me home too, I’ll find out. Until then, I believe that my son or daughter is communing with the saints in Heaven.

Of course now, I can see more clearly what God was planning—a wonderful, joyous, perfect plan—and his name is Robert Spencer. Our sweet baby boy would not have been possible without that loss. 

It’s been a year, and I haven’t really talked about my miscarriage. It makes people uncomfortable, and it makes me sad. It's easier to just avoid the topic. Since my baby never entered this world, and my few months of pregnancy are the only “memories” that anyone has of my little one, it somehow seems okay to write it off as if it never happened. As Dr. Seuss said, “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” and although it’s true that time is a great healer, is forgetting really the best approach? At many times it’s seemed that that is how the world would have my husband and I respond. 

I don’t have any grand conclusion to this post. My only hope is that by writing this, I may encourage someone else to talk about what losses they’ve experienced. Please don’t push aside your real emotions because someone else says they’re not valid. You are allowed to be sad. And then you are allowed to move on and begin to again see the joy in life, no matter how long it takes you to get there. 

For Baby Aidan

Today is your birthday, my sweet baby dear

But you are in heaven, and not with us here.

I never got to hold you or give you a kiss

But Mommy loves you, and you are missed. 

My plans for you on this earth couldn’t come true 

Because God needed an angel, and that angel is you. 

So today on your “Heaven Birthday,” I will light a candle and say a prayer

And thank God for my angel baby, and that you’re in His care.

34 weeks

                This past weekend I began casually packing my hospital bag. I was excited to do this because I never got to for my first pregnancy. I pulled out the list that I had eagerly grabbed from the doctor’s office- “What to Bring to the Hospital.” I first put into my bag a bottle of wine (okay, not on the list) that my husband and I chose together on a weekend getaway to Vermont not long after finding out about this pregnancy. I vow to have a fully functioning liver, as well as fully recovered insulin levels. What better way is there to celebrate the birth of a new baby than by sharing a long-anticipated bottle of wine with your husband and whoever else happens to be in the delivery room?

                Next I added a newborn outfit for our little man. He will arrive home sporting a “Little Brother” onesie, along with some teeny tiny pants and socks. Underwear, two nursing bras, chap-stick, slippers, flip-flops, some warm fuzzy socks, deodorant, and a mental note to myself to swing by Lululemon Athletica to finally (years of desire, but an unwillingness to commit to the price) purchase a pair of exercise pants as a going-home present to myself. Toothpaste. A toothbrush.

                Memories came flooding back. Just under nineteen months ago, after my husband and I spent a lazy Friday with dear friends, enjoying the end-of-summer sun and swimming in a beautiful New Hampshire lake, during the long car ride home I developed a strange, intense illness. Severe pain in my upper right abdomen, waves of nausea and desperation, uterine cramping, and eventually vomiting from the pain and general feeling of misery. What I thought was labor pain (I’d never experienced it before—all I knew was that labor was supposed to be awful!), my incompetent but well-meaning small-town doctors and nurses thought was food poisoning. A we’re-going-to-send-you-home-but-while-you’re-here-let’s-do-a BLOOD TEST revealed that I had suddenly developed Class I HELLP Syndrome, a pregnancy complication completely foreign to those same doctors and nurses. They had all at least heard of preeclampsia, but that was not the case for this more serious variant characterized by Hemolysis, Elevated Liver function, and Low Platelets (HELLP). So after six hours in the local hospital and twenty-four hours after my last shower, teeth-brushing, and getting dressed, I was rushed by ambulance to Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

                That Saturday morning I was told that if my condition hadn’t been discovered, I with the baby would have been dead in a matter of hours. My husband, however, was told that even in my current state, while the baby was expected to turn out just fine, my chances were not so great. He was told to prepare for the worst in regards to his wife. And so emergency inducement began. More than twelve hours after my last meal, despite my sickness, I was starving. I begged for a meal, a snack, a drink, a sip of water… anything. “Please…” I cried to each doctor and nurse as the shifts changed, always answered with the same regrettable “no.” Up until that point in my life, if I could have done anything differently, I would have bought and eaten that vending-machine Snickers bar at the rest stop the night before. In case of emergency C-section, I was not permitted to put anything into my stomach. I was put on an IV drip of fluids so that I wouldn’t become dehydrated, but my mouth was where I needed to taste something.

                That evening I was allowed to have my lips moistened by way of a tiny wet sponge on a stick. I licked my lips and cherished the half-drops of water that entered my dry, sticky, sour, putrid-tasting mouth. After about twenty hours of ineffective inducement, I was long past the point of starvation, and even my thirst began to dwindle a little. But my mouth, my throat, and my lips were dry, cracked, in agonizing want of something cold, something fresh. The taste of my own dying breath permeated my being.

And then, sometime around 4 AM—forty-six hours after my last shower and teeth-brushing, twenty-eight hours after first entering the local hospital, and sixteen hours after beginning vaginal induction—I came out with a new question. “Can I brush my teeth?”

“Let me check.” My nurse told me. She left to go ask the doctor. Several minutes later she returned with a hospital-issued toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, as well as one of those kidney-shaped buckets used for catching urine, vomit, or in this case, used toothpaste. I almost cried with joy.

My larger memories of that weekend are mostly blank: It is more the specifics like this that occasionally come back to me. This grand event of brushing my teeth was a group effort. Someone had to help me lean up and over a little, someone had to hold my hair, someone had to hold the spit bucket, and someone had to brush my teeth. My husband brushed my teeth for me—of that I am sure. The other roles are filled in with a fog in my memory.

The wet, cold toothpaste hit my teeth and began scrubbing away two days of grime, saliva, hospital air, and tears, all dried and crusted, caked inside my mouth. I closed my eyes and internally grinned as my mouth hung open. I spit. I rinsed. I cherished every moment. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I felt clean. Sure, I was still covered in sand and dried lake water, my armpits were stubbly, I was drenched in sweat from head to toe, my hair was greasy, and I had been urinating into a bucket in my hospital bed for over 24 hours, but despite all this… I was clean. I could open my mouth and speak without shame at my terrible breath. I could rest my head and get a little sleep knowing that something in my little collapsing world right now was right.

The drugs keeping me alive, the exhaustion, and the starvation probably all added together to create my hyper-emotional response. My husband doesn’t remember any of this happening when I ask him about it. For him, this was just a bump along the road amid a weekend of nearly losing his wife, and also witnessing the birth of his first child. In those moments, for me, having my teeth brushed was a life-changing and spiritual turning point. I could make it through this. Eight hours later, Margaret Grace Means entered the world.

Four days later, I took a shower.

And with that thought, I placed a nice, new, clean toothbrush into my hospital bag. This baby is due in five-and-a-half weeks. My eyes widened as another idea occurred to me and I leapt to my bureau. I located and added to the bag my Preeclampsia Survivor t-shirt. I am ready.

30 weeks prego and my Pesto recipe!

I'm 30 weeks along-- completely into my third and FINAL trimester! My doctor as well as the doctor who delivered Maggie (and therefore saved my life and hers), both assure me that everything so far looks perfect. As it goes with Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome, I won't truly be in the clear until post-partum, but I cherish those words of encouragement. Here's a picture of my pregnant belly in my very messy bathroom:

In other news, I made Basil Pesto last night! This classic is an absolutely favorite of mine-- so much so that last summer I actually started to get sick of it from making it so often. It's SUPER easy to make (though it does require a LOT of basil), and such an amazing flavor when made fresh. Here's my recipe:

2 cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 cloves of garlic
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
salt & pepper

Combine the basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and olive oil in a food processor. Remove from food processor and stir in Parmigiano Reggiano, salt, and pepper. Do this in a small pan on low heat if serving immediately.

Voila! That's it! The most time-consuming part of making pesto is picking the basil leaves, IF you're picking them straight off of the plant. Many grocery stores sell packages of fresh basil leaves that will work just as well-- and so much less work for you!

 

Since I have Gestational Diabetes, I can't just sit there and eat a giant bowl of pasta like I really want to. So I have to find a way to transform my Italian dishes into something more blood-sugar-friendly. For dinner last night, I started with whole wheat ziti.

 

I then sautéed a large cubed eggplant with a pound of hot Italian sausage. I only needed to add a little EVOO to the pan-- no other add-ins were necessary. The sausage is plenty flavorful by itself!!

And that's it! I combined all of the above, with less focus on the pasta and more focus on the sausage, eggplant, and of course PESTO, and I had a very happy blood sugar two hours later! I love it when I can eat the pasta that I crave without my body punishing me for it! :-)

27 weeks

As of tomorrow I will be 27 weeks pregnant. I certainly don’t FEEL like I’m this far along. Depending on who you ask, 27 or 28 weeks is the mark of the third trimester. When I was pregnant with my daughter, time moved like molasses. Now, being pregnant while simultaneously caring for my daughter, time moves like quicksand. I still haven’t gained much weight, partially because of the Gestational Diabetes diet, and partially because I just haven’t had time to sit on the couch and snack like I so often did during my first pregnancy. Having a toddler running around and using you as a jungle gym sure changes things!

                So far in this pregnancy, I have experienced the following:

-Blood sugar issues

Unable to control my fasting blood sugar, my doctor prescribed the lowest dose available (1.25 mg) of Glyburide, which is the only non-insulin blood sugar medication known to be safe during pregnancy. This worked for about two weeks. I then moved to the next dose (2.5 mg), which again worked for about two weeks. I then moved up another notch (3.75 mg), which has been successful for about a month now. I have been able to eat bigger breakfasts thanks to the leftover medication in my body in the morning, and through experimenting I have discovered that I can safely eat a much more “normal” diet than I did in my first pregnancy—it’s just a matter of trial and error, and being willing to have some imperfect blood sugar readings from time to time. It makes for a much easier pregnancy when you permit yourself more freedom with your diet!

 

-Occasional headaches

I have experienced mild headaches from time to time. This is a great improvement over my daily headaches during my first pregnancy. Less Tylenol= less stress on my liver= a good thing!

 

-Epigastric pain

Twice during this pregnancy (at 11 weeks and again at 24 weeks) I experienced very severe Upper Right Quadrant pain. As a HELLP Syndrome survivor, I was absolutely crippled with fear and anxiety at the pain’s proximity to my liver. At 11 weeks pregnant, I went to the Emergency Room. At 24 weeks, I simply waited a day and went to my regular appointment with the OB at the department of Maternal Fetal Medicine. Each time, a blood test was ordered and my liver function was found to be completely normal. The diagnosis: gas, constipation, and anxiety. The solution: Colace, Miralax, a good probiotic, and lots of prayer. “I cast all my cares upon you!”

 

                Between working each day, cooking, cleaning, having a toddler and a husband, I haven’t had much time to really even process that there’s another baby coming. But according to my calendar, there isn’t that much time left! During the next few months I will probably experience much more anxiety along with whatever else this pregnancy has up its sleeve. I hope and pray that I can control my worries enough so that they don’t have too much of an effect on my family! And I hope and pray that any pain I experience for the rest of this pregnancy will continue to be attributed to gas J