Irony: Incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.

It’s time to share my story. I thought I was ready months ago and after I promised everyone I would write it I realized I couldn’t bring myself to relive it. I thought I was ready only to find myself avoiding it unlike I’ve ever avoided anything. Just the mere thought of delving into the pain would send me into an aching panic. I knew full well the feelings, the tears, that would be brought up in this post. Feelings and pain I’ve spent months trying to heal from. I was thrown headfirst into a darkness I have never known existed in me until now. Now I fear it. Fear with all my being that it will come back and next time I won’t make it out.

The saddest chapter of my life starts with us receiving the happiest news of our life. My period was late and my pregnancy tests started coming back positive. I shared the news with my husband over the phone and it wasn’t anything great or special because I didn’t really believe it. I casually mentioned that I might be pregnant but that I wouldn’t truly believe it until the doctor confirmed it. I think it was just so surreal I might’ve been in some kind of shock. As if something so unattainable, that we had wanted for so long wouldn’t happen so normally. It would take jumping through hoops and trips to see doctors and cost money. It would take a lot of work and we would know exactly when it should happen. It wouldn’t just happen the way it does for everyone else. Not after trying for 6 and a half years with nothing… But it did.

The time from when my pregnancy tests started showing positive and I started to believe I really was pregnant, up until my first doctors appointment, were the happiest days of my whole short pregnancy. I have a distinct memory stuck in my head from that time. My husband is lying on his back sprawled out across the bed, I’m also lying on my back with my head on his chest. We’re both looking at the ceiling, not talking much, but on the topic of what if I’m really pregnant. We’re both just lying there staring at the ceiling in thought, in wonder and amazement. Dreaming of finally holding our own sweet little baby. All our dreams of having our own family were coming true. We both didn’t want to get our hopes too high but it was too late. We were all in and we were over the moon.

The first step was going to the doctor for confirmation. My first trip to the doctor I remember sitting in the waiting room and about 10 mins before I get called in to see the doctor my mom gives word that my grandma has passed away. She had been really sick for a while and the doctors weren’t hopeful. It wasn’t a complete shock she passed but I hadn’t expected it would take so little time from being in the hospital to passed away. My biggest regret was not going to my grandpa’s birthday celebration the weekend before she passed. It was the last time most family members were able to speak to her. Although she was in bed for most of it as she was already feeling very sick. She was 84 years old when she passed and had so much family who loved her. As I heard of her passing I felt my grief push my happiness aside and take over.

Now I felt torn. I was so overjoyed at being pregnant I couldn’t help but feel this happiness inside, but I was also so sad. I wanted to just relish in this happiness and enjoy the feeling of finally being pregnant but it was completely overshadowed by the loss. I went in to the clinic to get my lab results and it was finally confirmed, I was pregnant. The doctor told me I was pregnant and asked if we wanted the baby, like if we wanted to keep it, and all I could think was if you only knew. I just told him yes, I didn’t feel like telling him the whole infertility story. I walked out of there the with so much gladness in my heart, I immediately called my husband and with the biggest grin on my face told him the news. Now we had all the proof we needed. WE WERE OFFICIALLY PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!

I walked out of the clinic and my husband picked me up and we headed off to my hometown. Later that night was the viewing for my grandmother. It was a five hour drive and we spent the whole drive talking about our future. Our future was full of hopes and dreams and love. We saw our future like we never had before. The excitement inside us was hard to contain but the closer we got to home the more the reality of what we were here to do sunk in. We came back to bury a loved one. It was easier to live in a dream world when we were five hours from reality. I preferred living in the bubble where it was just me, my husband, the little seed inside me, and a whole lot of happiness. As we got closer to reality I told myself that I would deal with the death and the funeral. I would be sad and I would say a proper good bye, then it was back to the bubble. After that nothing would stop me from being happy and enjoying the pregnancy.

I had always thought getting pregnant was the hard part and once that happened I was good to go. All I had to do was get pregnant then I would have a baby. Surely we don’t live in a world where it takes someone six and half years to get pregnant and when they finally do they get a life threatening virus and lose the baby. Sadly yes, yes we do. Is it cruel and unjust? I don’t know, to me it seems so. There are a lot of words I feel but cruel and unjust seem to make the most sense. Unfair, cheated, ironic, and maddening are a few more that come to mind.

It was October 6, 2021, cold, rainy and grey. Some would say the perfect day for a funeral. There were tears rolling down cheeks and runny noses, and hugs, so many hugs. A thriving environment for covid 19. I can’t be certain I got infected there, but based on how many of the family got sick after the funeral I would say it’s the most likely story. Two days after the funeral I started feeling sick. The next week was bad, really really bad. Fever, coughing, loss of taste and smell. I was colder than I have ever been in my life. I was so cold. I had the furnace turned up to 80 degrees and huddled under two thick blankets all day. It didn’t start off that bad but just kept getting worse.

One week after I first started with the symptoms I started bleeding. At this point I was so sick I stayed on the couch all day, only getting up to use the bathroom. My husband would pick up supper on his way home from work and would encourage me to eat but I had no interest. I might eat a few bites. I was so sick that being hungry was the last thing I cared about. The only thing that still tasted good was apples and bananas so I would eat a few throughout the day. I was coughing so badly and constantly I went and slept on the couch during the night because it was more comfortable as I could prop myself up better. I also thought maybe my husband would be able to get a little bit of sleep too then. I was dead tired, but all this time I didn’t realize how hard it was getting for me to breathe. Not only because it happened slowly but because I had never felt it before.

I started bleeding on October 13 or 14, the days kind of blurred together at this point. When I started bleeding I couldn’t even really care. I was so sick it was just another bad thing happening to me. My mind wasn’t functioning properly and I was completely out of it. I knew bleeding was bad and it wasn’t a good sign but I couldn’t even find the energy to care or to deal with it. I was sleeping pretty much all day every day waiting to get better. I didn’t think I wouldn’t get better on my own.

October 18, 2021 my husband came home from work and I get up from the couch to walk to the sink. It was maybe 10 steps with two stairs and I’m breathing so heavily, there’s a weight on my chest pulling me down. Every move I make is so hard… I’m so tired. My husband says “That’s it I’m taking you to the ER.” I don’t argue, I know something isn’t right. We jump in the pickup (well I walk slowly and struggle my way into the pickup) and drive the 20 mins to the hospital. I honestly don’t think I will make the walk from the pickup into the hospital and I’m breathing heavily as we’re greeted at the door with the woman asking why we’re there and if we have covid symptoms. I tell her I have covid and I’m having trouble breathing and we take a seat. The mask I’m wearing seems like it’s restricting my breathing even more and I’m just going breath for breath heaving in and out hoping they will call us in soon. It seems like such a long time but they finally call us to take my vitals.

I am immediately whisked into a room once they’ve taken my vitals and told to put on a gown. They shove an oxygen mask in my face the minute I have the gown on. I don’t know how many liters they had it on but I know it was like sticking your head out the window when driving too fast. I was gulping for air and it was overwhelming me, which I told them. After that they turned it down a bit which made it better and I appreciated the oxygen so much. I would be on oxygen for the next nine days.

We arrived at the ER around 9pm and after they put me in the room, we waited for the doctor. They did a covid test which was positive (Delta variant) and we waited for the doctor until 5am. We were so tired and the time dragged on so slowly. I was lying on a small hard stretcher bed and my husband ended up sleeping on the cold, hard, dirty floor. At some point they stuck me with IV and after the doc saw me at 5am they admitted me and sent me upstairs.

I was not prepared for what happened the next 10 days. It seemed comforting at first, they gave me a nicer bed, and covered me in blankets that had been warmed. I thought I would be okay. As they were hooking up my oxygen I told them to make sure the oxygen line was long enough to take all the way into the bathroom. I was shocked when they told me I was put on complete bed rest until the doctor said other wise and that I would not be able to go the bathroom. I was kindly given the choice of catheter or catheter. I was equally surprised when they told me I wasn’t allowed food or drink until further notice. So the catheter was put in which was very uncomfortable, I had one line in one arm for steroids and antibiotics which I was given every morning and one line in my other arm for the liquid food/nutrition since I couldn’t eat. They had to stick me 6 times to get that line in. The reason they wouldn’t allow me to eat or drink was because they said I was at risk of the food and drink just going into my lungs. I’m guessing because I couldn’t take deep enough breaths to swallow properly. I was on 21L of oxygen I believe, with the mask and the nasal prongs. I was also taken downstairs for x-rays and an ultrasound. Ultrasound for miscarriage reasons. This all happened on the first day and it wasn’t pleasant.

The next day they told my husband that he couldn’t be there with me anymore because he had been exposed to my early covid and if he had caught it there was the risk he would spread it to the other patients and the staff. They wouldn’t let him in even with a negative covid test. I struggled with this a lot. My number one source for comfort and encouragement was taken away and now I had to deal with everything alone. It was scary. I know I was so out of it especially in the beginning that it probably seemed like him being there wouldn’t have made a difference but I know I would have appreciated having him there. I especially would have appreciated having him there through all the nights where I only slept for two hours and spent the rest of the time watching the clock praying the time would go faster and morning would come.

I can tell you all the different ways I lost my dignity there in that hospital room. My dignity was like one of those ads where they’ve cut the bottom into strips that you can tear off with the phone number written on it and every time I had to go through something… I’m going to say traumatizing, they tore off another strip of my dignity until there was none left. In the hospital I was too tired and sick to care. I didn’t have the energy to dwell on all the things that were happening. It’s not like I had a choice either way and I did know that so I just didn’t dwell. What I didn’t know at the time was that I would spend a lot of time thinking about it later, and I would go through every detail in my head late at night. It would run through my head every night and I would lay awake thinking about it and crying.

I was blatantly reminded of my weakness with every move I made. Every time I struggled to lift myself up when they wanted to change the sheets on the bed. I don’t want to go into all the horrible details but know that I was completely helpless, unable to get out of bed all the while I was bleeding from a miscarriage and forced to do my business in a bed pan. I now have a tremendous respect for nurses. Every single nurse I had was wonderful and all I could think the whole time they took care of me was that nurses are angels sent from heaven. I never thought I would be this helpless until I was old. Now I know why some old people struggle so much with having to have help for all these things that you haven’t needed help with since you were little. I’m just going to throw the word traumatizing out there again. In a little bit you will understand why I’m using that word and that I’m not using it lightly.

I’m going to summarize the next 8-9 days in one paragraph because I could go through every little detail but there are way too many things. Every morning they took a vial of blood, I think for miscarriage reasons to check my HCG levels. Every evening they stuck a short little needle into my stomach to prevent blood clots that either came from covid or the medication they were giving me. It didn’t hurt going in but stung like a mad hornet after a couple minutes. Every. Single. Night. I had the bruises from that needle for weeks after I was discharged. I was also pricked in the finger multiple times a day so they could check my blood glucose levels. Everyday they were able to turn my oxygen down a little bit more. I had 4-5 ultrasounds through the course of my time in the hospital. The reason for all the ultrasounds was because my body wasn’t getting rid of the baby as it should. On day 4 they inserted pills vaginally to help my uterus contract to help it along and when that didn’t work they shoved them inside me rectally… it didn’t work either. It also didn’t help with my dignity. On day 6 I could start eating soft foods. I had been allowed to drink water for a few days already. I was allowed 2 visitors in total for the whole time (anyone except my husband) so my oldest sister came to visit on days 4 & 5 and my mom came to visit on day 8. Keep in mind they had to drive 5 hours to see me. I was lonely, only around strangers all day and I don’t think my mom and sister will ever truly know how much seeing them meant to me. Even if it was only for a little while. They were a little slice of sunshine in my very sad and dreary hospital room. On day 8 they took out my catheter and I could get out of bed for the first time to go to the bathroom. I started physical therapy. Day 9 they were able to take me off oxygen completely. Day 10, discharged into my husbands arms. Gosh I missed him.

I struggled a lot in the hospital. Mostly physically but also mentally. The time dragged by slowly and there were so many nights where I couldn’t sleep. I would sleep maybe for 2-3 hours then I would turn on the light and then turn off the light and try to sleep. Then lie awake in the darkness and stare at the time and then turn on the light again. Then turn it off again because it was still night and I should be sleeping. Then I would lie there awake and pray that a nurse would come in and check my vitals just so I wouldn’t be alone, even if it was just for 5 measly minutes. 3am, 4am, 5am, 5:30… good now the nurse would be in soon to take blood. I was thrilled when the nurse came to stick me for blood because that meant it was morning and I wouldn’t have to be alone in the dark anymore. Alone in my room with the door closed, only me and the shadows illuminated by the glow of the monitor. I would lie there watching the monitor afraid to take my eyes off of it. Every time my sats dropped below 90 the alarm would go off and I would concentrate on my breathing taking care not to move around too much because then they dropped even lower. I was afraid I would fall asleep and not be able to wake up and no one would notice in time to save me. No one was there to notice. I was alone. All alone.

The struggle didn’t stop once I was discharged. I was weak for a long time. Slowly I regained my strength and only then did I realize that the mental wounds would take a lot longer to heal than the physical. I was still struggling mentally long after my body was healed and strong once again. I am a lot better than a few months ago but I am still not completely healed mentally. What I struggled most with after the hospital was everything that I had endured not only in the hospital but the weeks leading up to it. It was hard and as I mentioned before the memories kept me up at night and I fell asleep many nights with tears in my eyes, silently sobbing. I was in a very fragile state for months. I spent months always on the brink of tears. I spent all day holding back my tears, they were always right there, ready to fall. I sunk deeper and deeper into my despair. I should probably just come out and call it depression. After Christmas my husband was away all week for work, as he is every year, and without his support I just kept falling. I was stuck in this darkness with no clue how to get out. No clue how to help myself heal. In the end the only thing that helped was time. I think I hit rock bottom on the night I uncontrollably sobbed myself to sleep contemplating all the different ways I could just not be here anymore. It was the first time I have ever truly been scared of myself. The next few days were hell because I cried every time I knew I had to be home alone. I was scared to be alone because I didn’t trust myself to be alone with myself. Afraid I would hurt myself in a way that couldn’t be undone. Writing this brings tears to my eyes, thinking back to that time, thinking about how much pain I was in. I have come a long way already but I still have miles to go.

The brunt of it has passed and I can honestly say I have mostly healed from the trauma of covid and everything I went through in the hospital. Of course there’s the occasional time it strikes me down again but I’ll say mostly healed. What I haven’t healed from is my miscarriage. I wasn’t able to properly process it for a long time because I was so overwhelmed by covid and everything happening at once, but now… now I am processing… and processing. I don’t know if I will ever fully heal. I had a baby growing inside me and it died. It just makes me so sad. My little baby is gone. I’m now crying as I write this. I haven’t healed but I hope I will heal. I hope I will be able to accept that it wasn’t meant to be. And I hope we will get another chance. I remember when I found out I was pregnant and my grandma passed I was so sad she would never get to meet my baby because I know how much it would have meant to her us being able to have a child. I didn’t know she would meet my baby before me up in heaven.

I was only seven weeks along but to me it was real. And what I lost was a baby, not just a fetus or an embryo. I lost my baby, with it’s little beating heart. And it just makes me so sad.

We tried for 6.5 years to get pregnant, and the minute I finally get pregnant I get Covid and have a miscarriage… isn’t it ironic. That’s my story. Now that I’ve written this post I feel I can finally close this chapter of my life. I will always keep our little babe in my memory and think only of the love and happiness he or she brought us. Even though it was such a short time.

With love -S