Starting Over

I just picked up the calendar and counted. It's been 108 days since the miscarriage and life has settled into somewhat of a routine.

It's now been almost 3 months since I've joined the new company and I'm still adjusting to the new job scope but all is well. I think I've settled in as well as I can within this short time frame, and this weekend will mark 90 days which means I will then qualify for maternity benefits :)

Emotionally I'm more settled. I still feel saddened when I'm reminded of our loss, about the baby that could have been. I went to great lengths to avoid the bestie, who announced her pregnancy on the same day as me. I'm concerned and I'm happy that she's doing well, but I can't gather the courage to meet up with her. I can't bring myself to see her and her burgeoning tummy which will only remind me that I could have been where she is today. That's my mental block.

The cousin also revealed that she's pregs and with a baby boy at that. Granted that she's been a horrible daughter and I dread talking to her because of all the underlying competitive vibes that she sends over, I can't help asking the big dude up in the sky what did she do right that I did wrong?

These are the 2 biggest monsters that I'm fighting on a day to day basis. The WHYs in my head are never ending.

On a more positive note, the cycles are back to normal. I had trouble after the miscarriage, waited almost 10 weeks for my 1st menses after the procedure which warrant a visit back to the gynae. I was given a week's dose of Duphaston which promptly brought on Aunty Flo.

We intended to try for bb #2 after that but then I fell sick quite badly and it was a good thing that it didn't succeed coz with all the meds I was taking, I'm sure it wouldn't be good for the baby.

Since then, I've had one more cycle of AF which convinced me that my cycles were now regulated so we planned for Project B once more. If this round succeeds, it'll be extra special coz there would be a high chance that bb #2's bday will be relatively close to mine.

Please keep us in your prayers!

The road to recovery

12 days have gone by since the miscarriage. The first few days were the worst, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened, I couldn't understand why it had happened and I couldn't accept the fact that my baby...the baby we've been so looking forward to was history now.

You know how emotions can overwhelm u until u cant control them? Well i didn't experience that overwhelming feeling. All I had was a snap on reaction that would leave me in tears just like that...no warning, no control. It got to a point where my family didn't wanna leave me alone. I saw a doc and was given some relaxants to help me with my depression.

I lost my appetite and I just felt this void within me. I told a few good friends what had happened via SMS, then went radio silent on them. I couldn't bear to talk to anyone, and I asked for their understanding to give me time and space to recover.

My family was my pillar of strength...I don't think i could have handled it without them. I don't think I could be sitting here, sharing my thoughts with you at this point if not for them. I'ld probably still be in the throes of sadness, rather than learning to accept what had happened,

I'm still on medication now, and I still have mood swings. Sometimes I feel perfectly normal, but then I would think of the baby and go quiet, but at least the tears don't flow that easily anymore.

I still have my fears, my reservations and this pain which I'm not sure would ever go away, but I know that life will go on. I've told friends that I will not get over this loss, but I know I'll learn to cope with it. I still have hopes that my baby will have a sibling in the near future. Even though the bunlet was with us for a mere 7weeks, he was my baby and he was loved.

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The day I said goodbye

18 June. I don't know if I'll ever forget this date.

We went for our emergency appointment that morning where the Doc did her usual ultrasound scan where we saw the bunlet and got the news which brought my world to a halt.

The baby had barely grown since our visit 2 weeks ago, it still measured at about 6 weeks and 6 days and more importantly, no heartbeat could be detected.

At that time, I could hear what the Doc was saying, but it didn't seem real. She told me that I'll need to do an evacuation of the womb, either at 2pm that day or I could have it done on Monday. I think my head was working on behalf of my heart that day coz I made the decision pretty quickly, opting to have it done on the day itself. Dragging it on will keep the baby with me, but what good would it do? Perhaps more bleeding? Chances of infection? So the decision was made and we headed home to prepare for my hospital admission.

I couldn't begin to worry about losing the baby. At that point, I was wondering how to break the news to my parents, but then again, mothers seem to have a 'spidey-sense' when it comes to their kids don't they. Mine seemed to immediately sense that her girl was in trouble. I broke down while telling her what had happened since yesterday evening.

In the midst of all the drama and sadness, I have to say that the hospital I went to was really good. I couldn't imagine going through all the heartache and sadness in a public hospital where I figured that following processes would be more important than that much needed human touch.

My procedure was scheduled for 2pm and I was told to get ready by 1.30pm. Surprise surprise, they did come by at 1.30pm for me and I was wheeled off to the OR where the hubs and my mum walked behind me all the way to the door of the OR.

I have no idea how long I was lying there, waiting for the Doc, but I just waited, silently saying my goodbyes to the little bunlet, strangely not at all scared about what was about to happen to me, other that the fact that they were about to remove something which I've grown attached to in the last 2 months. I focused on the beeping which I think was the heart monitor, and wondered if I could will it to slow down. At some point, the Doc came in, chatted about my hospitalisation leave and I was out for the rest of it.

When I came around, I was back in the ward, no pain, nothing, except that I felt really tired and hungry. I asked for food which I took down pretty fast and the sweet milo was a great source of comfort.

After some time, the hubs arranged for my discharge and we left, one little life less but the healing would take some time....

2 weeks on

In the midst of the excitement of pregnancy, I was also caught up in a job change drama. It seemed like that planets had all decided to have a get together and see how I would handle everything happening at once. I would go from considering dropping the new job and focus on stablising the pregnancy, to moving on to the new job and hoping for the best. I would swing from one decision to another so often that I got super stressed out.

In the end, I decided that moving on would be for the best. I needed a new challenge and things couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. But I was still worried about how I would handle the new job together with a little one on the way. That was my main priority. But it seemed that my new boss was very supportive and understanding of my situation and so the decision was made.

So as I approached the last day of work at my current place, I decided to take the last Friday off to clear off a mandatory day off. However I woke up on Thursday morning with a horrible backache, it was so bad that I had to take a day off from work. I could hardly walk. Luckily a day of rest seem to help and I planned to enjoy my day off on Friday with a new haircut to bid my colleagues farewell with, followed by a relaxing facial session.

My facial ended at about 6pm where I plodded off to the bathroom, while lamenting the fate of pregnant women bladders. That's where the nightmare began.

*warning: graphic description*

I wiped off and saw a 5-cent coin sized blood clot with pink staining trailing on the tissue. Alarm bells started going off coz I was about 8 weeks on and had never had any form of spotting so far. I quietly settled my next appointment with the therapist and went to a corner to call the Doc.

Doc was off for the day and I spoke to a nurse who told me to double the dosage of my pills, get complete bed rest until my emergency appointment the next morning.

I wandered around in a daze for a while, not knowing how to get home and finally caught a cab with a friendly driver who chatted with me all the way which definitely helped with distracting me.

I was supposed to meet my mum and dad for dinner, I didn't want to alarm them yet so I claimed that I was very tired and wanted to go home and get some rest.

So I got home and settled on the sofa while waiting for the hubs to get home. I told him what happened on the way, and he was a picture of calm. I broke down after he got home. But he assured me that spotting is not a cause for alarm, we should just wait and see what the Doc says tomorrow.

Waiting...

After that first positive test, we were both relieved that, hey our plumbing works. We're not broken. It actually seems that we've done it and made our own little one.

Hubs kept telling me to wait a week before testing again, but I was impatient. I couldn't believe it was true and I sneakily bought more HPTs (yes, more than 1) to try. The next line appeared in a blink of an eye and I knew it was true. It was no fluke. We were pregnant!

I made an appointment with the Doc for 6 June which seemed a little far away, almost 3 weeks before we could finally confirm the existence of little bunlet.

But in the meantime we started being very careful about my food intake. I stopped all medication, even paracetamol which I popped like candy (okie, maybe not that much) due to my frequent headaches and backaches.

I was wary of taking raw and cured foodstuff. No alcohol or 'cooling' stuff (as what the Chinese believe is not beneficial for pregnant women) and so on. I was even paranoid about people bumping into me, and would cover my tummy protectively in case of accidents.

Then finally 6 June came around and we had our first look at little bunlet. He (obviously we don't know its gender, but somehow I felt that it was a little boy) was attached to my right side and the Doc could hardly get a good pix of him but that was all I needed...a glimpse of our little one, growing away in me. I recall catching his heartbeat at one stage, but there was a teensy bit of apprehension when the Doc told me that the baby was about 6 weeks old when according to my calculations, he should already be about 7 weeks. But I told myself that the Doc knows best. Perhaps my calculations were a little off.

Doc sent me home with some pills and an appointment to see her in 2 weeks.

A New Life

Sometime in late April, I made my first ever obgyn visit. As with any newly married couple, we talked about when kids would come into the picture and for us, we agreed that we would enjoy our couplehood for a year before we started trying in earnest.

The 1 year mark came and we began our quest towards parenthood. I did not expect it to be easy, but as the months past with no luck, we began to wonder if there's something wrong with us, healthwise. So I decided that it was time for medical intervention.

We saw the Doc who proclaimed that I was in good health and even confirmed that my ovulation was late that month. She gave us advice on the best times to try that month and to give ourselves another 6 months of trying before coming back to her. What was important to me at that point, was knowing that I was ok and it was probably a matter of timing.

And so we went about our lives as usual.

Come mid-May, I felt this odd urge to do a HPT one morning and did a doubletake when the peestick showed a teeny tiny faint positive line. It felt unreal and we seem to have an unspoken agreement to hang on to the hope that it's true for now....

Dusting off the cobwebs

It's been a long time, so much so that I've almost forgotten the password to this account, but it's time to return to this blog. The place where I share my experiences in this marriage. It's been almost 2 years since we moved into the Burrow and so much has happened since then.

We're now happily settled into our own place. We're not the best housekeepers in the world, but we get by. Much improvements needed, but I'm sure we'll get there.

The reason why I've decided to revisit this blog is because something major has happened in my life and I needed an outlet where I could share my story anonymously.

I admit that I have a more active blog elsewhere, but I'm not ready to share the story openly coz it doesn't just concern me. It concerns my family too. So bear with me while I walk you through the past 2 months of my life.