Guest Post: "Miscarriage" By: Erika Ward

Hi all! My name is Erika Ward. I'm 23 years old and my husbands name is John and he's 25 years old. We've been married for almost 4 years and TTC for 3. We had our first loss in July 2011. I found out I was pregnant 3 months after getting off the depo shot. It was a COMPLETE surprise and we were more scared than anything. We had only been married for 6 months and having a baby wasn't exactly in our plans at that point. But we got excited anyways, we jumped into parenthood getting ready for the crazy adventure ahead of us. I have hypothyroidism and so I needed to be monitored because at the time my medication levels were being changed and adjusted! So I continuously had blood drawn to check my TSH and my HCG levels. Well my HCG levels were good at first, in the high 3,000's! But then they stopped doubling and were only going up little by little. My doctor scheduled an ultrasound and I went and the tech told me everything looked great! It was a HUGE relief off my shoulders. So the next day I had an appointment and decided to go by myself because I had just been told everything looked great! My husband was in the field that day so I couldn't call or text. I went into my appointment and just by the way my doctor walked in I knew something was wrong. I was supposed to be 10-12 weeks and my baby was only measuring 6-7 weeks. What we found out was the sac was only there, my baby was in my tube. I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy and was scheduled to get a methotrexate shot that day. My heart broke, I tried holding it together because I was by myself but I just couldn't. This dream we had just found out about was already being ripped from right underneath us. I sat in my car and cried for 30 minutes because I couldn't move. I felt so numb and so alone. I got ahold of my husbands command and they called him off the range immediately. When he came home I told him what had happened and we layed in bed and held each other. It was the worst feeling in the world. That night I was admitted to L&D and was monitored for a few hours after my shot was administered then went home and had to wait to actually lose my baby. My husband and I both grieved differently. At the time I didn't understand why he wasn't showing any emotion about the situation and it really killed me. But he explained over and over that he had to be strong for me and had to grieve his own way. Our relationship only grew stronger from the loss of our baby. We made a point to discuss our baby and the loss frequently. We grew so much after our loss, separately and together as a couple. It was one of the worst things to ever happen to us and I'm so glad it made us grow. After our loss we realized just how badly we really wanted a child! So we started trying almost immediately. Month after month nothing happened. Negative test after negative test broke our hearts. We got so discouraged. Finally after 2 years of trying we went to a fertility doctor, (after my first doctor said no cause we were "too young") so I switched doctors and immediately gotta referral! We got in September of 2013 and got Bloodwork done and my husband had testing done as well. That next cycle we got PREGNANT! We found out while I was in the ER for a completely different reason which was caused because I was pregnant. It was such a shock nonetheless. I was about 4 weeks along and we could not have been happier to finally be pregnant! We immediately got excited and got our due date of July 1st 2014!!! My husband would be deployed while the baby would be born and the baby would've been 4 months when he got home. We could not have felt more blessed that we finally got our rainbow! My husband had to leave on some pre deployment training so he left and my mom came to be with me in the hospital! My husband thought everything was ok and didn't think to tell his command I was extremely high risk. So the day after he left I found out once again my HCG levels were not good and not going up at a good rate. My heart broke, they didn't even have to tell me, once I heard what my levels were I immediately started crying. My mom tried to soothe me telling me it'll be ok, but I knew it wouldn't. Once again the doctors said it was ectopic and I had to get the methotrexate shot. My husbands command got him off the ship and he couldn't come home til the next day. Once I got to talk to him I could tell he was crushed. Before he left he talked to my tummy and told him/her that he loved them so much and couldn't wait to meet them. Hearing the sadness in his voice when I told him, just shattered me. I couldn't handle it. I had this broken feeling, because my body kept failing me! Failing us! I couldn't understand how this could be happening again! We tried for so long only to have it ripped away AGAIN. We took this loss a lot harder. I honestly don't know how it made us even stronger than we already were. But it did, we worked together as a team and built ourselves back up. Ready to try again. We got back into the fertility doctors office and asked what we did next. We decided to wait 2-3 months to try. But with my husband deploying we knew we couldn't so much as far as the fertility testing. I think that because his deployment was so close we really couldn't comprehend the loss because we knew time was running out before we lost 8-9 more months of trying. It still broke my heart the day he left because we should've found out what we were having, then July 1st not preparing to have our baby broke my heart again. Miscarriages are not something you ever "get over". You get used to the pain and ache in your heart. We will NEVER forget our babies. They will ALWAYS be our first two children. I would not be the person I am today without experiencing this. My husband and I's relationship wouldn't be the same. Do I wish we never had to experience loss? Ofcourse, but without it we wouldn't have our two angels. Once my husband gets home well be on our way to IVF or hopefully miraculously conceiving naturally with a homecoming baby!