Heaven's Newest Angels

by Kristen Pruitt

Update: Mon, 6 Mar 2000

Date: Sun, 16 May 1999

After reading several accounts of pregnancy loss, I want to share my own. I have a beautiful 21-month-old daughter and 2 babies who weren't meant for this world. I'm hoping that this account of our experiences will help me deal with my own grief. Our daughter was conceived by surprise, in fact, 8 home pregnancy tests couldn't convince me that I really was pregnant! After accepting the pregnancy and realizing my dreams of being a corporate executive would have to take a back seat, my husband and I were thrilled with the idea of being parents. The pregnancy was a breeze, the labor was a painful but relatively easy 8 hours and our beautiful daughter started sleeping through the night at 2 weeks! As easy as the first pregnancy was, we figured having a second baby would be equally uneventful. December 28, 1998, we confirmed a new pregnancy, and thoughts of problems NEVER crossed our minds. I guess that's why my first visit to my OB was so shocking - he was very concerned about some cramping I'd experienced and ordered HCG tests for that day and 2 days later. I was dumbfounded - problems with a pregnancy??

The very next day, I started bleeding heavily, and went to the ER where a miscarriage was confirmed. There was never an implantation, never a chance for our baby. At that point, I was only 8 weeks along, and still, my heart ached for the baby we would never hold... We decided we'd wait a while to try again, but to our surprise, we became pregnant again in February, 1999. We told only immediate family members, and had several HCG tests done. Everything looked positive, and we felt even more sure of this pregnancy after we saw the first ultrasound and heartbeat at 6 weeks. We felt even more sure after seeing the second ultrasound at 10 weeks and seeing the strong steady heartbeat again. I was more and more relieved and less and less scared as I got closer to the start of the second trimester. Imagine my surprise when I had some spotting 3 days after Mother's Day - after spending the morning working up the courage to call the doctor, I left a message and waited for the call back. The nurse called me, and after discussing the details and relating to her that the spotting had stopped, she told me to watch for more, call if any cramping started, and rest. I felt reassured, after all, I was past the 3-month mark and into my second trimester. The nurse called me back 15 minutes later and told me my doctor wanted to see me anyway. Nervous and more scared, I went to the appointment. I was told my uterus was growing just fine, and they would do an ultrasound just to make sure. The instant I saw my baby, I felt better. But then I realized that the nurse was looking closely and not finding what she needed to see. She stopped after 10 minutes to go get the doctor.

During that brief period, I told my husband that something was wrong, there was no heartbeat on the screen. The doctor came in, searched for some type of heartbeat or fetal movement, but found nothing. I was in shock, how could this happen now? The doctor expressed his condolences as did the nurse, but then, we needed to discuss options. Since I had no active bleeding or cramping, a D&C was deemed the best course of action, both physically and emotionally. I agreed, knowing that looking pregnant with a baby that had died was not a situation I could handle for very long. My D&C was 2 days later, actually last Friday. Afterwards, I felt my tummy and realized my baby really was gone. It all became too real and too final. I had lost another baby. I feel like a failure as a mother, a mother who could not take care of her child. I realize that I didn't do anything to cause the "fetal demise" as my medical chart reads, but I feel so responsible for that little life. It seems everyone tells me that they know someone who has experienced the same type of thing and then went on to have more children, but these people also do not know first hand what I'm going through. The grief hurts so much, and the well wishers tell me I'll have more children seem to think that should be the end of my suffering. I want to scream that my 2 babies are not replaceable!! My doctor tells me he'll send me to a specialist for our future attempts at pregnancy, but I'm so torn as to whether or not I am willing to risk it again. I feel like a shell, very empty on the inside. I'm angry at the loss of the 2 babies, and I don't trust that I will ever have another child. Maybe we should quit while we're ahead....

Please feel free to email if you, too, are grieving a lost baby. I am interested to know other's thoughts on conceiving after pregnancy loss, because I can't make sense of my own feelings about trying again.
 pruitts3@yahoo.com  

Update: Mon, 6 Mar 2000

When I wrote Heaven's Newest Angels (5/21/99), I thought I'd experienced the deepest sadness that I'd ever know in my life. I was wrong, in the almost 10 months since then, my life has reached a deeper place that I'm afraid is consuming my world.

After the initial shock of the late (13.5 weeks) miscarriage wore off, my husband and I went to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) to start looking for some answers. At our first appointment, I was diagnosed with a uterine septum, and we set up a surgery time to correct it. The surgery was done August 20, 1999, and we were given the go ahead to try again. October 28, 1999, I was thrilled to find out that we were pregnant again! I went through blood tests to monitor hormone levels every other day and all was fine to start with. We had our first ultrasound November 17, 1999, and the little one was in there, and the heart was beating. The RE scheduled us to come back the following week for a repeat ultrasound before releasing me to my regular OB. I was finally relaxing some, and I started to believe that this time, things would work out.

November 24, 1999, I woke up to some spotting and immediately fell apart. I called the doctor's office and was scheduled to come in ASAP for an ultrasound. A different doctor did the scan, and he was worried because the baby's heart rate was slow, around 100 bpm. He gave me a diagnosis of threatened miscarriage, and sent me home with instructions to come back Friday for a repeat scan. The next day, Thanksgiving Day, was horrible. I tried to think positively but could only imagine the worst. Somehow, I got through the day, and Friday, we went back for an update. This time, though, there was no heartbeat, the baby had died over Thanksgiving. The D&C was done a few days later, and I was crushed, I couldn't believe that it was happening to us again...The holiday season brought on such intense feelings of loss - especially knowing that we should have had an infant with us, or at least be expecting. If it wasn't for our 2 year old, I don't know if we even would have celebrated.

Friends and family that had been so supportive after the first 2 losses seemed to have lost interest in our grief. Very few calls, very little concern, and we felt isolated and alone. I honestly wondered if people thought that I was used to miscarriage after going through 3? I still harbor bitter feelings about the loneliness we experienced at that time, and I have alienated myself from those people who ignored our sadness or looked the other way when we brought it up. I'm so sick of worrying about how others are going to take our bad news - it's our broken hearts and broken dreams, not theirs.

We went back for blood tests to try to find something that might be causing the losses, but the tests all came back normal. My mission became getting pregnant again as soon as possible, and February 8, 2000, the mission was accomplished. I started blood work again, and the levels weren't good at all. In my heart I knew something was wrong, and nothing could convince me that everything was going to be ok. At the first ultrasound, it was early, but the gestational sac could be seen. We felt a little better at that point, especially since I was feeling nauseous and had other pregnancy symptoms. A week later, the second ultrasound showed the baby's heart beat, but like last time, the heart rate was slower than normal. That day, March 2, 2000, I began to spot. The spotting turned to bright red bleeding, and I knew that miscarriage was inevitable. The miscarriage actually happened naturally and relatively easily (physically) at home, but emotionally, I'm a wreck. After 4 miscarriages in 14 months, we've had enough.

We're at the point now where we just don't have the strength to try again - there's too many emotional and physical risks, and no one can guarantee that we'll ever have another successful pregnancy, in spite of the picture perfect pregnancy and birth of our daughter. Having another baby has been the focus of my life for the past year and a half, and it's time to take a break and recapture our lives. My daughter needs her mother, my husband needs his wife, and I need my life back - I need to remember the person I was before embarking on the journey towards another child.

I hope those of you who are suffering the loss of a pregnancy are able to have the strength to try again, but please remember that there is a point when the losses become too much. You must take care of yourselves and living family members, and remember that life must go on...

Kristen Pruitt