Thankful

Today I went back to the OB (2 weeks after having heard that we are having another miscarriage). I was so scared that the miscarriage was not finished and that I was going to be pushed in to having a D&C but I DO NOT NEED A D&C! I am sooo excited and thankful. It is such a fear of mine to be put completely under and the financial aspect of the surgery. This has been the easiest miscarriage for me. It is so difficult to be told that you are going to lose your baby and then to have the added strain of the impending pain is awful but this one went so well. I spoke with both of the midwives this morning too and explained that I really would like to get the perinatal hospice off of the ground and am hoping that this was God's purpose in this baby's life. We are praying fervently for this! I really wanted to go see Dr. N. to talk to him about our reproductive future--I have an appointment with him on Friday but it takes almost 2 hours to get there and I can not miss work again. I called his office and asked if I could do a telephone consultation and they said they have a policy against it :( I am so sad. I ended up talking to Dr. H. for a while tonight and he talked about our options. He said that any testing would determine if there was a reason to stop trying and could be extremely costly. Definitely a lot to think about.

Hope

We have friends from church that had a baby that was miscarried and she told me that they did not know the gender but felt that it was a certain gender and that they had named the baby. I thought about this quite a bit. Of course when we had Virginia she was 21 weeks when we lost her but we were unable to deliver her until 23 weeks. We named her, buried her, etc. Since we have lost 3 babies through miscarriage I have always assumed that they were girls. I told Tim not long after we were told that we were having another miscarriage that we should name this baby Hope. I thought Hope would remind us that even though at times along this journey of infertility that we have felt without hope--that it is really not true. We have a confidence and a hope that our little ones are in heaven safe in the arms of Jesus. We have been talking a lot with Josiah about this as well that our babies are in heaven and that because we love Jesus that we will see them someday in heaven again. It was pretty sweet too because dear friends of ours had their fifth child a week after our miscarriage and her middle name is Hope (we had not talked to them about the miscarriage).

Still Waiting

Not much new has been happening. I was able to go to work on Thursday and Friday and that was really helpful. It still is a little scary because I never know when "IT" is going to start but we need the money and it is good for me to be there. I kept a blog when we had Virginia and it was so therapeutic to write in there. It obviously has continued once we lost the other two babies. I was trying to have a new "happy" start with this blog but unfortunately that is not going to happen. I wanted to attach the blog address of how it went with the last miscarriage. This blog post is when we found out that the baby had no heartbeat and the story progresses from there. I am very scared about the actual miscarriage but know that there are so many people praying. We are so thankful for all of the support and appreciate the calls, e-mails, visits and special gifts!

No excuses

With the last couple of miscarriages we have always wondered if there was something that we were not doing right: -Did I have a miscarriage because I was drinking pop? This time I did not have any pop to drink. -Did I lose the baby because I was working overnights? This time I was getting plenty of sleep -Did I have a miscarriage because of the internal ultrasounds? I did not have an internal with this one until I started spotting. -Was it because I lost weight or wasn't eating well enough? This pregnancy I actually gained a couple of pounds and was eating lots of great food. It always seems like when something goes wrong we want to look and blame ourselves for something that went wrong. We prayed constantly for this child and for the other 3 that we have lost. The loss of a baby through miscarriage or stillbirth does not happen because of something that you have possibly done (like the above excuses). We again do not understand God's plan at all regarding our 4 losses but we trust that He is carrying us through this valley. I recently read this quote, "I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." C.H. Spurgeon--and it applies so perfectly to our situation--the wave that is hitting us repeatedly keeps sending us to Jesus and for that we are so thankful!

Unexpected Blessing?

We thought that this baby was going to be our unexpected blessing and now we are faced with the fact that we will be undergoing another natural miscarriage. Do I still call this pregnancy a blessing then? The loss of this baby is still so fresh in our minds that we are definitely struggling with how this can be a blessing but in the long run because we are Christians we know that God created this baby. We were not planning to get pregnant right now and God created this child within me. We do not know the reason right now and maybe we will not know it for a long time but we believe that He did. It is my prayer that maybe this baby will even further along our dreams of starting the perinatal hospice. The last baby that we lost got the ball started and for that I am so thankful. We are so thankful too that our crocheted hearts are being given out to families in the same situation as ours and facing a miscarriage. Our OB told us that these crocheted hearts are really touching the lives of the families that they are being given to. We pray that our eyes will remain fixed on Jesus even in the midst of these tough times.

Crocheted heart

After we had our last miscarriage in December we had talked to the OB about a perinatal hospice. I wanted to be able to express to families too that have had a miscarriage that people cared about their baby. I found a pattern for a crocheted heart and my grandma helped me make them. We gave a bunch of them to Dr. H. and I was not really sure if he was using them or not. Today we saw him again and said that last week he gave away 3 of them. It breaks my heart so much. He started to do the ultrasounds and I could tell that stuff was not right. He did the internal and said that we are in the midst of a miscarriage. Words cannot express how sad we are. In fact I could hear the OB making weird noises during the scan and then he excused himself and never came back. When the midwife came in (she has helped us with the hospice) she said that doc could not come back in because it was too hard. She said she did not want to do this but gave me one of the crocheted hearts. Please continue to pray for us--this has shaken us to the core.

:(

What a bummer this weekend has been. We were so excited because my best friend, Jo, from college was coming to visit. She arrived at about 1 on Saturday and we went shopping for about 2 hours. At about 3 we stopped to grab something to eat and I had a little spotting. I called the OB immediately and he was not concerned at all and said that is normal at this stage of the pregnancy. We went back to my parents and relaxed all night. On Sunday morning I still had more spotting and after calling the OB a couple of times I decided that I would be more comfortable getting the baby checked in the ER. (Jo unfortunately went home early but hopefully we will be able to hang out soon. We also were scheduled to go to my cousin Jake's wedding but the OB wanted me off of my feet). The OB was meeting me at the ER but they started doing the ultrasounds without him. The tech did the internal and the baby was only measuring at 5 weeks 1 day and I should be 6 weeks 5 days. The OB apologized that he wasn't in there with me to see the ultrasound. He said that we should try to remain optimistic because maybe the dates are off (which I know they are not but hope that something is wrong). We are scheduled to go back for an ultrasound on Tuesday morning and are praying fervently that the baby will have grown. It is so hard for us because we were not trying to get pregnant this time. We really believed that God was blessing us with this child and this was His timing. We are struggling to understand all of this. We believe that our child's life is precious and we continue to pray that he or she will grow to be a healthy baby.

Miscellaneous

We are continuing to adjust to mommy working full-time days. Josiah is doing so well with the adjustments. Daddy is also doing fabulous of helping mommy with her shots and taking care of me at night after a long day of work. We saw Dr. H. on Monday. We are officially 5 weeks 6 days. He did an external ultrasound and said that stuff was definitely happening in there but wants me to come back next week to do another ultrasound. On Wednesday I celebrated my 36th birthday. It was kind of a bummer with working but afterwards we went to Olive Garden with Grandpa & Grandma Bulthuis and Grandpa & Grandma Boss. Then we went home and daddy and Josiah gave me 2 beautiful pairs of earrings. We love you so much little one and pray for you often!

Busy

What a busy week it has been. On Monday, mommy started a new job at St. Coletta's. I was pretty excited about the job but then got a little nervous when I found out that I was pregnant with you. But my boss was excited about us being pregnant and knows that we are going to have a healthy baby this time. We told your big brother, Josiah, that we are having a baby and he said that we needed to stop and pray. He prayed that you would grow big, strong and healthy. I continue to be really tired at the end of the day but those are all good signs that you are growing inside of me. We are so thankful for you and continue to pray constantly that you will be a healthy baby.