"Pregnant"

You don’t ever forget your first pregnancy test. Pulling the stick out of the box, reading the directions, and then trying to figure out how you are going to pee on this stick while sitting on the toilet without making a mess. All while doing the “pee-pee” wiggle dance because it’s not like you prepared and read the directions beforehand when you weren’t about to pee your pants. I always knew to take a test first thing in the morning so now I’m trying to read directions while I am pacing and clenching trying to hold in that important first morning pee. Then there is the waiting… waiting… oh and more waiting… as the urine works its way up the stick. Now I personally used a digital test, I was not messing around with trying to figure out if the stick showed a second line-- that was way too much fuss for me. So here I am watching the loading bar on my test. First bar… then the second bar… pacing around the bathroom super impatient. I had to remind myself that in case it says “ Not Pregnant” that could very easily mean that the pregnancy hormone levels are just not high enough. A con to a digital is that they aren’t as sensitive at detecting those pregnancy hormones however you end up with a very clear answer at the end. I had extra so I was prepared to wait a few days and test again.

But alas...“Pregnant”.

It was mid-March last year when that answer came. I was in shock, amongst the flood of many other emotions. Yes, we were trying so it was expected to happen. However, there is something different about when the stick actually says you are pregnant. Like all of a sudden- it’s real. But in a surreal sort of way. It’s not like in that moment I felt or even looked pregnant. I mean I was still in the early stages but here was with this little stick saying “Success!! You’ve been fertilized!”.

Rewind some here- We spent January tracking my cycle and then by February we were ready to “try”. So of course I got the ovulation pee sticks and got the ones that synced with an app so we could make the most of my “fertile window”. I was already on prenatals and we made sure to start a few days earlier and continue several days after as well as to not to “do it” every day and space it out some. It made for some fairly calculated “sexy time” and less romantic than I think either of us preferred but we both knew we wanted to be parents and we wanted to make sure we were doing what we could to be successful, so romance kind of went out the window.

The day came to test (according to the app) and I had no idea what my cycle really looked like because I was always on birth control and most of the time skipped my sugar pills and maybe only got my period a couple times a year. Mainly for myself to reassure I wasn’t pregnant and I had this weird feeling that I needed “to clean everything out”. Let’s be honest, periods are annoying and really inconvenient so I opted not to have them monthly which I was always honest with my doctors about over the 10 years I was on birth control and none of them ever said anything negative about it. So, in all reality I had zero clue if I was a prompt 28-dayer or if mine were shorter or longer or even if they varied each month because what signaled mine to start were sugar pills. When I took my test I knew logically that if the test said “Not Pregnant” that either: it didn’t pick up enough pregnancy hormones or that I truly was not pregnant. So in any case, I was prepared for taking another test in a few days. In fact, I was honestly planning for it since I wasn’t sure what to expect, I kept my expectations erring on the side of caution. Not to mention, this was our first shot at trying and we were realistically expecting it not to be successful, at least I was. My husband and I had heard the stories of people taking months if not years of trying to get pregnant which is why we started earlier that originally planned.

Maybe that was why I was so shocked when the answer came back positive. I was kind of expecting to have more time. I was still reading pregnancy books and learning all I could. I really didn’t know anything about being pregnant. I learned about it in college during my lifespan class but I spent most of that time cringing in my seat and freaking out. Even when that test came back positive I was still a bit freaked out. I mean I was literally growing a human from scratch… inside of me. It felt a little like an alien or some creepy science experiment. And at some point, “it” had to come out. I am so not mature enough for this, I thought. While excitement was a feeling- nervousness, anxiety, fear were also very much alive and well. Looking back on all of this, honestly there was absolutely no way to prepare for a positive test. I could have read all the books that I read before and learned all I knew before I delivered and I still wouldn't have been prepared for a positive test. There is just nothing that prepares a person for the reality of the words on that stick…

“Pregnant”. I was pregnant… Yikes...

Little did I know I would be peeing on a stick twice that year… I had recently told my husband and was finally starting to get excited about everything, I experienced a miscarriage. At 6 weeks 2 days I started bleeding. Just the day before we had toured and decided on the local birth center and we had even met with doulas and decided on a doula. We made some huge exciting decisions and then… blood, lots of blood and cramping, tons of cramping. It was a Saturday and I had just spent most of the day with a good friend celebrating her engagement. I had felt off and weird all day and I chalked it up to the beginnings of the infamous pregnancy symptoms. I ended up going home early because I just didn’t feel good and then I started bleeding and cramping. 

I called the birth center and spoke to the midwife on call and was told that I could miscarry at home if I chose and told me what to look out for that signaled I needed to go to the hospital. But other than that very little concern in her voice about the situation. So all weekend I holed up at home, bleeding, cramping, and crying. I started to feel like a failure so I grabbed my computer and started researching miscarriages. I wanted as much information as I could get my hands on. I needed a glass of information to wash down these extreme emotions and negative defeating thoughts. The lack of concern from the midwife made me think this wasn’t such a big deal. And I don’t say that to dig at the birth center or make it seem like they didn’t care at all-- if you heard her tone it sounded like there wasn’t a medical concern. And I’m one of those people that rely on medical professionals to be honest about when/if I need to worry because my default setting is not to worry. So if she wasn’t worried- I wasn’t worried. However, I needed to calm my emotions so I grabbed my laptop and got to researching because that was what comforted me.

I wasn’t okay with feeling like a failure, like somehow I did something wrong by losing this baby. These thoughts were not okay with me because I knew in the back of my mind that I didn’t do anything wrong. I was taking my prenatals months before we started trying; I was trying to eat better; I was collecting information on pregnancy, labor, and delivery; and planning ahead with my medical care and even my delivery care! I had picked out my doula and the birth center; I had even gotten over the shock of actually being pregnant; and was actually excited about the little bean inside me. And then I lose it?-- Wait.. let’s rephrase that-- Then I experienced a miscarriage. (Words matter).

In fact, thank you research, many medical professionals are not sure why many miscarriages occur. Many women experience one and then go right onto a healthy full-term pregnancy (my case). They theorize that the many miscarriages are just an incompatible sperm and egg and that something wasn’t quite right with the pregnancy so the body gets rid of it. In those cases, there is little a person can do to prevent it because it’s not really a direct issue with mom or dad’s fertility ability. I equated it to a “round hole-square peg” type of situation and for success I needed a “round hole-round peg”. While there are women who do experience fertility issues and experience multiple miscarriages, I am specifically talking about the many women that experience only one and then continue on to healthy pregnancies. Given this was my first one, I wasn’t ready to panic about my fertility just yet. And luckily, we started earlier than originally planned so I still had plenty of time. In fact, I was even surprised to find out how common miscarriages were. It is estimated that 20-25% or 1 in 4 to 5 women experience a miscarriage in their lifetime. Additionally, these numbers may even be higher as many women are unaware that they have even experienced a miscarriage because it occurred so early on. For example, they were maybe a day or two late with their period or even on time and had just a little bit more bleeding. Not going to lie, this information made me feel a lot better about what happened. It provided reassurance that it wasn’t my fault and that there is still a pretty good chance that my husband and I could still conceive and that I could successfully bring a baby to full-term. So hush negative thoughts… you hush. 

So hubby runs out for pads and I live in those for 8 days. 8 days of pads and bleeding. At the time I was in between two jobs and the miscarriage occured the week between these jobs. So I was lucky enough to literally spend a week off at home, bleeding. Oh, and crying. The information may have provided comfort but it still sucked to experience a miscarriage and know that your baby is no more. Not to mention the roller coaster of hormones- that for sure doesn’t help. I had a week off which was extremely needed to grieve the loss of my potential baby. So I sat with my feelings and I processed them and I cried, a lot. I continued researching miscarriages because knowledge was a comfort and it helped me process what was going on. Halfway through the week, I needed to know how long I’d have to wait until I could try again. I needed to know what information was out there regarding when it is safe to try again. No surprise there was some conflicting information out there-- anywhere between 2 weeks to after your first period. After gathering all the information, I wanted to try again right away. I needed my Little Bean back. So we began trying again knowing that I may not ovulate right away or that my cycles might be wonky post miscarriage. Take two wasn’t so successful so we had to wait for my period to try again. I don’t think I had ever been so excited or impatient for a period to arrive. Since it was after a miscarriage, my period could take 6-8 weeks to return. Like seriously Aunt Flo.. show up already!

Alas, Aunt Flo showed up, with a vengeance mind you and 5 weeks and 2 days after the start of my miscarriage (but who’s counting?). So out comes the ovulation pee strips again and I was back to the same calculating grind like in February. Take two was this willy-nilly attempt with zero pee sticks and ovulation tracking and since tracking worked the first time and not the second, I was going back to tracking. Interestingly enough, in my miscarriage research, women were significantly more fertile the first 3 months following a miscarriage with some research showing higher fertility as far as 6 months post! There is also evidence suggesting that rates of miscarriage are lower if conceived within those 6 months. This information kind of motivated me and helped me stay optimistic. Especially when I had statistics to support me- I was highly fertile and even more likely than before to get pregnant and I was statistically likely once pregnant to have a healthy full-term pregnancy. So here we go-- take three.

It was a Friday and we were in a hotel in San Diego, CA this time when I peed on a stick. My husband was off getting breakfast and I was pacing around the hotel room waiting for the stick to load my answer... “Not Pregnant”. Damn, okay, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything... yet. Remember, it could just mean that I didn’t have enough of the hCG pregnancy hormone yet. I had plenty of tests at home and we were due back in a few days. We drove from San Diego to Burbank, CA to finish out the rest of our trip and that was when it began... Whelp, here is the start of my period. So that “Not Pregnant” answer was accurate. I gave my husband the official bad news and we stopped at a drugstore for tampons. All weekend I bled but it was incredibly light and it was old blood (determined by the color-reddish brown). No fresh blood. I didn’t think anything of it- yes it was a super abnormal period for me however, thanks to my research, I expected wonky periods and cycles post miscarriage as my hormones and body balanced out. So I figured this was a wonky one. We had an interesting journey home that involved staying an extra day in Burbank before making our flight back to Montana. I woke up on a Wednesday with this gut feeling to pee on a stick. I really can’t explain it other than I had to pee on a stick that morning. Maybe it was this subconscious urge because I was still feeling severely hungover even though I was fully hydrated and hadn’t consumed alcohol in days. So back to peeing on a stick and pacing around my bathroom waiting for the bars to load and the answer to show. I really tried to focus on getting ready for work but I ended up just watching this stick load. This stick, mind you, that I had to pee on today...

“Pregnant”.

My sweet little bean you are back. 

Written by Mandie Strahs