I've been waiting a long time to write post #2. I wanted to soak up the experience to tell you all about what I've been going through. I hope this post is somewhat cathartic for me as right now I feel as if I cannot do anything.
Because of medschool, and some genetic issues waiting to pop up along with other life experiences, I have been diagnosed with depression and general anxiety disorder. I have needed medication in order to help with my problems, and I started to go to counseling in May of this year.
Let's get real. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts that, praise God, I have not acted on. I never knew I could feel so lost. If you had asked me before this how I felt about my life, I would have said "pretty good". But during this rollercoaster, I have gone through every emotion imaginable.
I even considered leaving my husband. It was as if I had two voices in my head: the voice of the moment saying "what were you thinking?!" and the voice of reason saying "this is only for a season". I feel like I've been stuck in this "season" for so long, and the depression just won't go away...
Starting in Steve's 2nd year of medschool, we started trying to get pregnant. I was very hopeful. As you may remember, that was one of my life goals - being a mom. In December of 2015, we got pregnant after 6 months of trying. 6 months feels like such a long time when all you want is to be a mom. Then in January, the positive pregnancy test, the excitement, the joy, the answered prayers.
In February of 2016, I started bleeding. I called the OB GYN office to schedule an emergency appointment. We went to the ultrasound together, and we got to see our little baby dancing on the screen. I mean, literal dancing. It was beautiful. I knew it was my our child :)
The Doctor said everything appears to be fine, and warned us that it could go either way. We might lose the baby, and if so, there's nothing we can do. The baby could be fine as sometimes women continue to have periods during their first trimester and that's normal.
3 days later, I had severe pain in my abdomen. To make a long story short, after an emergency ER visit, we found out we had lost our baby, our long awaited miracle. 2 days later, I gave birth to a baby. We could even count his fingers and toes (I call the baby a "he", but we don't actually know if the baby was a boy or a girl). My husband and I were in tears over the beauty of our child. But then what? Do we flush him like he was a dead goldfish? Do we bury him like a pet herbal in the yard? None of these options were appealing. Instead, we did something equally hard. We donated our little baby to the medschool. Its body would be used to show students what an 8 week old baby looks like. That was one of the hardest days of my life.
One thing I hate about this whole experience is that there's no closure when a fetus dies. To the world, they are not a human, so they don't get a funeral. But that was my baby. He could not have been any more real to me. I loved him so much, still do.
So, needless to say. Medschool has been hard in and of itself. Add the loss of a child, and it's practically unbearable. What makes it harder is Facebook. All these friends posting pictures of their baby bumps, happy children, pregnancy announcements, gender reveals... It's heartbreaking. You try to be happy for them, but all you feel is loss - deep, piercing, gut-wrenching loss. You're baby is dead. And what do you do when people ask you if you have any kids? Yes - my baby's dead; or no - as if he never lived?
I'm still so lost in dealing with all of this. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant again. 6 months later, still not pregnant. It feels like life is not moving on yet, and I just want to be able to stop crying for once.
Life doesn't just stop when your baby dies. It keeps going, and yet, it feels like I cannot keep up.
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