Death Before Birth

Wow! What a surprise! I was feeling just down right strange! I asked my husband Bob if we could stop by the store and get a pregnancy test on the way home just in case! We had been shopping all day and I was feeling like I had never felt before.

I peed on the stick because that is what you do when you are taking a home pregnancy test. I was pretty relaxed about it. My husband and I had been married 7 months and knew we wanted children. We hadn't planned a pregnancy but we not against having a child.

Sure enough, the stick had two pink lines. For those who aren't pregnancy stick savvy, that means PREGNANT! I cried. Not from joy, let me be clear. I cried because I was unemployed and so was my husband after two bad lay offs. We were broke and completely unprepared financially. I cried and immediately knew that I would be a horrible Mom. Who gets pregnant without a job I thought? I made my husband go and get three more tests. I had to be sure, of course. I guess there really are no false positives are there?

That very same night, 4 tests later and all positive, Bob and I adopted and embraced the idea of becoming parents. The shock wore off and we became different over night.

I began writing letters to the baby. I told the baby all about his/her dad and I and how lucky we felt. I stayed up late reading all the pregnancy books. I called my OBGYN and made an appointment for our first visit. And all I could eat was bean and cheese burritos! I felt bad because I was not properly nourishing our baby but I just couldn't eat anything else! We told everyone! We were so excited and so was everyone else! My Mom was thrilled she was going to be a grandma - she has been pressing her nose to Baby Gap stores for years now! My father was equally ecstatic, and from New Zealand where he resides I put the phone to my tummy so he could say HELLO to his new grandpa's. Baby's first international call!

I lost 10 pounds very quick. I thought, how cruel! I get pregnant and lose weight? How does that work? But it was nice. I felt pretty good and was not sick at all. I had major food aversions but that was fine with me. I was just excited.

I bought every baby name book in the store and made lists. Each night I would share the new names out loud with Bob and we would pare the list down. We couldn't ever really agree on a name!

We went on a road trip to Durango, CO about six hours from Denver where we live to visit my brother and his wife. It was a nice trip, though I was terribly moody and tired. HEY, I am pregnant I thought. I am allowed to be this way. I don't think my brother was having any of my massive and bitch mood swings. Let's just say I hope he comes back as a woman in his next life.
While Bob and I walked the main street of Durango and talked I felt a sharp and horrible cramping in my uterus. I just thought the baby was getting big now. My uterus was stretching. We had just seen the ultrasound and the baby was doing great at 8 weeks! The pains subsided and I never thought twice about it.

Time went by and I developed insomnia and was unable to sleep. So I read more and more baby books, which was a mistake. I got anxious and scared about all the things that "could happen." I began to be timid with my pregnancy.

Weeks passed by so slowly. And then one night while reading a book I felt blood slip into my underwear. A woman knows. That slip is a dramatic drop, like a heavy tear falling from thick eyelashes. The blood just lay in my panties and I stared at it. I frantically called the Doctor on call and explained that I was bleeding and that I was 11 weeks pregnant. The Doctor on the other end of the phone might as well just hung up on me. She had nothing to say other than "come and see us in the morning and we will do an ultrasound!" I didn't understand. "What do you mean, you want me to wait 15 hours?" I asked her. "Yes, there is nothing we can do. Don't worry, just relax and come in first thing tomorrow." And with that she was gone.

I cried all night. I might have drifted in and out of sleep but who would know. My mind was numb. Bob and I waited over an hour in the waiting room, which was filled with happy, round, ready to burst pregnant women. We were so uncomfortable. Finally, a woman I had never even met performed an ultrasound. "How far along are you?” she asked? I reported that I was 11 weeks.

She stuck the wand inside my vagina and probed around my uterus. I looked away from the screen. Bob held my hand tightly. "Well, your baby does not have a heartbeat, I am sorry." With that she pulled the wand out and took off her gloves like she had just shoveled the sidewalk. She said she would be back in a minute. I died. Right there and then. I wailed so loudly that I couldn't gain control of myself. I didn't care. The bleeding became more persistent. I knew it was only a matter of time.

The women, whoever she was came back into the room and said she was going to move us to a more "private room." It was more like; she was going to move us to the back of the office because she didn't want anyone to hear me wailing.

We followed her to another room and on my way passed hundreds of baby pictures. New babies. Babies that were born when mine had just died.

They told me that my baby died at 8 weeks. So I was walking around with a dead baby inside of me for three weeks and I didn't even know it. I feel guilt about that. I feel like I should have known. Aren't mom's supposed to know? They said I could get a D&C or I could wait for the baby to abort naturally. I couldn't imagine living any longer with a dead baby inside of me. And who knew how long it was going to take for the baby to decide to go? I was to go into surgery that day, several hours later. In the mean time we were to go home and rest.

Bob and I died that day. We died. I don't remember driving home. I don't remember anything. But I do remember coming home and then going into labor shortly after our visit. It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced physically. I was trying to call my Mom who was in the jungles of Guatemala. In the midst of me telling her I was losing the baby I was having labor pains. She got on a plane that night to come and be with us.

My best friend Amy showed up to be with me. The pain subsided and I went in to go pee. And it was then that the clean slip happened. The baby exhumed itself right into my toilet. A tiny sac about the size of my fist was at the bottom of the toilet. What was I to do? I couldn't flush my baby? I couldn't touch my baby either. My baby was dead.

Since getting pregnant in May 2004 I have been pregnant once. I also lost that baby. That baby died at 9 1/2 weeks. I was on bed rest for 5 weeks with a tear in my placenta. Still, in finding out we were pregnant we were ready to take it on and be the best parents we knew how to be. And there were complications from the very beginning. I did my best to not "bond" with the second baby, as I was too afraid the baby would die at the bottom of my toilet. This time around, the baby didn't even die for me to know that I would need to terminate. The baby's heartbeat was slowing and failing and it was just a matter of time. Again, I opted for a D&C. I couldn't go through another toilet experience.

I lost the second baby November 30, 2004. So close to the first baby. After the second loss we asked the Doctor's to please test the chromosomal to see if there was anything genetically wrong. We knew it would take weeks.

Two days before Christmas the Doctor called and left me a voice mail telling me "Great news Ashley! We tested the chromosomal and everything was normal, that of a baby girl." Again... I died. What kind of heartless, terribly insensitive Ashley would tell a woman who has just lost two babies to miscarriages that her loss was a BABY GIRL...ON MY VOICE MAIL? I was shocked. I had been healing and coping. And then my baby was a she. A she I would never know or touch or feel. She was a she.

I am one of millions of women who suffer silently. Who are told to "bounce back," who are told "Don't worry, you can try again!" I am one of the women who people avoid now in the halls at work because they don't know how to acknowledge my losses and me. I am one of the women that have lost too much and yet I still have room in my heart to try again and I still have the guts to go for it and take the risk of losing someone I love for a chance at gaining someone I love.

I am not alone however feeling very alone. Isolated. Like miscarriage is a disease that nobody wants to talk about. You don't hear about it until you fall victim to a stranger telling you that your baby no longer has a heart beat. I am one of the women who lost two babies and those will always be my babies. They will always be my children. They will always be my first.

I am one of the women who are dedicated to turning the word miscarriage into something people talk about. Something people deal with rather than shovel it beneath the bed with all the other "uncomfortable" subjects out there.

I won't let my babies go unnoticed- I will fight for understanding, sensitivity and proper care when it comes to women who have lost babies and the Doctors who shuffle them through like cattle. I won't give in and I won't give up.

I am a woman who's voice you will hear... and that I promise you. The medical system needs a kick in the ass. Doctors need MANY lessons in what it means to have a heart. And people in general need to know that having a miscarriage is a LOSS. It is a huge, giant, enormous, awful, painful, terrible, lonely LOSS. It doesn't get better after a week, a month or a year. It just gets different. People need to talk about it. Learn about it. Know about it. And people need to honor it.

By writing this and connecting with other women and people in general I am starting my journey to help change how miscarriage is perceived and received in this society. I am also continuing the journey to heal and that will be life long.

Ashley E. Underell