Everything Happens for a Reason...

I had to edit this, apparently I had forgotten that Sophia was only 1 during this time.

In my life I have loved, hated, and been indifferent to this statement. I detest this statement now. It has been ruined for me, I heard it way to much after my miscarriage. When people would say it during the first couple of days after my miscarriage I would just cry. After that, it would just piss me off. I wanted to scream at people "Okay what reason do you think I would lose the baby?" Did they think it was karma? Did they think it would make me fell any better telling me God wanted my baby? Maybe they felt God was punishing me for prior sins? At any rate, I hated that statement. I know that people meant well, but when I was in that much pain and already blaming myself I didn't need such a cavalier statement being thrown at me.

I cried a lot during the weeks after my miscarriage, but I cried alone or with Kale. I tried my best to be strong in public and 95% of the time I kept it together, all while dying inside. No one expected me to be strong other than me. To outsiders I must have looked like a freak, three days after my miscarriage I was at the circus, Ringling Bros. I was weak, I had lost 1/3 of my blood during the miscarriage and D&C, but I smiled, laughed, and gasped at the show just like a child. I needed to, even if others (MIL) didn't understand why. It was Sophia's 1st birthday and the circus had been planned out for weeks, my choices were go and escape my sadness or stay home and wallow. And while I tend to wallow I knew if I had started during this time I wouldn't have ever come out of my grief.

The hardest part of the whole ordeal was not knowing why it happened. They couldn't tell me anything about what had happened to make me abort the baby. I wanted to be given a specific reason so I could avoid doing whatever it was I did to cause this to happen. I also wasn't able to find out the baby's sex, I am thankful for this. If I had found out it was a boy I would have known it was my fault. I would have blamed all my talk of not really wanting a boy for the miscarriage. And the joke my dad and Kale used to tease me with, the one about my body rejecting boy sperm, would no longer have been acceptable.

I knew I needed (for my own sanity) to be pregnant as soon as possible after the miscarriage. I needed to know there was nothing wrong with me. Oh it was at this time I heard my second least favorite statement "If you never have any more, at least you still have three children." How would that make me feel any better? If I want 7 children and can only have 6, having those 6 would help ease the pain sure, but it still doesn't take the pain of wanting a 7th away. So after my doctor's visit I waited the 3mths before trying again. It actually took 2mths of trying, but we were pregnant by my second ovulation cycle. I immediately went online and purchased a heart doppler (the thing the doc uses to listen to the babies heart). Having that saved my nerves the first 20 weeks and probably saved my husband from having to deal with my craziness. I had very few problems with my pregnancy, until the 32wk when I had to have a blood transfusion. My hemoglobin was at 6.5, normal is 14, acceptable is 12. It was probably due to the loss of blood during my miscarriage, the fact that I am always anemic during pregnancy, and that my doctor kept telling me my blood was low but not stressing how dangerously low it really was, until it was almost too late. -Side note: Did you know craving ice is a sign of severe anemia? I didn't until it was almost to late for me, I spent everyday eating 15-20 homemade icees until my blood transfusion. Now I don't eat any.

After my transfusion I was a good patient and took my iron pills diligently, like I should have been doing before hand. A month later Delilah was born, happy and healthy. She had a few troubles early on, but now is a beautiful growing girl. If everything does happen for a reason, then to look on the brighter side of life I would say "I lost my baby because I was destined to have Delilah". I can't say for sure if things happen for a specific reason, but I can say - it still hurts nonetheless, no matter what positive twist you put on it.