My Chemical Pregnancy: The Emotions of Early Heartbreak
Now I know that no one meant to be hurtful in any way when they said this, but each time I heard it, it was like a little stab to the heart, while simultaneously making me feel like I was overreacting to the situation. Which ultimately led me to feeling like I shouldn’t talk about or grieve my loss, even making me question at times if I could even call it a loss at all.
TRANSPARENTLY MOM WELCOMES…
LYNDSIE F.
Trigger Warning: This entry contains a specific person’s experiences with pregnancy loss. This may be triggering to readers with similar experiences. Discretion is advised.
For as long as I can remember I’ve always known I wanted multiple kids. I’m the oldest of two and always loved having a little brother to grow up with and my husband is the youngest of 5 and also loved being surrounded by siblings.
I had heard from what felt like everyone in my life; friends, neighbors, coworkers, how long it can take to have a baby. With this in mind, shortly after my husband and I got married we decided that we were going to start trying for baby number 1. What we were never really planning on was getting pregnant the first time we tried.
Fast forward 10 months and 37 hours of labor later our first daughter was born. We spent the first 11 months of her life figuring out how to do this whole parenthood journey to the best of our ability and finally felt ready to add to our family. We always were very aware that our situation when it came to how quickly she was conceived was not the norm, so just before her first birthday we started trying for baby #2 with the expectation that it would take longer to conceive.
The first couple months went by and no baby - but we didn’t get concerned, figured this was normal and just meant more time as a little family of 3. Around the 6 month mark I started crying every month when I got my period. I was so frustrated but still aware that this could be normal. Then we were at 10 months and still no baby so I decided to talk to my doctor. She gave me tips on things to try - how many days in between trying, the timing of when during my cycle to try, etc and it became all I could think about. She also mentioned that since it had been almost a year of trying, we could continue to try on our own or call the infertility branch of the hospital to start learning more about what the next steps could look like for us.
I was devastated. I felt like somehow my body was letting me down, while at the same time feeling guilty about how upset seeing a negative test would make me, because I was already lucky enough to have a beautiful daughter and “shouldn’t that be enough?” I couldn’t help how much my heart hurt and wanted so badly to expand our family. My husband and I decided we would give it another few months then we would make the call to infertility.
I was more diligent than ever about tracking my period & ovulation dates. I took ovulation tests every month, bought the Ava bracelet and kept all the dates on my calendar as well. Then on June 1, 2022 I was in disbelief when a pregnancy test came up positive. I ran into my husband’s home office with the test in hand and we both cried. The moment we had been waiting for was finally here. I called my doctor’s office and got my first prenatal phone appointment and office appointments set, was told my due date, bought prenatal vitamins and started to make sure I was hitting my water intake goals. Over the next couple days I felt intense morning sickness and fatigue, but couldn’t have been happier because it meant I was pregnant.
We decided we wanted to wait until after our first prenatal appointment where we got the sonogram to tell our families, but I couldn’t fully keep it to myself and told my best friend. She was pregnant and we were both giddy over the fact that our babies were going to be due 4 weeks apart and it felt like I was living in a dream.
Then 4 days later I found blood in my underwear when I went to the bathroom. It was so faint I told myself not to panic, some spotting is normal, but as I sat there, the bleeding increased slightly. I didn’t know what to do. I called the advice nurse and answered what felt like 100 questions. She ultimately told me that she couldn’t determine if all was ok or if I was having a miscarriage over the phone, but informed me that if it was a miscarriage there was nothing a doctor would be able to do to stop it. She scheduled an appointment for the next day for an ultrasound.
I told my husband what was happening and started crying while I told him what the nurse said. My husband is an eternal optimist and tried to focus my attention on the fact that the nurse also said it could be normal early pregnancy spotting. That night he went to CVS and bought me a pregnancy test set so I could test again to bring peace of mind, but when I tested that night it read negative. At that moment my heart really started to race. I wasn’t able to sleep, I just kept watching the clock waiting for my appointment to roll around.
When the morning came I made the decision to tell my parents what was happening, because the truth is, I really needed my mom. I showed up at their house in the morning totally catching them by surprise and ended up speaking out loud what I had been too afraid to say all night. “I don’t want to lose my baby.” My best friend came over later in the afternoon to watch our daughter and my husband and I headed to the doctors office.
The doctor asked me a series of questions about my bleeding, initially seeming optimistic that due to how light it was that all could be ok. She proceeded on with an ultrasound, letting us know that because of how early I was in my pregnancy there was a small chance that I could still be pregnant and it would not show on the ultrasound. As she checked my uterus my husband and I stayed glued to the monitor praying we’d see our baby. Instead we were met with “I can see signs where a pregnancy had implanted, but unfortunately I can’t find the baby.”
My heart broke. She sent me down to the lab for a final test that would be able to conclusively determine if I was pregnant or not. I had blood drawn to check my HCG levels that day and had them checked again a couple days later. It felt like a very long 2 days that ultimately confirmed a decline in my HCG levels. I received an email from the doctor saying that my blood tests show that I had a chemical pregnancy miscarriage and let me know that I would continue to bleed progressively heavier over the next few days then it would taper off.
I learned from her that chemical pregnancies occur usually within the first 5 weeks of a pregnancy, but they aren’t sure why. She mentioned that I did not do anything to cause the miscarriage and that most women who have a chemical pregnancy likely never even know because they lose the pregnancy so early they just assume it’s their monthly period. She went on to say it is more common for women who are actively trying to become pregnant or are going through infertility treatment to catch it because of how closely they monitor their cycles and how early they will take a pregnancy test.
This definition/information I came to dread saying out loud because inevitably as we shared the news and information with loved ones we would get hit with “Well at least it happened early on”, “Wow. That’s terrible but sounds like you’ll be able to start trying again right away”, “Oh! So it’s not even like a full on miscarriage then”..and so on. Now I know that no one meant to be hurtful in any way when they said this, but each time I heard it, it was like a little stab to the heart, while simultaneously making me feel like I was overreacting to the situation. Which ultimately led me to feeling like I shouldn’t talk about or grieve my loss, even making me question at times if I could even call it a loss at all.
I spent a couple days curled up in bed, but that couldn’t last for long. I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed but having a 2 year old and being a volleyball coach, I didn’t have that option. We had to navigate how to explain to our daughter that mama no longer had a baby in her belly, power through play dates, preschool and volleyball practices.This led to me grieving by myself in little moments, usually late at night when I was trying to go to bed and the reality would hit me again that I lost my pregnancy.
When I would think about reaching out to friends that I knew who had experienced loss a little voice would pop in my head that was saying “your loss isn’t a real loss - it happened too early.” and would delete my message. But how could it not be a real loss when I think about that little babe every day? When I was so sick for that first week as my body started to adapt to making it their home? When the HCG hormone registered as pregnant before it dropped off?
Ultimately I turned to social media to find other people who were talking about chemical pregnancies in particular and ended up finding other moms and doctors who were speaking the words that I was feeling. I found an instagram post from an account called @mamasmatterhere that said “Sure, a “chemical pregnancy” is short lived, but it doesn’t take into account the weeks, months, and possibly years it took to get there.” It was this post that made me feel so validated in my feelings. It took me 1 year and 8 months to get that positive sign on a pregnancy test. I ran to the toilet multiple times a day with morning sickness that that little love bug brought on for days. I went into pregnancy brain mode with getting myself prepared for a long 10 months of growing and changing. And while I may have lost that pregnancy at 5 weeks in, those facts don’t just go away.
It took a few months before I was ready to try for a baby again, but for all the heartache I felt, I knew more than ever I wanted our family to grow. We were shocked when we ended up being lucky enough to get pregnant again 3 months later, but I had never been more terrified than when that test said positive. I didn’t accept that I really was pregnant for weeks because I was so scared to get my hopes up. I took 10 pregnancy tests over 2 weeks before I was able to relax a bit and accept the new pregnancy but felt like I was holding my breath until I saw their heartbeat at my first ultrasound.
When we went into that appointment I was a ball of nerves, but then the doctor found the tiny little dot with a strong heartbeat and I cried tears of relief. Even though I was having a healthy pregnancy, I still felt a level of anxiety throughout it that I didn’t experience with our first daughter. It was a small feeling of disbelief, almost as if there was a tiny part of me that wouldn’t believe I was having another baby until I was holding her.
We welcomed our second daughter into our family this past Mother’s Day at 7:39 in the morning with so much relief and joy. In the following days I came to think of the baby we lost and was able to feel closure around them. They may not have come into the world fully, but they led us to our second daughter being here and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. In my heart she will always be my third baby. Our second baby would have joined the world on 2/3/23 and it’s a date that I’ll always keep on the calendar and celebrate.
It took me a while to feel comfortable sharing what I went through, but as I have started to, I’m amazed at how many other people have been in my same or a very similar situation. After learning this I knew I wanted to share my experience here on Transparently Mom because if there is any mother out there who might be scouring the internet at 3 am, with tears in her eyes looking for shared experiences, I’m here and there are others just like us. Your baby mattered, no matter how many weeks they were when you lost them. Your loss, pain, and grief is real and matters. Take the time to feel all your emotions, and in time remember that you’re a mother and you are stronger than you may think you are.
Disclaimer: This article is based on personal experience only, not to be used as medical advice. For more serious questions, consult a medical professional.