Before Eric and I got married, we went to the pre-marriage retreat weekend that was required by our church. There we learned about Natural Family Planning (NFP). We signed up for classes and learned how to use the Billings Ovulation Method. It seemed simple enough. That was, until I tried it. As I charted I quickly grew frustrated. I was damp almost all the time and rarely saw the "wet/slippery" mucus that should have shown up right around ovulation or "peak" as it is called in the NFP world. I would go to follow up classes to get my chart reviewed and be even more confused after. The way that they explained how charts should look and the different sensations made sense, but I just couldn't differentiate in my personal chart. So as we led up to our wedding night, I was very concerned about being able to postpone pregnancy. I mean, there was no way we were ready for a baby. We were broke, living paycheck to paycheck some months, and young and dumb.
By the time our wedding came around I was barely holding on to hope that NFP would work for us. I continued to chart after our wedding, and did my best to identify fertile periods and abstain during those times. In February 2014, I experienced the first extra long period since I started charting. I had noticed that my cycles were long (average of 45 days), but the length was usually quite consistent. The February cycle ended up being about 85 days long (5 day period then 75+ days of damp sensation). At day 65, I finally decided to visit the doctor after a number of negative pregnancy tests. The doctor put me on progesterone which caused a withdrawal bleed effectively resetting my cycle. She ran some tests as well, but found that everything came back normal. That doctor visit was the first time I had heard of PCOS and realized there was a possibility that this was the issue.
The following cycle was a typically frustrating one. Most days were damp and I was fed up with feeling the need to abstain constantly. One night I threw my charts to the side and decided to just be with my husband without any worries. That was Holy Saturday 2014. It was the night that we conceived Taylor Grace. After a late period, I was sure that whatever threw the previous cycle out of whack was happening again. I went to the doctor and was so surprised to hear that we were pregnant. I called my husband and asked if I could see him at work. He asked where I was coming from and when I told him the doctor's office he pretty much knew what the news was. I went over to his work and told him to guess. He just gave me a hug and said, "Now what?" We hugged and just smiled. On May 5th 2014, I found out I was a mom!
At the time, we were living with Eric's mom since we had subleased our apartment before we were able to move into the house we had purchased. We told his mom the news a few days later by leaving her an early Mother's Day card on the table. It said something about being a new grandma. When she woke up at 4am and went to read the card she was as surprised and happy as we were. She could barely contain herself. We visited my mom that weekend to celebrate Mother's Day. I had talked to my sister, and we planned out a group gift from my sister, my brother, and myself. Laura had bought a purse. Andy had some things to go in it and I would bring a onesie that said something about being a grandma on it. I had been sharing my cycle frustrations with my mom since before the wedding and she knew I had visited the doctor. I had told her that I was waiting on test results. It was so hard to keep that secret. When she finally opened the purse and saw the onesie, she just looked at me and said, "You mean you've been putting me on." I told her I had just found out on Monday. I also gave a Mother's Day card to my grandma to tell her the news. (Don't worry I didn't lie to my mother. I had been waiting for results for my progesterone level. It came back very low, so I started progesterone supplements right away.)
Everyone important to me knew about our coming bundle of joy. I couldn't hide it from anyone. I was so excited! I was also very stressed and scared. How were we going to afford this baby? How were we going to handle maternity leave? How would we pay for the house while I was out on unpaid leave? So many questions to answer. At one point, a point that haunts me, I broke down and told a coworker I didn't want to be pregnant because there was no way we could afford it. It really is true when they say be careful what you wish for.
I went in for my first ultrasound at the 9 week mark of our pregnancy. Eric was unable to get off work to come, this is another hard memory. The ultrasound results truly confused me. I was 9 weeks pregnant, but Taylor measured at 6 weeks and had a very low heart rate. I was nervous. My intuition told me what the doctors confirmed a week later, I was going to have a miscarriage. I contacted my doctor with my concerns about the ultrasound results, after all, I knew when we had conceived based on the NFP chart I had used. The doctor had me visit the lab for my HCG levels to be checked. I was shelving books at work when I got a call from the doctor. My HCG levels were not doing what they were supposed to. He needed me to come in for an ultrasound immediately. I called Eric. I was absolutely devastated. I was crying so hard he had trouble understanding what was going on, but he came to get me from work. I called my mom bawling and she said to just wait for the ultrasound, maybe it was something else, but I knew. I knew we had lost my Gracie. We drove up to the hospital in a quiet car and went up to the ultrasound room. The ultrasound confirmed my greatest fear. My intuition had been correct. Gracie was gone. I remember the tech saying that she couldn't find the heartbeat, and Eric asking what that meant. All I could manage to say was, "She had a heartbeat last week." It was a heartbeat that Eric never got to hear. No matter how much the nurses in the future tell me that my husband doesn't have to be at the ultrasound, I will make sure he is able to come. I never want to risk him missing something so important again. Eric broke down sobbing, and the tech said the only thing there was to say: "I'm so sorry."
We moved over to the doctor's exam room and discussed our options. We could wait for my body to let her go naturally. I could take a pill to speed up the process, or I could have a D&C and have it all over with. I had read about how the cramps from the pill were awful, and I couldn't bear the thought of carrying around my dead child while I waited for my body to do its job. I also had this overwhelming belief that passing my baby naturally into a toilet or however else would just not give her the dignity she deserved. I opted for the D&C immediately and scheduled it for the following day. Meanwhile, we went home to our house with the two extra bedrooms that would not be needed for who knows how long. Eric's mom met us there and chatted with us for a while. Eric talked about how unreal it all seemed. We had a child. It was a baby, but it was gone. His mom said, "You can name it." We didn't really discuss this, but in my heart I already knew her name was Gracie. Taylor Grace. I had been calling her Gracie for the majority of my pregnancy. I believe God revealed that name to me for a reason. Mothers just know, right?
As we prepared for the surgery, we considered how we would give our baby the most dignity. We called our church and left a message for the priest. We were happy to find out that there was a preborn memorial plot and that we could have a proper service for her. We talked to the groundskeeper and he told us to just be sure to keep her remains and we would work something out after the surgery. As I lay in the hospital bed, our priest returned my phone call. He told me how sorry he was about our loss and how he would be happy to have a service for us and be there any way he could. I could barely hold myself together while I listened to him. Then it was time to go into surgery. As they started to roll me away, I looked at Eric and told him, "Her name is Taylor Grace." I needed him to know that we had a daughter, that she had a name, and that I loved her.
After the surgery, the nurse presented us with a paper bag that had a plastic cup in it with the remains of our baby. The lovely woman looked at me and simply said, "Your angel is in there." It may have just looked like clumps of blood, but that was my child. My daughter. My angel, indeed. We brought the bag home and placed the remains in our freezer. After some rest, I carefully went through our small collection of baby things we had already accumulated and found a pink Whinnie the Pooh blanket. I wrapped the cup in the blanket and placed it back in the freezer.
The surgery took place on Friday June 6th. We met with the groundskeeper at our church the following Monday and had a lovely service scheduled for our little girl that Wednesday. I had went to work as normal (I work at the school attached to the church) and Eric met me at church about 30 minutes before. It was the end of the school year, so I was able to sneak over to the church without having to explain to anyone. When I met Eric in the parish office, he had Gracie's casket that we had sealed together the night before. We asked the parish secretary to take a picture of us. It would be the only picture we would have with Gracie. Eric had written her name on the casket and a sweet message. The priest then met us and we walked to the cemetery together. I held it all pretty well until I saw my mom and dad. I had had friends inquire about the service and I had informed them that it would just be a simple private service with me and Eric. I had no idea that my parents were going to show up. It meant a lot to me to have them there. It was a 2 hour drive for them after all. My mom lost her first child to miscarriage as well, so I'm sure she had an idea of how I felt.
The priest looked at the casket when we presented it to him. He commented on how pretty the name we chose was. That made me cry even harder. He continued on and celebrated a perfect little funeral service for our sweetheart. After the service the grounds workers came over with dirt to bury the casket. Eric was allowed to put the first shovelful of dirt down. That was not something I wanted to do, so we simply hugged and held each other weeping for a few minutes before we turned and left our baby behind. I said goodbye to my parents and headed back inside to work while Eric headed off to his job. It was an awful way to end a school year, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to explaining what had happened when next school year came around.
I am so glad that there was a place for us to bury Gracie, however. It gives us a tangible place that we can go back to when we want to visit her and read her a AA Milne book or just talk to her for a while. When I talk to her, I get this feeling that I will have a rainbow baby someday. When I do, I have this overwhelming feeling that it will be a little girl and we will call her Clara. If my intuition was right when it was something so awful, maybe it will be right when it comes to something so good.
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