In the Fall of 2013, I was diagnosed with a condition. A condition that I had heard of only once before. A condition that doesn't effect me all the time. A condition entirely linked to pregnancy. As most of my readers know in August of 2010 I had my first miscarriage (little August), May of 2011 the second (little Kate) and June 24th of 2013 the third (little Quinn). It would be after the third that blood work would reveal that I had a blood clotting disorder. Basically what happens is that when I am not pregnant my blood is normal, but when I get pregnant that is when the trouble starts. My blood gets to thick and can not make its way through the placenta to the baby, resulting in my baby not receiving the nourishment it needs to survive.
All that means is that my body starves my babies.
I know that sounds harsh, but that is basically what is going on, my body is betraying me.
Do you have any idea how that feels? As a woman I am supposed to be able to carry and nurture the growing baby inside of me, but my body just refuses to do it's job. I wanted answers after each loss. I felt in some way responsible and I wanted to know that I wasn't. After finding out what was going on, I feel more responsible than ever. Loss is hard, multiple loss is even harder, but feeling responsible for each loss is the hardest thing in the world to deal with.
Deep down I know that the miscarriages were not my fault. I know that it was not under my control. I know that I had no idea what to do that could have prevented it. Now I know there are things that could have helped and maybe prevented the losses, but at the time I had no clue about what was going on. Even knowing all of that now, I still have moments when the guilt weighs so heavy on me. It is during these times I find it difficult to breathe and all I can do is cry. Some days are worse than others. I suspect that I will carry around this feeling forever. I don't' think it will ever truly go away, but hopefully as time goes on it will get better. When I am having one of those days (like today), I just have to remind myself that God had a reason for taking each of those little ones to Heaven. I don't understand it, but just knowing they are safe and happy makes the grieving a little bit easier.
It is not always easy to talk about such topics. Maybe there is someone out there who is dealing with the same thing I have. I want this post to help others and hopefully due to the writing, it will help me too. You see, I still find most people are not willing to listen, unless they have been through the same thing. I long for the day when we can talk about miscarriage openly and let others know that how they feel, what they are going through, all the things happening to them are normal. That each life does matter, if it lasted 100 years or 10 days, they all matter.
"That's my 'two-cents worth', what's yours?"
No comments:
Post a Comment