Broken the only way to describe a 17 week loss

[angelbump]

Sorry just isn't enough. I feel truly devastated for you. I'm sending you gentle hugs and hope that one day you won't hurt how you do right now. Rest when you can and be gentle on yourself x

 

[Suggerhoney]

Oh my love no one can ever tell you to move on. your precious little girl will always be a part of you,
It’s so heartbreaking to lose so late. I’m so so heartbroken for you.
There is just no words. Absolutely devastating.
Sending you so much love my love and I will pray for guidance and peace.
Take all the time you need to grieve my love, gentle hugs from me to you and I’m just so so sad and so so sorry

 

[WantingababyF]

Thank you everyone for your kind words and prayers.
I am still off work atm, I can't face people and feel almost embarrassed about what I have been through
1 month after I started my new job I ended up having D&C at 9 week and now a 17 week loss. Everyone at my work knew and even clients so it is making it so difficult to have to face those people.
Tomorrow will mark 3 weeks since we heard the dreaded news and my heart aches still.
Today I watched my boys play in the water together and even though I was happy I thought what it would have been like for them to have their little sister there playing with them. A void I will never be able to fill, her presence is with us but what I would give to have her here safe I cannot describe. I would have given my life if it meant she would be here with them and mu husband.

I finally stopped bleeding a day or so ago. I ordered OPK to track what my cycle is doing. With PCOS it is hard enough to get pregnant as it is without the fact that carrying a child to term seems to be a new battle we are facing. I see the statistics of 4 losses in a row and wonder how I can be one of those numbers.

Right now even though I am grieving, I feel like I need to try again and be pregnant asap. I know being pregnant will not replace my little girl but I am trying to focus on building our family and loving a new baby just as much as I love Tallulah.
Last night hubby and I DTD, I don't know if I was ovulating but I felt like I needed that closeness again. After I felt this weird guilt (but almost a release of all my emotions) I cried and cried just thinking of our little girl and how we weren't supposed to be here again. Trying to be pregnant again, I'm supposed to be pregnant, I'm supposed to have a bump and be out of breath just DTD. Instead I'm worrying if DTD is making me bleed again.

My husband is wonderful and never would have tried if I didn't insinuate but I can tell he is unsure and scared.

He asked me how I would feel if it happened again (his mum lost 3 babies each at 17 weeks, due to incompetent cervix. She gave up and her marriage broke down) I feel like I can maybe handle one more loss and if that was to occur I would be done for a very long time

I am not ready to give up our family was not complete. To even think about never being pregnant again, having a bump again. I would take any bout of nausea, back pain, peeing my pants. I'd take it all if it just meant that we would have one more babe to love.

We always planned on 4-5 children, even though I love my 2 boys with all my heart I am not ready to be done!

 

[Bevziibubble]

 

[dairymomma]

Oh hon... MASSIVE

A few years ago, I went to the hospital on Christmas Day because I was cramping lightly and had some brown spotting. I'd been horridly ill for over a week (fever, cough, chest cold) and the dr thought it was just the coughing causing the spotting but I knew something wasn't right in my heart. And it was confirmed about an hour after we got there. Not only did I have influenza but my little boy no longer had a heartbeat. I was 20+4 but he only measured 17+1. I'd had a normal ultrasound at 15 weeks and we'd just seen him moving around the week before at 19 weeks. But he was no longer moving and he'd stopped growing but we didn't know why.

I was experiencing more discomfort as the time went by so I opted to stay in the hospital overnight and a few hours after we learned our baby boy was gone, my water broke and he was born. Perfectly formed but too tiny and we learned what caused his passing-he'd gotten tangled in his cord. Since I was over 20 weeks gestation, it was considered a stillbirth but because of his small size and the fact that I was so sick, we chose not to do a funeral. The hospital has a program where they cremate miscarried babies and bury the ashes in a special plot at a local cemetery. They do a memorial service every year in the spring and I really liked the idea of him being somewhere peaceful, quiet, and with other babies just like him. I have three other babies there already (a set of twins and my 14 week miscarriage) so he's with a few of his siblings, which made me even happier.

It's been three years since my stillbirth and I still feel that loss. I don't cry all the time, I don't look at the card with my son's itty bitty too tiny footprints on it very often anymore, and I don't sit there thinking 'If he'd been born when he was supposed to be, he'd be X age right now...' as much. But I didn't get to this point overnight either. It took me a good two years to work through my grief properly. Partly because my husband was diagnosed with a very serious case of cancer just a few months after our loss so I was very preoccupied for about a year because of that whole thing, but mostly because I knew it was going to take time to unpack everything.

Losing a child at that stage isn't the same as a miscarriage. I've had several of those and I've grieved for those babies too. But my stillbirth was a whole different level of grief. He was more real to me because he'd been moving and I'd felt that movement, I'd seen my body changing as he grew, and I'd carried him for nearly 5 months. And grief is complex in a situation like this. You are not only mourning the loss of this child but of the life they could have lived if they hadn't died. The multitude of possibilities in their future are suddenly gone. And as a parent, you just don't think you'll outlive your children. For me, there was also a layer of anger. Here I'd gotten through the absolute hell that my body thinks the first trimester needs to be (I bleed for weeks on end for no apparent reason usually and I'm high risk for miscarriage even with treatment) and we'd passed 15 weeks for the first time in 3 years. I should have been able to bring him home that Spring. My due date was Mother's Day of all days. And yet, I still lost him. On Christmas Day no less.

What helped me move through my grief was therapy. I have a fantastic therapist who has experienced pregnancy loss of her own and it's amazing how healing it is to say 'I'm feeling this way about my loss' and hear 'It's okay. It's NORMAL' back. She gets it in a way that very few people can because she's been there too. But regular talk therapy was key to my healing journey. I also received a care package from an incredibly lovely woman who had gone through a similar loss experience herself. She gifted me a copy of the book 'I'll Love You Forever' about the little boy who is forever getting into mischief and his mom who picks him up, rocks him to sleep, and sings a little son about how she'll love him for ever and he'll always be her little boy. She said she got that book after her own loss and it helped her so much to read through it when she was missing her daughter. She also gifted me a handmade ornament made in honor of my son since he was born at Christmas time. I love it especially because all we have of our son is a card with his teeny tiny itty bitty too small footprints. And I know she has a stuffed bear that she got in memory of her daughter. Other people I know who have lost a child suddenly have gotten a plant or a tree that they've planted in their yard or at the grave in memory of their child. I know one woman who got a bear from a group that customizes the bears for each mom. Her bear weighs exactly as much as her daughter did, has a bow because it was a girl, and an embroidered lamb on it's chest because L, A, M, B are the initials of my friend, her husband, and their two boys. The bears are gifted for free but it's a nonprofit organization and they only open orders one day out of the month. I don't remember the name of the organization but I'm sure you could take the idea and work with it to your liking if you can't find it on Google. But a stuffed animal may be an option for you if you are too afraid to handle the mementos you have for fear you'll lose them or damage them. A stuffed bear isn't easily damaged or lost and you could customize it with something to make it more personal to your daughter-maybe add a decorative pin or bow on the ear or dress it in an outfit similar to one you'd planned to use for your daughter, etc. Plant a tree in her memory in your yard or have a custom item (bench, bird feeder, etc) made in her honor. Make an ornament for her. Have a necklace or other piece of jewelry made in honor of her. There are loads of things you can do to memorialize your baby.

I can't tell you how to work through your trauma and heartbreak and grief because it's going to be a unique process for you. But just know that grief isn't linear and there's no set timeline for it. It ebbs and flows just like the oceans do and sometimes it's calm as can be while others it's stormy and turbulent. Only you will know how to best work through this. But I can say that resuming at least some 'normal' life routines helps at least initially. I went back to work about a month after it happened and the only reason it took me that long was because it took that long for me to recover from being ill and having a blood clot in my leg. I would have been back to work at 2 weeks if I could have been otherwise. But I work with animals and they are my therapy too so I knew going back to work was necessary for me. As for you returning to work, I would say that's probably up to your doctor and how you are healing physically. But if you have the all-clear from the dr and feel up to it, maybe try going back part-time at first til you get your feet back under you? Don't push yourself too hard but returning to a normal routine can help with the grief too.

One last note in this novel of a response-please do not feel embarrassed about your loss. You have no reason to feel that way. I suspect it's actually grief masquerading as something else but there's honestly no reason to feel that way. You didn't plan for this to happen and you didn't want it to happen so why feel embarrassed by needing time off to heal after a traumatic event? And you may be surprised to find out just how many others have experienced something similar.