My last post ended ambiguously because although my pregnancy test was positive, I kept spotting. In the next 36 hours, I took several more home pregnancy tests. With each additional test, that beautiful, hopeful pink line became lighter and lighter until it was gone.
I wasn’t surprised. Somewhere deep inside, I felt it wasn’t a viable pregnancy. Because my pregnancy lasted less than a week, I had not even had the time to process it. It might sound crazy, but finding out I was no longer pregnant made me feel both relieved and hopeful.
Relieved because my body expelled a pregnancy that was not meant to be rather than forcing it to happen, with unforeseen complications.
Hopeful because it let me know that my body was still working. Perhaps the embryo did not implant because my uterine wall had not yet healed sufficiently from my C-section to safely house it. Maybe my body was not ready yet, but soon will be.
Naturally, I was also disappointed. True, I did not have time to emotionally invest in the pregnancy, much less build a bond with my unborn child or make preparations for her arrival. That lessened but didn’t eliminate the sense of loss.
I had heard of a “chemical pregnancy” only a few short weeks before having one when a friend of mine shared her story about her challenges conceiving.
I retrieved this definition from About.com:
* A chemical pregnancy [is] a miscarriage before the fifth week of gestation…within a week [of a] missed menstrual period.
* A missed period and biochemical tests…[are] the only evidence that you were pregnant.
* The miscarriage happen[s] before an ultrasound could have shown a gestational sac.
Most women never know about their chemical pregnancies. They think of them as a late period. But because of my OCD with charting my fertility, I was right on top of it. Perhaps too much so. My egg was fertilized, therefore producing elevated hCG levels, which in turn turned the home pregnancy tests positive. When the fertilized egg did not implant in my uterine wall, my hCG dropped back to zero and I got my period.
My hormones were ALL over the place those few days. My husband didn’t leave me, so it might not have been as bad as I recall. Or maybe I just have the best husband in the world. But even he could not truly understand what I was going through.
Many women do not share their pregnancy news with friends and loved ones until three months have passed. My husband and I don’t follow this rule. If no one knows you are pregnant to begin with, how can they support you in the event of a miscarriage? We like to share with the people in our lives. We feel it brings us closer. My good friends knew what was happening as I was going through it. They could deal with my anxiety and hormones. They also shared their experiences, offered encouragement and support, and just listened when I needed to freak out.
I am back to charting my irregular period, obsessing over when I may ovulate, and buying pregnancy tests in bulk on the Internet. I truly feel that I will have another child. And once again, only time will tell.
