Let go and let God

These days my Facebook page reads less like the diary of an alcoholic writer and more ... domestic.

I mean, I've always been pretty domestic - baking and cooking and momming - but usually it's mixed in with a decent dose of hashtags about wine o'clock and Wine Wednesday and day drinking. There's been none of that recently.

Actually, when I wrote a majority of this post initially last week, I was pretty sure that once this entry was read through entirely, I would get comments like "Oh I totally knew ... because you weren't posting about drinking." To which I'm just going to respond right now - don't post shit like that to anyone ever. For starters, you make people sound like they really do have a drinking problem, which, for me, is the furthest thing from the truth. If I had a drinking problem, I wouldn't be posting about how much I drink or want to drink because when I'm dealing with a life problem (like depression ... because that has been an actual issue in my life) I don't say a thing about it on social media. The only reason anyone other than my husband, close family or really close friends know about me tackling the depression monster is because I finally opened up about it in this space; it's my space and I feel safe here.

But this isn't a post about that, how hard I work at being a mom, how much I despise car line and other Pre-K parents or funny stories about drinking wine and writing a novel.

This is the hardest post I think I'll ever write. This is therapy.

Last December the decision was made to toss my birth control out the window. I hate being on hormonal birth control because it seems any time I am on it and come off it after a length of time, my thyroid gets a little crazy.

The first time I went off it after Boy and I got married, I'd been on the pill for nearly 10 years - my cycles continued on a 28-day routine, but my thyroid went from being slightly hypo to severely hyper. It was torture being told, in not so many words, don't even think about getting knocked up right now because we need to get this nonsense under control. It hurt. I wanted nothing more than to start our family.

We waited and didn't "try" to get pregnant until my thyroid levels were in a safe zone and I was told if I were to get pregnant we were in a place where my thyroid disease was manageable. Not something that should be said to someone who's uterus is primed for housing a fetus, but it was said to me and then ... whoops (but not really), Josie was on the way. My thyroid was pretty steady throughout that first pregnancy. After Josie was born, my levels creeped up, which is normal for after giving birth because your body goes through such a hormonal shitstorm that it responds by saying fuck you and your thyroid, too. I had a verbal sparring match with my endocrinologist which resulted in me NOT doing what they wanted me to do initially, but instead making them compromise. It was better for me and for the baby (since she was breastfeeding).

My levels got back to where they needed to be without overloading me with meds. I was happy. But life was stressful. Formula started being supplemented for breastmilk because that's what the pediatrician wanted us to do despite my argument against it. My body started going back to normal. Charlotte was conceived. My thyroid was solid through my entire pregnancy and 14.5 months of breastfeeding.

While we wanted another child, there was a lot I was trying to handle internally - depression that I didn't recognize as depression, anxiety that I didn't recognize as part of that depression, anger ... which again I didn't think of as a symptom of depression or having tried to take on too much or not having ever asked for help (and never being offered help). So, for about two years, I handled things and worked through them to the point where I could feel less overwhelmed. I could leave the laundry washed, dried and sitting in a basket for a day or two without hating everything and everyone I came in contact with. I yell less, my kids seem to love me more.

Boy and I talked at length about me going off the pill again after having been on it for nearly two years - I'd been put on the mini pill when Charlie was about 6 weeks old and then put on the full pill when she was between 7 and 9 months (I really can't remember because I was basically in a state of euphoria since our breastfeeding relationship was so strong and, since I was also pumping regularly, Josie was able to benefit as well). So that last pill was taken almost a year ago and the decision was made to wait and see how my thyroid reacted.

And my levels started creeping up, slowly at first and then between two appointments my TSH doubled. At that point we'd already decided it was time to start trying for that "just one more" baby.

Our lives were briefly consumed by ovulation predictor kits and following various methods for getting a boy, despite the fact we really just wanted one more healthy baby. I was worried because something didn't feel right. I'd had implantation bleeding with Josie, but this was different and I wasn't getting a positive test. Then finally a faint positive showed up one day, and another the next ... and the day after that I bled. And I was crushed. Literally destroyed. It hurt all over again to go have bloodwork drawn to confirm the miscarriage. It hurt because my levels were so low they couldn't even say I was pregnant.

The next day I was given what I feel was an answer as to why it happened. Thyroid. Stupid mother fucking thyroid. I was taken off my meds, then the next appointment put on Synthroid and now my levels are starting to stabilize. It doesn't make the anger I have for my endocrinologist any less, it doesn't minimize the fact that the specialist seems to have sat back and watched as my TSH crept up instead of remedying the issue and pulling me off my meds when it would have been appropriate to do so. The physician assistant didn't even have an answer for me when I went in for a follow up and point blank asked what the hell they were thinking keeping me on a med that further suppressed my thyroid function as opposed to taking me off and treating the hypothyroidism that had come back before it started getting out of control.

They certainly don't want to know that a lot of my anger is because I blame them for the loss of that would be baby.

I was at peace with it, or I was giving it my best shot at the very least, because after every storm there's a rainbow ... and ours should have been arriving in time for Josie's fifth birthday, my dad's 68th birthday and Ron's and my seventh wedding anniversary.

There was supposed to be a rainbow in June.

Instead Ron and I have spent the better part of the last 22 hours crying and asking ourselves why. I had to call my parents and as soon as I heard my dad's voice, I broke. I called my sister and the wound split wide open again.

It's going to tear open again and again.

This was supposed to be a joyful announcement, and now we're waiting to see if my body does what it's supposed to do before I go in for a D&C in less than two weeks.

This pregnancy wasn't like my first two - the nausea started before I had a positive pregnancy test at the end of September, the exhaustion was so extreme I had trouble keeping myself awake much past the girls bedtime, I was put on a progesterone supplement, they found a chorionic bump (a bleed or hemorrhage that's usually reabsorbed at some point) at my six week ultrasound. At a repeat ultrasound at eight weeks, the bump hadn't gotten any smaller. I was scheduled for another ultrasound to check it and the baby's growth at the 13 week mark.

I should be carrying a baby that's 13 weeks 3 days, but sometime shortly after 8 weeks 2 days and a healthy heartbeat and making the announcement to family at Charlie's birthday party ... this baby left us.

Yesterday, our ultrasound tech's face changed, his demeanor changed - a guy who joked around and visited with me at every ultrasound he did during my pregnancies with Josie and Charlotte - and I knew something wasn't right. I couldn't see a heartbeat. He didn't print a picture. He didn't show me little arms and little legs. He turned the screen. He needed to scan lower on my belly.

My anxiety went from zero to a million in less time than it took to walk out of the radiology department.

This is our second loss in a row.

I still cry for the baby we lost in September - the one that truly never had a chance. That hurt was becoming a dull ache after my midwife asked me about it at my nine week check up with this baby, when she asked how I was doing. It was a hurt that added anxiety where there should have been joy when we found out three weeks after that loss that we'd conceived again so soon. When I expressed all my fear and worry about the chorionic bleed and what implication this could have or could this cause developmental issues and ... the tears just fell from my eyes because what else was I supposed to do? It hurt because every thought led me to "you'll lose this one, too."

I was scared to death until she rubbed my back and said quietly, "Trust in God."

And now that's all I can do because He's got two of my angels.

It hurts and I don't have an answer. I don't have the answers when Josie asks me why the baby died.

We were told yesterday that even without the official report from the radiologist yet, they believe this loss was caused by the chorionic bump. It's rare it causes a problem. Once again, we're the exception. And I clung to my midwife and wept while my husband sat off to the side holding our two little girls in shock with tears rolling down his cheeks.

I went to bed every night for the last three months praying everything was going as planned in my uterus, and now I have to pray my body stops thinking it's pregnant and just let's it go.

I know there's life after miscarriage. I hope it doesn't take long for me to see that and live it. For now, I'm leaving it in God's hand.