LMP: 8/9/19                             EDD: 6/14/20

9/28/19: positive at-home pregnancy test – 4 weeks pregnant

10/23/19: perfect ultrasound – 6 weeks pregnant

11/6/19: “abnormal” ultrasound, hCG levels tested – 8 weeks pregnant

11/8/19: hCG levels retested, levels dropping – 8.5 weeks pregnant

today, 11/10/19: 9 weeks “pregnant”

At my 8-week ultrasound, the doctor asked me “how are you feeling?” I replied “awful,” to which he responded, “because of the results, or something else?”

This pregnancy has felt so similar to Evelyn’s… I have felt awful. Nauseous. Exhausted. Irritable. Patience level zero. I’ve allowed every bit of this pregnancy to lure me into a false sense of hope due to its familiarity.

This is a place I’ve never been… this “pregnant” place. My body is still very much pregnant, but my baby is no longer thriving. Medically, it’s termed a “Missed Miscarriage” which simply means your body has yet to recognize that your baby has passed, and continues on with your pregnancy.

Tomorrow, the doctor will call to discuss the news we already know (thanks, patient portal): this is our third loss in 5 months. And we will have to decide how to move forward.

While there has yet to be any physical pain, this is my worst miscarriage to date–and that’s saying something, as this is my 6th. The waiting is torture. Looking in the mirror at my little bump is agony. The nausea that had started to become a familiar part of my days now feels like a slap in the face. I desperately want my body to stop being pregnant.

After our last ultrasound, the doctor asked me if “this loss feels like any of my previous losses,” to which I truly didn’t know how to respond. Is this a loss? Nothing has happened. I feel the same. I look the same. My body hasn’t “lost” anything. And yet, everything is lost.

Never before have I wrestled with the considerations of a D&C (the surgical removal of a baby that has passed in utero). Never before have I been faced with the decision of how I wish to lose my baby. Never before have I felt quite so betrayed by my body.

For one month, we have loved this baby deeply. We have imagined our lives with it. We have introduced Evelyn to my belly and the baby within.

And now we say goodbye.

Once again.