True story: I was in labor with Hollings for 27 hours. It was long. I was tired. I was hungry. BUT I kid you not, 20 minutes after I pushed Hollings out, I looked at Jay and said, “We are DEFINITELY doing this again!” In fact, in January 2019 when Hollings was 6 months old, I told Jay I was ready for another one.
Our doctor said that it is recommended for all mothers to wait at least a full year after giving birth to get pregnant again. I know that not everyone follows this recommendation, but I’m a little bit of a rule follower. We knew that if we got pregnant right when Hollings turned 1, we would be having baby #2 just a few months before Jay’s second summer of law school (aka this summer we’re in right now). At the time, we didn’t know what this summer was going to look like/where we were going to be/etc. In the first few months of the baby’s life there are lots of doctors appointments, little sleep, and just a whole lot of stuff going on that wouldn’t be ideal for us if we ended up being away from home for the summer (which we are).
I finally got Jay to agree to trying to get pregnant again in December 2019, which would give us an August/September due date. By the time November rolled around, I got him to agree to start trying that month (a month earlier than what we planned on). I got pregnant that very month.
I was so thrilled to be pregnant again. Baby #2 and Hollings were going to be exactly two years apart, which was perfect in my mind. I immediately scheduled our 8 week checkup for that following January. We were planning on seeing both of our families over Christmas break, so I ordered Hollings a “Big Sis” shirt to put her in when we saw everyone.
When we got to Beaufort before Christmas, we went straight to my parent’s inn. Two week prior when I first found out I was pregnant, I lied to my mom and told her that I had gotten my period and was unfortunately not pregnant. When she saw Hollings in her “Big Sis” shirt, she immediately started crying (and my dad took a sip of his bourbon – lol).
My brother Jack and sister Cece were out with friends that night (as young people do) so we had Hollings wear her shirt around them the next day. Jack, being a boy, didn’t even read Hollings’ shirt. Cece on the other hand thought I was a complete idiot for buying my only child a “Big Sis” shirt and kept mockingly asking “Whose big sis is she?” “Haha whose big sis is she?” “Leigh, whose big sis is she?” She just kept saying it over and over again while Jay and I cracked up. Finally Jack clued in and said, “Wait, are y’all pregnant??”
Over that trip I got really sick. I thought it must have been food poisoning from some bad Thai food, or just pregnancy side effects until Jay also got really sick a couple of days following. No one else got sick, including Hollings, thank goodness. That was right around Christmas, and I’m still not sure what caused us to get so sick.
Over the following weeks, I noticed I was bleeding. Not a crazy amount, but bleeding during pregnancy tends to cause worry. I frantically googled if it was normal. Online it said that SOME spotting during early pregnancy CAN be normal. I convinced myself that that was exactly what it was. Just some spotting. Looking back now, I know that I was just trying to fool myself, and it worked. It was definitely more than spotting, but I wouldn’t let myself believe that.
Right around when Jay started his spring semester this year (so beginning-mid January), I got really sick again. I mean REALLY sick. I threw up 13 times in 14 hours. Yes. I counted. I got extreme dehydrated and was in a lot of pain. I, of course, was worried something was wrong with the pregnancy. As soon as Hollings woke up that next morning around 7am, Jay took me to the hospital.
This was a Friday. My 8 week doctors appointment was the following Monday. Covid was already making it’s way into the US by this point, so restrictions were already placed on the hospitals. Hollings and Jay had to stay out in the waiting room. I told the doctors about the vomiting and bleeding and also that I was pregnant. They decided to do an ultrasound right away.
When I looked at the screen during the ultrasound, I was relieved to see what looked like a little bean. “There’s your baby! It looks healthy. I would say based on your hormone levels that you’re about 7 weeks pregnant,” the doctor said. I was so happy to hear that news. They then wheeled me to a different room, hooked me up to an IV and gave me anti-nausea medication. They let me go out to the waiting room to see Jay and Hollings for a bit and then wheeled me back to a hospital bed. After about another hour and a half of lying there and coming back to life, they let me go home.
Before I left, one of the doctors looked at me and said, “I’m glad your appointment is on Monday. The bleeding is a bit concerning.” I am an anxious person, so the doctors words stayed in my mind the entire weekend leading up to my appointment. To make matters worse, the bleeding continued through the weekend.
The morning of my appointment, I looked at Jay and said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this appointment.” He did what he always does, which is give me a hug and tell me everything is going to be alright.
When I got to the doctor’s office, Hollings in tote, they did all of the normal check in stuff (blood pressure, weight, urine sample, etc.). Next, they took me to the ultrasound room. I was a little bit anxious, but I also had just seen the baby when I had an ultrasound three days before, which gave me some comfort. As soon as the ultrasound technician pulled up the screen, I could tell there was something wrong. I could see the amniotic sac, which a few days prior housed my tiny little bean of a baby. Today however, there was no baby inside of it.
The nurse didn’t really say much, other than that she couldn’t see the baby. We just sat there in silence as she kept moving the wand around my belly. I could feel the tears welling. Finally, I got up the nerve to ask, “Does this mean I had a miscarriage?” The nurse told me that only the doctor would be able to determine that, but I already knew that is what happened. I saw the baby so clearly just 3 days before, and now I’m staring at a screen with no baby in sight.
At the first appointment, they typically don’t have you see a doctor if everything looks fine during the ultrasound. They had to find a doctor who had an opening sometime soon (by soon, I mean an hour of waiting at least). They had me go sit in the waiting room. Hollings was in her stroller and getting antsy. I was on the verge of a meltdown, so I did what I feel every mom would do in my situation and pull up a YouTube video of Peppa Pig on my phone to entertain her.
When I finally got to see the doctor, he looked at my hCG hormone levels (aka the pregnancy hormone) and confirmed what I already knew to be true. They had gone down since my trip to the hospital the week before, which is in line with the miscarriage theory. As I began to cry, he handed me a box of tissues and explained that he would need to see me in 2 weeks for another ultrasound. During this ultrasound, they would see if there was anything leftover from the pregnancy that my body was not passing.
I called Jay and my mom on the way home from the visit and told them everything. When I got home, I put Hollings down for a nap and then immediately got in bed for a good proper cry. When Jay got home, he didn’t say much, but got in bed with me and cried too, which is exactly what I needed. Then he made us each a cup of hot chocolate. I didn’t do much the rest of that day, but I did drink two hefty glasses of wine that night while I watched The Bachelor. That is what I call therapy.
When I went back to my follow up appointment two weeks later, the ultrasound revealed that there was in fact matter from my pregnancy that my body was not passing on it’s own. As long as there was still leftover matter from my previous pregnancy in my body, I would not be able to get pregnant. My doctor told me about my options moving forward. I could A) do nothing and wait until my body passed everything on it’s own, which my doctor explained could take months, B) take a pill to help pass everything along, which is about 80% successful, or C) schedule a “surgery” for two weeks from that day to remove everything, which would be 99% successful.
I opted for the surgery. I was ready to be pregnant. I didn’t want any more time to pass than needed. My doctor explained what a D&C is. I was completely on board, so he scheduled the surgery for two weeks from then. I was watching him put all of the information into the online chart, when my eyes went to the spot where he filled in the “reason.” What the doctor put in the slot was “incomplete abortion.” Seeing that phrase really freaked me out – so much so, that when I got home I expressed my concerns to Jay about how it left a pit in my stomach. He said, “Leigh, you didn’t choose to lose this baby. This surgery isn’t taking the baby away from you. The baby is already gone, and what is left inside of you is just matter that’s preventing you from getting your baby.”
I knew Jay was right, so two weeks later, we went in for my surgery. I took a few pills that my doctor prescribed that made me feel loopy and numb. Jay was allowed to be in there with me. Hollings stayed home with my mom. It went smoothly, and we got the okay to start trying again after waiting a couple of weeks.
When I got my period for the first time after the surgery, I was a little disappointed, because it meant I wasn’t pregnant, but I also expected it to happen. The doctor said most people get pregnant after their first period post-surgery. This was mid February. I immediately went to an ovulation calculator online and plugged in the dates to find out when I would be ovulating next. Then I calculated when my next period was likely to come if I didn’t get pregnant. I planned that I would take a pregnancy test a day after that calculated period date if I hadn’t gotten my period by then.
Well, around mid March, I got news that one of my friends was pregnant with her second baby. If you have gone through a miscarriage, you know that hearing of someone else’s pregnancy sometimes isn’t the happiest news for you. This made me decide that I was going to take a pregnancy test that very day (a few days before the date I originally said I would take one). I was very sad to find out that day that I was still not pregnant. I was even more sad a few days later when I got my period. Again.
By the time it reached April, I was so confused. How did I go from accidentally getting pregnant with Hollings literally while I was on birth control, to trying to get pregnant with baby #2 for almost 6 months with little luck? Am I the only person who grew up thinking having unprotected sex = getting pregnant every single time? How was I still not pregnant yet?
Finally I decided to just stop obsessing over it and trust God’s timing. That very same month, I got pregnant with baby #2. This time there was no special way we told family. I basically took the test right when I woke up one morning and shoved it in Jay’s (still asleep) face after I saw the two lines. I then sent a picture to my mom, who proceeded to sleep for two more hours before finally responding (that’s that “my kids are grown up and I can sleep as late as I want to” life).
I was so incredibly excited, but didn’t let myself fully get my hopes until that first 6 week appointment. I will say I was more optimistic this time around, considering there hadn’t been any crazy sickness or bleeding. It also helped that Jay was able to come to this appointment with me, so if I did happen to get sad news, I wouldn’t have to cry alone in the waiting room again.
Luckily, this appointment (which was in mid May) brought good news. We left with sonogram photos and a due date – CHRISTMAS DAY! That poor child. I can already hear him/her saying “Mommmmm you better not try to combine my Christmas and birthday presents again this year!” We went ahead and told family and close friends over the following month.
On June 18, I had my 12 week appointment. The 12 week appointment is a big one, because if you hear good news at this appointment, you will most likely go public with your pregnancy. I had been anxious for this appointment, as well. In fact, I don’t think that it will be possible for me to ever not be anxious about a pregnancy ever again after going through a miscarriage. Jay had to work on the day of my appointment, which was okay, because typically they won’t do an ultrasound at the 12 week appointment. Usually they just pick up the baby’s heartbeat with a doppler, and take your blood pressure, weight, and urine sample.
After they took all of my check-in info, they lead me to the room where I would see the doctor. Before getting out the doppler, he told me that 12 weeks is right on the line of whether the doppler will be able to pick up the heartbeat, so I shouldn’t be nervous if they don’t pick one up right away. It didn’t matter what he could have said to me, I was still going to be nervous until I knew the baby had a heartbeat.
He moved the doppler around my stomach and didn’t pick up a single thing. The longer he kept trying and the more he moved it around without picking anything up, the more anxious I got. He must have been able to tell by my face that I was getting worried, because he said, “Okay I’m not going to make you any more anxious. We’re just going to take you back and do a quick ultrasound.”
In that moment I sent a text to my mom, my dad, and Jay telling them that the doctor couldn’t find the heartbeat with the doppler and that they were taking me back to do an ultrasound. They were also all concerned, but sent me the encouraging texts that they new I needed.
Luckily, the technician was able to pick up the heartbeat right away. Another huge sigh of relief immediately escaped my mouth. The baby was healthy and progressing as it should be. I even went home with some updated sonogram photos.
I am now 17 weeks pregnant. At the end of this month, I’ll be almost halfway through my pregnancy (I actually cannot believe that) and we’ll know the gender of our baby! This pregnancy has been easy so far. I have gotten sick once, and I’m not nearly as tired as I remember being with Hollings. I’m still naturally paranoid and anxious, which I don’t think will stop until the baby is out of my belly and in my arms (at which point a whole different kind of anxiety will set in). I just feel so blessed to have made it this far in the pregnancy. I’m not taking any blessing for granted, especially during these times.
