Miscarriage, it's awful. The loss of my 8th baby.

**Disclaimer: This is a heavy post. It has to do with miscarriages. Please don't feel that you have to read this, believe me when I say that I won't be offended. Going through the losses of my babies has been defining in my life, not sharing more about my children just felt off to me. So, if you feel up to it, here is my most detailed post about my last baby that I lost.**

For some reason I have been thinking about my miscarriages lately. My thoughts seem to come in waves, sometimes there is just a brief thought or a quick remembrance. Other times, such as yesterday and today the memories flood back. Not that it is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination but I never know when the thoughts will resurface and for some reason now seems like a good day to share.

My first loss I took the hardest. Devastated does not even begin to describe how I felt that day. The ones in between while equally devastating were somehow brushed over in my mind, maybe some sort of a coping mechanism. To somehow deal with such crushing loss. I lost all of my babies within roughly two years. I had 8 children in about three and a half years (including Ainsley and Abby).

My last loss occurred during the summer of 2008. It was by far the most physically difficult. Mentally and emotionally it was almost too much to comprehend. Ainsley was about 7 months old at the time and K's grandfather was not doing well. I had my first prenatal check up with the midwife and while I was feeling as well as I could with being on progesterone I had no idea that something could be going wrong with the baby.  I had already had an early sonogram done due to having so many miscarriages and my partial molar pregnancy and everything looked good. We had seen our precious little baby with their heart beating away.

So when I had my appointment I thought that all was well. When it came time to hear the heartbeat it couldn't be found. My midwife thought that it was probably just the position of the placenta that was causing a problem, they thought that if we waited over the weekend that the baby would be big enough to hear the heartbeat. I was remarkably calm, while I am sure that there was some inkling of concern in the back of my mind I don't remember being too concerned. After all we had seen the baby weeks before and I was still feeling awful. I had scheduled a time on the following Monday to do a quick heartbeat check and was feeling really optimistic.

Over the weekend K's grandfather began to decline. His parents decided to head up to Idaho to be with him and I offered to house sit for them. It sounded like a perfect opportunity to help out and get out of town, plus K's sister lives in the same town so we would be able to spend time together and the kiddos could play. Monday morning rolled around and I went to my appointment. After much searching a heartbeat could still not be found. Then I knew. They brought in a different midwife thinking that she might be able to find the heartbeat but still nothing.

I remember breaking down. This just felt like too much. I requested a sonogram, I just had to know. The sonogram wasn't for a couple of hours so K and I decided to take the girls to get some lunch. It felt very surreal. I couldn't believe that we were doing this again, that I was waiting to find out the fate of my baby. Somehow time continued on and we made it to the hospital to get the sonogram done.

As soon as the sonogram tech put the wand on my belly I knew that things were wrong. There was no denying it and I instantly burst into tears. Since I had been on the progesterone the placenta continued to grow even though the baby had not. So I had an 11 week placenta and amniotic sac and no baby could be found. My mind instantly jumped to having another molar pregnancy. No, it couldn't be. The idea of it was too much, we had just gotten done with all of that less than two years ago. (In my state of shock I had forgotten the fact that we had seen a baby just 4 weeks before so my scare was in vain.)

The u/s tech told me that she wanted to do another type of sonogram so she could get another picture. I had to go change my clothes and K and I had decided that he and the girls would go wait in the waiting room while I had it done. Right before leaving, as I am laying there crying on the table, my sweet Adison came up to me, hugged me and told me that it would all be okay. How my darling eldest always knows the right thing to do and say is just beyond me, it must have been God using her to give comfort as comfort was surely needed.

So they left and I headed to the bathroom to change into a gown. For some reason as soon as I entered the bathroom I knew that I needed to pray. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I needed to declare my loyalty to Jesus, I knew that Satan would use this. This fear, this heartache, this devastation to break me, to have doubt and anger and fear enter into my relationship with the Lord. I knew that Satan would use everything in his power to try to draw me away from the One that loved me. So I declared to Jesus that I would not leave. That this would not be enough to pull me away, that nothing would. That I gave my life to God and that I KNEW that he was there with me. I KNEW that he wept with me that he cried and felt such disappointment. I KNEW that if it was a molar pregnancy that He would be there too. I KNEW that I could endure that again because He would be there.

So, I got changed, wiped the tears from my eyes, straightened my shoulders and walked back into to the room. After she started the u/s again it took very little time to find my baby. It was there all along and as I looked at that screen the love I felt for that baby just washed over me. I loved him/her and I love them still. I felt peace that my baby was in Heaven and relief in knowing that I didn't have to fear cancer due to the molar pregnancy. I still felt the crushing blow though of losing my baby. I had to tell my husband that our baby was there in my womb but gone, I had to explain to my eldest that her sibling was in Heaven and together my husband and I had to call our families.

As I was leaving the hospital, my doctor (I have a midwife and an OB/GYN, I guess that just makes me special :) called and asked if I had left the hospital yet. Since I hadn't he asked if I could come up to his office to speak with him. I had managed to pull myself together but as soon as I saw him and my favorite nurse I lost it. The evidence of their tears were clearly on their faces and seeing such empathy and sadness did me in. My OB informed me that this miscarriage shouldn't be as painful as the others since the baby was so much smaller, they gave me the encouragement that I needed. Not only physical, but also emotional and spiritual. After leaving, I headed home to pack and head off to my in-laws. It felt like an escape from reality to leave and I had my children with me. What better distraction could there be?

Fast forward a couple of day. K's grandfather passed and it was just heartbreaking. The girls and I headed home to pack and get things ready for the funeral. We made it through the funeral somehow. The day before we were to head home the beginning of the actual miscarriage took place. We made it home late that night and I was dreading what was to come. I won't go into details, but I was in labor longer than I have been with all of my girls combined. It was an awful experience due to the placenta/amniotic sac being so large. We later figured out that I had most likely lost the baby because we had all gotten food poisoning.

I am sorry for such a downer post. I know that you don't come here for that but for some reason this needed to get off of my chest. I needed to share my precious baby with you.