The past year and a half has been a bit tumultuous for our family. I wasn’t sure if I was going to share this, now or ever, but I have always found writing to be therapeutic — and I recognize the “perfect” facade that social media can portray. It’s not real. Everybody is struggling with something. Everybody has a story that doesn’t neatly fit into the little square boxes on Instagram. The best parts of life are not perfectly curated. They are messy, they are up and down and all over the place. The raw and real emotions that come with this are worth putting on paper.
Last March, Tim & I found out that we were expecting another little bundle of joy. We were completely shocked, overwhelmed, distressed, and then eventually flooded with pure excitement. It was sooner than we had planned, but we all know that God is ultimately in control. Our little babies would be only 14 months apart — and while we know that we would have our hands full, we also knew that our hearts would be fuller.
The beginning of the pregnancy FLEW by. I’m not sure if it was because I was in denial those first few weeks or because I was chasing around Wes 24/7, but before I knew it my 8 week appointment had come. I went by myself for my first ultrasound and saw our little one on the screen. He was measuring a little bit small, but had a perfectly strong heartbeat.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and Tim and I were headed back to my follow up. I was so excited to have Tim with me because since Wesley was born during COVID, he couldn’t come to any of the early ultrasounds. They called us in and the tech got started. It only took two seconds of her silence and a glance at the ultrasound screen to know that something was very wrong. “I am so sorry” she eventually said, “there is no longer a heartbeat.”
With that one sentence it felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. I could not even muster one word in response to the questions that she was asking me. This was the last thing that I had expected. They moved me to a private room and I completely fell apart. I can hardly remember what happened during the rest of our visit other than being forced to make several big and horrible choices right then and there. I had suffered what they call a “missed miscarriage” – so there were no signs prior to the ultrasound. I opted to take medication at home to begin miscarrying naturally within the next few days.
I was horrified, obviously, as I returned home and shared the news with my mom. I took the medication immediately, laid in bed and cried for the rest of the day – afraid and waiting for what was to come. After 72 hours, nothing had happened. A full week went by and my body was still holding onto the pregnancy much to the shock of my doctors. They prescribed me another dose of medication and I continued to wait. Two weeks after learning that our baby did not have a heartbeat, I returned to the office for a follow-up. My doctor scheduled a D&C for the following week and I went on my way.
Three days later, I began to miscarry at home and it was something that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I ended up hemorrhaging and passing out in our downstairs bathroom just before Tim called 911. I was transported to the hospital where I received a blood transfusion and an emergency D&C in the middle of the empty operating room at 2AM on a Sunday morning. It was traumatic. It was heartbreaking. It has been over a year and as I write this I have tears in my eyes.
The following months were hard. Really hard. I was at rock bottom both physically and emotionally. I had zero energy. I had 10 extra pounds of “baby weight” but no baby to show for it. I was irritable and angry with the world. My heart was broken after almost three months of praying for this little baby only to find out that he wouldn’t be joining us in this world. But I pushed on. I cared for Wesley, I went on vacation, I made it through — even if it did feel a bit like I was on autopilot. If I’m being honest, it is still hard sometimes. Grief is unpredictable and certainly doesn’t seem to follow any sort of timeline.
In September, my doctor encouraged us to try again. She said that unfortunately miscarriages are common and the chances of another would be slim. Four weeks later we got another positive pregnancy test. This time the results were met with elation, but also skepticism. After all we had gone through, I felt like I needed to guard my heart. I didn’t think I would survive that kind of loss again — but ultimately, I did.
My emotions this time were a bit different. It almost felt like this pregnancy had ended before it had even really gotten started. We hadn’t shared the news; we hadn’t even had much time to process it ourselves. I was sad of course, but I mostly felt angry and confused. Why was this happening? What was the matter with me? Why was my body failing me? What if I couldn’t have another child? I had so many questions.
Some of these questions were finally answered in November when my extensive bloodwork panel came back and I was diagnosed with Hashimotos. For those of you that don’t know, this is an autoimmune condition in which your body attacks your thyroid. I saw multiple doctors, all who told me that there was nothing that I could do other than take medication for the rest of my life. They said that the disease can be progressive and lead to other autoimmune diseases – but still, there was nothing that I could do. They claimed that no dietary or lifestyle changes could alter the course of this disease. It was not the answer that I wanted.
Since receiving this diagnosis, I have dove into research on my own. I began working with a functional medicine nutritionist who has healed her own autoimmune disease through food and lifestyle – and I has halped me begin to do the same. I am focused on eating a balanced diet full of real food, balancing my blood sugar, reducing stress and adopting what some people term as “slow living”. I’m working on being more intentional with all of my actions – specifically those relating to motherhood and my home life. I am sharing this partially as a diary to remind myself of how far I have come in this journey, but also because I know a lot of people are quietly struggling. You never know what someone else is going through. Be kind.
xo,
Jaclyn