Jessica’s Story

This blog post includes discussion of pregnancy loss. This content may be triggering – please read at your own pace.

I never knew I wanted to be a mother. I always had younger siblings, cousins, kids to care for. My body surprised me when I became pregnant for the first time, something felt like it clicked and it became all I wanted. I lost the baby at six weeks and spiraled into the depths of pregnancy loss, the shame and guilt I felt of losing the baby. What did I do? What was wrong with me? It was then I knew I would give it my all to become a mother.

At the time, a lot was going on in my life. Lots of changes, new chapters, grieving loss and saying goodbye to things, including my baby. I did not know how common miscarriage was. No one told me. I suffered feeling like it was me. It took time but I thawed in my grief and began to learn just how common miscarriage is, how I needed to show up for myself to process my loss, and later I realized how I needed to share this story with those around me, even though I didn’t at the time.

I got pregnant for a second time about a year later. I lost the baby around six weeks, again. It triggered all the waves of emotion I had the first time only bigger, more forceful. I was fragile and needing holding while I isolated myself from those around me. This time I talked, much more than the first. I found the process of loss felt impossible and with talking more about it, feeling listened to and heard, it took the edge off an absolute terrible time in my life. I clung to becoming pregnant.

I became pregnant again months later, my body tenuous and my spirit crushed. I was terrified. I did everything I could. I rested, I held my breath the whole time. I had to keep this baby.

It was an unhealthy mental state to be in. I had struggled with depression and anxiety before. I knew I was at risk, and yet I had no idea how drastically those symptoms could show up or how sneakily I could end up in a bad place without seeing it.

At nine or so weeks, I began to bleed. My whole body froze, shocked in disbelief, holding tight with every muscle. This couldn’t be happening again. I crumbled. I fell deeper than I thought possible. I lost myself. The grief swallowed me.

I didn’t, couldn’t, tell anyone. Instead of talking about what was happening, I turned my life upside down. I quit my jobs, I had multiple at the time, and all my obligations and responsibilities. As my friends and I called it later, I flipped the table like the incredible Hulk on my whole life, upending everything. I left my life as I knew it and started over.

My doctor at the time went through the motions of being supportive and yet it didn’t feel 100% right. Something was off, I didn’t know what. I got the testing they offered to see what they could about the baby, what might have gone wrong, now that this was my third miscarriage they could do that for me where they wouldn’t after two heartbreaking losses. The doctor, in the bright shiny office, told me that it wasn’t a guarantee that the testing would give us new information but it was worth a try.

The results came back – female – and no genetic abnormalities. No answers. My doctor offered Miseprostol, the medicine I had taken with my first pregnancy loss, to expedite the process. I went home with those pills and couldn’t take them.

It was a dark time. I felt hollow, like part of me was invisible, part of me was removed from my body, my self. I went back the doctor to have my levels tested because I felt like a shell of a human. My HcG hormones were still sky high.

I had my blood drawn again several weeks later, to test again. The nurse called with my results.

“Could you be pregnant again?,” she asked.

I didn’t think it possible and yet it twinged something inside me. What if I was pregnant. Could I still be pregnant? I shooed the thought away, invalidated it as wishful thinking, hoping.

The nurse scheduled an appointment for a follow-up ultrasound to see what was going on.

I left that appointment with an ultrasound picture of my baby. She was in there all along, holding on, telling me to hold on.

I couldn’t call anyone, not even my husband. I held that picture so tight. I showed it to him later that day, held my smile back, and we shared in the disbelief together. Was it real?

I am still processing the trauma this experience left me with. I now have two children, and my second pregnancy was uneventful and standard by comparison. The wildness of that lived experience shocked my system and numbed me to a lot of what happened during my second pregnancy, not to mention having a toddler to chase after.

My postpartum depression hit mildly when my daughter was around four months old when I tried to go back to work. It surfaced in the shadows of a dark room, while gliding in the rocker, holding a sleeping baby, tears rolling down my face. I didn’t know it would feel like this. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

My midwife referred me to a perinatal therapist in town. The lifeline this brought me will forever give me a bright place in my story. I felt heard, I felt supported, I felt seen. I could bring my baby with me. I could leave the office lighter, with less burden to carry.

This referral changed my life.

A week after my daughter’s first birthday I found out I was pregnant again. The roller coaster continued. My son was born. I became a mother of two.

It seemed unfathomable and the way it was supposed to happen all at once. I know without the resources and support I felt from a community of people my story could have gone so many ways. This brought me to my volunteer time at PS-WA. If only I knew about this resource when I was struggling. Now I get the privilege of showing up for others in their time of need, knowing how it feels to be alone in your life with a tiny baby, or two, even if you are surrounded by people. I see you!