One and Done

Eleven years ago.  That's how long ago it was when I found out I was pregnant for the first time.  Like most I peed on a stick and saw two lines, this was old school as there were no PREGNANT / NOT PREGNANT sticks yet.  I was beyond overjoyed as we had been trying for almost 3 years.  I had taken two rounds of Clomid and at last, I was pregnant!  We told everyone.  I made my appointment with my OBGYN, Dr. Sandra Makela and she was as happy as I was.  As I laid there, I watched her face.  This amazing doctor of mine - her face said it all, something wasn't right.  She said that she needed me to go to a facility down the street that had a better ultrasound machine.  I was grateful that my mom had driven me to the appointment because I was starting to worry.  I waited, and while I lay there I listened to the female ultrasound technician tell me in the rudest most pointed way with a short laugh that "there was no baby" - a trick of my body.  It's called a blighted ovum also know as an anembryonic pregnancy.  It happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Cells develop to form the pregnancy sac, but not the embryo itself.  There was no baby and my heart sank.  My sadness was so deep, I had wanted a baby, and by some cruel fate, my body tricked me into thinking I was pregnant.  I WAS pregnant, just with a baby-less egg.  It's a blur after that.  I went back to the doctor in tears, she comforted me - told me that it WOULD happen, I WOULD get pregnant eventually, we'd keep trying.  I was given something to induce a miscarriage - I honestly don't remember what it was - but I ended up having the miscarriage that night.  The hardest part was that my other half took the news and decided to check out, he didn't come home that night, wouldn't pick up my calls, was unable comfort me.  He drank his feelings into submission and I was left alone, shook and horrified.  He is a good man, but he was on the same ledge as me, we just dealt with it in VERY different ways.  That night I had a miscarriage - its so odd considering that there was no heartbeat, only an empty egg.  But let me tell you that miscarriage was real.  The pain was real.  I had to call my mom in the middle of the night to take me to the ER.  I was bleeding badly, having horrible cramping and - maybe it was partially my emotional state - but I was broken.  To think that earlier that day and for a week before I believed that I was pregnant - I believed that there was a little soul growing inside me.  Then I was crushed, bleeding, crying and embarrassed.  My body had betrayed me.  As I lay in the ER, full of morphine with my mom looking over me - a small part of my heart broke, that part never healed. But it was only a tiny part.  I felt guilty, my miscarriage wasn't as bad as others; women who had lost baby's with heartbeats, growing babies inside expanding bellies, or babies that are stillborn like my grandmother - going through childbirth only to immediately burry your child.  I realize now that it was for the best.  I reset my mind, made peace with the fact that somethings you don't blurt out to everyone because then having to tell them that there was no baby, no more pregnancy and that was a tough and awful experience, but a lesson learned.  A little less than a year later, we were pregnant again.  This time I waited, I waited until I saw a moving little mass on a blurry ultrasound, hearing the most glorious sound in the whole world - my daughters heartbeat.  We waited to tell everyone the second time.  We had patiently waited for four long years and I would wait for a little over 9 months, I was a week past my due date, and my baby girl didn't want to come out.  My amazing doctor came to the hospital in the morning before she went to work, she worked all day and came back that night to deliver my baby.  I am so grateful for that - that I didn't have to have a stranger delivering my daughter.  My daughter changed my life.  She made me whole, she made me what I always wanted to be, a Mama.  I get asked why I only have one and I laugh most of the time and tell everyone that I'm a "one and done" - but the reality was that my heart could not take more years of waiting, could not take the chance of another miscarriage, could not take that risk.  Sometimes I wonder what it'd have been like if it would have been easy to get pregnant - would I have a house filled with kids?  But then I look at my daughter, my one and only, and realize that I have my perfect family and I wouldn't change it for the world. Mamas are amazing, and yes, I'm calling myself amazing.  We're not always perfect, but we love and care and will ALWAYS be there for our children.  I will ALWAYS be there for my beautiful miracle, Gloria.  Thank you Sarah and Dr. Zucker for shining a brilliant light on an extremely sensitive subject and for creating a truly fantastic shirt. #ihadamiscarriage 

-Olivia