On my way home from work this evening, I heard an interview with Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried. O’Brien’s collection of stories reflected on his time during the Vietnam War with specific meditations on the items that men carried into battle, but also on what they carried out and back across the ocean. Although I would not compare the darkness of war to trying to conceive or even to child loss, there is a similar quality to O’Brien’s focus on the physical and symbolic weight of horror and tragedy.
In addition to my daughter, Samantha, and my son, Nicholas, I have been pregnant two other times. One of those pregnancies was an ectopic pregnancy and the other one was a blighted ovum. Although both pregnancies were short lived and risky to my health, I carried them and still do.
The ectopic pregnancy occurred in the fall of 2004. My ex-husband and I were trying to conceive for a few months. On our third month of clomid, the pregnancy test came back positive. I immediately started progesterone suppositories to keep my levels up and began injecting myself with low dose heparin to prevent miscarriage.
Following the birth of my son, my doctor suspected that I had a clotting disorder. He tested me for about twenty different ones, and the only factor that came back abnormal was Factor VIII, which is responsible for breaking up blood clots. The theory in the medical community is that if a pregnant woman with a clotting disorder administers low dose heparin (or Lovenox) to her abdomen twice a day, then it will prevent miscarriage. I was never convinced that I had a clotting disorder. The studies I read said that Factor VIII and other factors were naturally elevated after birth, so I assumed that that explained it. Later, a hematologist confirmed that my clotting factors were normal. But I followed my doctor’s orders and ended up with a severely bruised stomach, but a potentially healthy pregnancy.
Meanwhile, as the pregnancy progressed, it became very clear that it was not a normal pregnancy. My hcg numbers would triple and then double and then plummet, then double again. After a few weeks of testing, it became clear that the pregnancy was ectopic. Ectopic pregnancies are called so because they implant outside of the womb. Usually ectopic pregnancies implant in the tube, but they can implant anywhere in the body, including the abdomen.
We attempted to visualize the pregnancy, but like in many ectopic cases, it was never identified on ultrasound. We knew it was there only because of my wildly fluctuating numbers. Faced with no other solution, we decided that the best course of action was methotrexate, a chemotherapy agent that is used to kill fast growing cells.
The decision was not a hard one for me. I knew that I was taking a life, but I also knew that this little life growing inside of me would kill me if it got any bigger. I knew that the chance of survival for a pregnancy outside the womb was as close to zero as not being pregnant at all. I was distraught to be losing a potential life, but I also knew that there really was no choice.
It was a warm October day when I went to the clinic for the methotrexate shot. The nurse showed it to me, and I recoiled from its obviously toxic, neon green glow. I went home that day, knowing that the life inside of me was dying to save my own. As I recovered from the transient nausea and mouth sores from the methotrexate in the days that followed, I watched as my hcg numbers fell to zero and the pregnancy was dissolved. I don’t feel guilty for doing what I had to do, but I do feel tremendous loss from the life that would never/could never be. That child would be almost five years old.
A couple of months later, my house burned down, killing my six cats. The landscape of my body, my mind, and my heart had been forever changed.
We took a break after the ectopic. I was scared of it happening again. After all, a ruptured tube can be life threatening. We began trying again in the fall of 2005. I decided to try dieting one more time before giving up for good. I chose the South Beach Diet. Within three months of going on the plan, I found out I was pregnant.
Nothing about that pregnancy was right. The embryo had implanted low in my uterus, and the diagnosis from pregnancy to natural abortion to pregnancy changed from day to day. As my doctor followed me closely on ultrasound, it became pretty clear that the baby was not developing. We saw a fetal sac and what appeared to be a brain stem. At one point, we even thought we saw a heart beat, but it was mine. Sadly, my doctor decided that it was a blighted ovum.
Blighted ovums are basically empty egg sacs. The egg and the sperm get together but do not form an embryo. According to the American Pregnancy Association,
A blighted ovum is the cause of about 50% of first trimester miscarriages and is usually the result of chromosomal problems. A woman’s body recognizes abnormal chromosomes in a fetus and naturally does not try to continue the pregnancy because the fetus will not develop into a normal, healthy baby. This can be caused by abnormal cell division, or poor quality sperm or egg.
In many ways, facing this loss was far harder than the ectopic because I could see something. It wasn’t a baby. It was just an empty sac. But it was visible on ultrasound. And I knew then that this would be the last time my ex-h and I would try. By this time, our marriage had fallen apart.
Once we realized that it was a blighted ovum, my doctor sent me home to miscarriage naturally. I did pass quite a bit of fetal tissue, but it became pretty obvious that my body was not going to expel it all. After about ten days of trying to miscarry on my own, I went in for a D and C. That day was a dark, dark day. I cried and cried that day. I knew that there was nothing alive growing in my womb, but I felt so attached to this child-to-be. After all, I figured that it was my last hope.
I was unconscious for the D and C, and when I woke up, I found myself in a puddle of blood. I kept on bleeding heavily for many hours after I was released. When the blood finally stopped, I called my doctor and asked her about what she found in my womb during the procedure. She said, simply, “Necrotic tissue.” The dead remains of a pregnancy that never really started.
In my distress, I struggled to find a way to make some kind of sense and peace with this incredible loss. I found a website for The Church of the Holy Innocents, which is located in New York City. They maintain a Shrine to the Holy Innocents:
Often children who have died before birth have no grave or headstone, and sometimes not even a name. At The Church of The Holy Innocents, we invite you to name your child(ren) and to have the opportunity to have your baby’s name inscribed in our “BOOK OF LIFE“. Here, a candle is always lit in their memory. All day long people stop to pray. On the first Monday of every month, our 12:15pm Mass is celebrated in honor of these children and for the comfort of their families.
Knowing this gave me tremendous peace, and I filled in the certificate and gave the unborn baby that never was a baby a name: Amber Rose. I love the color amber, and she was like the loveliest of flowers, the rose. I never knew this child who would never be a child, but she was a part of me.
And these are the children I still carry.
(In)fertile Myrtle 