No Heartbeat

This year we have been plodding through our fertility process again. Statistically speaking, we should have been able to have another child. In September I found out that we had gotten pregnant with our last straw from our donor, and we were very happy to be able to welcome a new family member into our home. However, this proved to be a very short dream. On October 16th we went in for a check up and the tech was unable to locate a heartbeat. We returned a few hours later for an ultrasound and saw a tiny embryo, with no heartbeat, no life. Tears began streaming and did not stop for the rest of the day. Over the next couple of days so many kind deeds of our friends reminded us how much we were loved. I had chosen to wait 10 days to see if nature would take care of things, and it was very tough to be pregnant, but without hope. On the following Friday we went in for an ultrasound, hoping for some sort of miracle that would show a growing, healthy baby. However, things remained unchanged, and what we saw was the same little form, the same size. That evening I took medication to induce cramping and was able to miscarry without complications. However, this has not been the end. Over the weeks that have passed my grief has continued, as has the bleeding. A daily reminder of loss, plus the pregnancy hormones to go along with it have made for a difficult month. Infertility and disappointment has been a theme running strongly for us for the last eleven years, ever since we found out we were not going to be having children easily, or in the traditional manner. The years before Cora was born had so much emotion that was buried with her birth, and then Samuel's. So much has been brought to the surface again as we have had to deal with the loss of this pregnancy, and to the end of our brief window of pregnancy, birth, and babies.

In Mormon Doctrine we are taught that any children we lose in this life, we will be given the opportunity to raise them in the eternities. But what about the children we wanted, longed for, and cried for but never even received? I have had two healthy babies, and two miscarriages where I have lost an unnamed spark of life that was gone before I had much to do besides get excited for the potential of joy that was going to enter our lives. This last loss has felt very final. I am 38 this year, and years of worrying about fertility have worn me down. I am done. We have two beautiful children, lots of joy, but also lots of questions that wander their way around our heads from time to time. Hopefully we will find answers some day. Or at least peace.