Again.

It's all over, now. Another miscarriage, this one at exactly 12 weeks. Is that why 12 weeks is supposed to be the magic turning point? I don't really know what to write at this point, I feel strangely calm, or maybe kind of numb.

I've felt for a long time, maybe two weeks now, that something wasn't right. That I wasn't really pregnant anymore, that my little bean had "stopped growing" (to use the clinical phraseology) and that I was just carrying dead weight. Nobody wanted to believe me, not even my doctor's office-- it's so much easier, more hopeful to think that it was just because I'd miscarried before. Obviously that would make me worry more, right? But it also gave me the insight into what a pregnancy gone wrong feels like. This miscarriage was surprisingly manageable, nothing like the dramatics of the previous. I had an ultrasound first thing this morning just to make sure that everything is, you know, out. It confirmed what I already thought, which is that I actually lost the baby not long after the eight-week ultrasound but that my body was taking its own time in processing that information.

I keep wondering why. I've never had anything like this happen before. 26 years old, healthy and strong. Built to have babies, or so I thought--I should be the poster child for a healthy, uneventful pregnancy. This is the first time that my body has failed me, and I feel betrayed by it. Right now, we do the hCG tests, to make sure that it's decreasing as it should be. Next week: a "panel" of tests that measure, I don't know, how my blood clots or something. Some causal factor in miscarriages. Because we were already doing the progesterone, you know? That was supposed to fix it? After that, who knows. Genetic testing for me and for Don, to find out if we're likely to create chromosomally un-viable offspring? What would cause a pregnancy to fail that had already hit so many milestones? That got to 8 weeks but not to 10? I really thought that after seeing that little heartbeat, we were out of the woods. So to speak.

Any which way, Don and I are going to wait until the winter to try again. That will give us plenty of time to run whatever tests we can, and to give my poor body a break; I'm not going to put it through three first trimesters in a row. Two within six months has run it ragged already-- if I got pregnant again soon and kept it that would be like being pregnant all year long. And a third miscarriage might drive both of us around the bend. Even though I know it's not a factor, Don is convinced now that we shouldn't have tried again so soon, that I was still taxed from the last. I know that wouldn't have caused a miscarriage, but I can see where he's coming from. I need to pull back and concentrate on nutrition, on losing this ten pounds that have crept onto me (I write this with a pint of Ben&Jerry's in hand), on regaining my vitality and strength before trying again to become a host organism.

My mom sent a tiny little hat and booties that she knitted. I got the package right after the bleeding and cramping started and just lost it. The dogs wondered why I was bawling. But I haven't bought any baby stuff at all, haven't held any eensy onesies or tiny teeshirts. It kind of drove home that I wasn't losing a 12-week pregnancy so much as the baby that I was going to be holding in February. Now I have to call her and let her know that I received the package but lost the baby...