December 5th, a day I will never forget.

December 5, 2016 exactly one year ago today was one of the worst days of my life. 

Let me rewind a few days... December 2nd, it was a Friday and I was working at my dads shop, like normal except there was something that wasn’t all that normal. I had gone to the bathroom and had a small spot of bright red blood when I wiped. This might not alarm someone on a daily basis, but when you are 11 weeks pregnant, its alarming. I tried not to panic.. I called my sister and she suggested I call the doctor and ask them what to do. They told me not to worry, that spotting is alright sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes is all I heard her say. They told me to try and relax and to get some rest. I ended up going home from work for the rest of the day and tried my hardest to think positive and relax. I had no more bleeding the rest of the day.

I woke up on Saturday and again, no bleeding. I was starting to convince myself that it was nothing... that everything was fine. At the time, it was a good thing for me to believe, because I was about to photograph a wedding for a client who happened to be a longtime family friend. I had been looking forward to their big day for a while and like every wedding I photograph, it is a big deal! This is going to be one of the best days of their lives and I got to be a part of it. I love what I do and I was grateful to be there to document this great day, although I quickly found out it wasn’t going to be a great day for me. I will never forget December 3rd. Every time I hear that date it makes me want to cry. It’s crazy to think that when the bride and groom hear that date, they will have nothing but happy memories of their big day and I will have nothing but horrible memories of that day. The first thing I can remember is right before their ceremony started, I had run to the bathroom to find blood. It was just a small amount, but it was there. I had to brush it off in that moment because they needed me to do my job. I went out there and witnessed a beautiful wedding and got to see their families come together for photos afterwards. Before we left the church to go do some more pictures I ran to the bathroom again, only to find a little more blood. Still nothing too crazy.. so I went on with the day. As we arrived to their reception, everyone was grabbing their seats and I was running to the bathroom again. More blood. That is what my day consisted of, more and more blood every time I checked. At this point it was more than just a little spot and I was getting really worried. I stepped outside to call my sister. I was panicking. I didn’t know what was going on. I explained to her everything about the day and she told me to try and relax and that I should call the on call doctor and explain to them what was happening to see what I should do next. I remember telling her that I did not want to lose this baby, that I did not want to lose MY baby. Having been pregnant for a little over 11 weeks at this point, I had so much love for my baby. I was nothing but excited about the pregnancy. My husband and I had been married for a little over a year and I was ready to start the next chapter in our lives together. I remember when I found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t believe it! We were so excited. We told all of our close family members in the cutest ways.. everyone was just as excited as we were. Nothing but love did I have for our baby. I remember my mom telling me that I needed to try and relax, call the doctor and get back into the reception to finish the job that I was there to do. I called the doctor and she told me just to keep an eye out on the bleeding and if it got to be heavy that I needed to go to the emergency room but otherwise just follow up with my regular doctor at our Monday morning 12 week appointment. I pulled myself together as best as I could, and got back to shooting the reception. One thing that was a bit more difficult for me, was that I knew a lot of people at this wedding and I felt like they knew something was wrong. I didn’t really want to tell anyone, since it was a happy day for them. I remember one of the brides uncles asking me if I was alright and I opened up to him a bit and told him that I was pregnant and I was afraid I was in the process of losing the baby. He told me about how he had gone through some similar difficulties in his life and to just have hope for the future, as things turned out good for him. It was comforting to know someone understood how I was feeling in that moment. I got done with the wedding and made the drive home. 

Sunday was nothing but a day of rest and worry for us. We stayed in the whole day and I monitored the bleeding and really didn't have any all day on Sunday, which again, made me start to believe that maybe things were going to be okay. Now back to the beginning. 

December 5th. It was a Monday and I was suppose to work at the hospital that day, so I made sure to schedule our 12 week appointment early in the morning. We went into our appointment and had explained to our doctor everything that had been going on the past couple of days. She listened and then did an ultrasound. As soon as the picture on the screen popped up, I knew. I knew something was wrong. There was no movement where we previously had seen a heartbeat. Nothing. The room was silent. My head was spinning, I looked at my husband and a teared rolled down my face. I remember watching the doctor measuring the baby on the screen and it read 8 weeks 5 days. How could it only be reading 8 weeks 5 days when we were suppose to be going on week 12?! In that moment my fears were confirmed. She didn’t even have to say anything, I knew that we had lost our baby. No heartbeat and no growth for over 2 weeks. How could this be happening and I didn’t know about it?! How was this happening?? The only thing I remember the doctor saying was your baby stopped growing at 8 weeks 5 days. She went on to explain more but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. My baby was gone. This baby I had grown to love so much was no longer growing. I couldn’t process it. I asked the doctor a few questions and decided that I wanted to go through this naturally. If this was meant to be over with, then I believed that it would happen on its own. The doctor told us that since the baby had stopped growing a couple weeks ago, she thought things would happen rather soon. She said that I might experience some pain and a lot of bleeding when it happens. She said if it didn’t happen naturally within another week, that she wanted me to give her a call. Clearly I did not go into work that day, I don’t even remember what all I did. I can remember is hearing the words of the doctor and the view of the ultrasound screen replaying in my head. My baby was gone. Dead. How could this be happening?! I don’t even remember what we did after the appointment. I know my mom and husband were with me and we stopped at my sisters work to tell her the news. Well, after being home all day I told my husband that I needed to get out of the house. It was late, and I wanted to go and get some food for the house since we were planning on being at home for the week.

We ran to Walmart, grabbed the things that were on our list. We were almost done and I was noticing some pressure on my lower abdomen, but then it was went away. A few minutes later I felt it again. It hit me, this was happening. I was having what I thought were contractions. I wasn’t expecting to feel contractions as the doctor said it would just be a constant pain and a lot of bleeding. We pack up the car and headed home. We unloaded the bags and these feelings of pressure I was having were happening more and more. I got an urge that I needed to go to the bathroom, I ran in there and the pressure was a lot greater than it was at the store. I began to cry, this is not what I was expecting to happen. I was only expecting pain and blood. I began to get a bit anxious at this point because I didn’t know what more to expect. I started the shower and sat there with the water hitting me, it was soothing. I remember rocking my legs back and forth because it helped with the pressure. I remember feeling my entire stomach drop to my pelvic area. What is happening?! I was terrified. At that moment I looked at my husband with so much fear and told him I thought something was wrong and that I thought we should maybe just go to the hospital so they could help me through the process. I quickly realized there was no time for that. With the huge drop of my stomach came a fair amount of fluid. It hit me, that my water had broke. How could all this be happening?! I have always thought about my water breaking and going into labor at some public place, like work or the store... but every time I thought about that moment, never did I think it was going to be at 12 weeks pregnant. Never. I always pictured it being when my belly was huge and I was ready to deliver my baby. The pressure became a lot stronger. I was still sitting in the bathtub, rocking my legs back and forth under the water. I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, so I got out of the shower and sat on the toilet for a minute and there was a little bit of blood. I got back in the shower and relaxed for a bit till the pressure was back. I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom again and the process continued for a few minutes.. back and forth from the tub to the toilet. Then suddenly as I was sitting there on the toilet I felt like I needed to push, so I did and I felt something drop. I felt my baby drop. I had just given birth to my beyond tiny baby that had no life. How could this be happening. I was so afraid. I felt so alone, although my husband was with my the entire time. I felt so alone. I had no idea what was happening or what would happen next. The doctor only said I would be in pain and have a lot of bleeding. So far that was not what was happening. I was not in pain. I did not have a lot of bleeding. I was in labor. I was delivering my baby right there in my own bathroom. Everything happened pretty quickly but it felt like forever to me. After I felt the drop, nothing fell. There wasn’t a lot of blood like I was expecting.. so I wiped and had to grab ahold of what had dropped out, when I pulled that toilet paper up, there it was a glob of something. I looked at it for a second and realized that it was my baby, I could see a where its head was, a faint face. I could see the basic body shape and the beginning of an arm. Right there in my hand was my tiny little baby. I remember them telling me just to flush everything down the toilet because it was just going to be a lot of blood. I could not flush what was in my hand on the paper. I could not just flush my baby down the toilet. I set it down and felt more drop. I wiped and had a large amount of what looked like a nasty blood clot. It was what I assume was the beginning of the placenta. After all of that my body felt a sense of relief. I jumped back into the bathtub and tried to relax a minute. There was blood. Not a lot, but it was there. At that moment I knew that it was over. I knew everything was done. I had just delivered my baby. 12 weeks. I was only pregnant for 12 weeks. 

That is why I will never forget December 5th, 2016.

I am not writing this for people to feel sorry for me. I am simply sharing my story for others to know that miscarriages happen. No one in my childhood ever spoke about this topic and therefore I never knew how serious and how common it really was. I want people to know that it might not just be a lot of blood and pain. It might be more than that. I want people to know.