Nicole Amplified

I miscarried my first ever pregnancy on May 19, 2022 at 12 weeks and 4 days (3 months). It was a missed miscarriage… for 2 weeks I carried my perfectly formed baby (with all 10 fingers and toes, a tiny nose, small eyes, little lips), nicknamed Blueberry, already dead, and had no idea. After I received the devastating news, I desperately wanted the d&c surgery, but before my scheduled appointment my body began miscarrying naturally. It was the most traumatic, painful, emotional, and blood soaked experience of my life.

I found out I was pregnant again in early August of the same year. 2 months. That’s all the time that had passed since I birthed Blueberry, in physical and emotional agony, soaked in cold sweat, and covered in tears and blood. Some days felt like only 2 short days had passed, and some days felt like a long 2 years had passed. But really, only 2 months.

The only reason I took a pregnancy test was because my period tracking app notified me I was 36 days late (yes, 36, I know). I think I was just so relieved to not be bleeding anymore (I bled for weeks post miscarriage) that it just didn’t register. When I saw the + appear strong and dark before I even pulled the test out of the cup, I immediately assumed my hormones still weren’t regulated after having Blueberry and something wasn’t right. Maybe I had retained tissue? Maybe my HCG hadn’t leveled back out? The thought of already being pregnant again was not even in my realm of possibility. Fun fact, birth control doesn’t always work as it should after a birth, whether it’s a live birth or not… I learned that. I was pregnant.

Announcing a pregnancy after a loss, especially a recent loss, is overrated. First and foremost, I was dreading it. You know all those pregnancy announcement videos where family and friends are jumping up and down and smiling ear to ear? No one jumped. There were a few half smiles… most weak and forced. My mom cried about Blueberry from the moment I told her and on. My grandma’s exact first words were “Oh, Nicole, I can’t be happy for you.” A handful of family and friends were more supportive, urging me to remain cautious, but to try to be optimistic. Still no jumping. A lot of fractured reassurance. But hell, can I blame them when even I showed Heath the positive pregnancy test over FaceTime and told him it couldn’t be real? I feel like myself and those around me unintentionally robbed my baby of the joy and excitement that normally precipitates their arrival… if this tiny baby could see the way things had gone, I’d fear they’d believe they weren’t wanted or loved, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

The crippling anxiety pregnancy after loss gifted me with was enough for my OB to put me on Prozac (to say the least). She told me the concerns I expressed presented at unstable levels, and that I needed to see a therapist and could take a pregnancy safe SSRI (which ended up being Prozac). Every scan, every twinge, every cramp, every wipe, every backache, could quite possibly have sent me straight to a 72 hour psychiatric hold (thankfully it did not). Was my bath water too hot? Why doesn’t my bump look like everyone else’s? I peed a lot… could I be leaking amniotic fluid? You know that starfish in Finding Nemo? “Today’s the DAAAAY.” To me, every single day was the day. It was the day something would go wrong. It was the day I would find out tiny baby’s heart stopped beating. It was the day my test results would be abnormal. It was the day I’d find blood on my toilet paper. Despite everything going right, there had to be something that would go wrong. And not just a little bit wrong… horribly wrong. Not a matter of if, a matter of when.

While we’re riding the panic train, my OB said something to me that left me dumbfounded. The day she prescribed me Prozac, as she filled out the prescription paperwork, she said “you do know your miscarriage has nothing to do with this pregnancy right?” She didn’t even look at me when she said it. She said it with a totally even plane, and didn’t take her eyes off the computer screen or her fingers off the keyboard. She was confident and sure. I was baffled. How could it not? Maybe she meant medically… which I guess for some women could very well be true. But in every other aspect, how do I separate the two? I still haven’t uncovered the secret to that one.

As the pregnancy continued on the anxiety did too. It didn’t lessen, but I’d say it became more controlled (shout out to Prozac). And then there were the unsolicited comments about how “even when you give birth the anxiety won’t ease.” I get it, it’s a life sentence. Thanks, I figured.

Pregnancy after loss is so permanently tainted. I have no profound way of wrapping this up. No powerful words. No impactful statement. No life altering advice. I took every day, every hour, every minute, one at a time. Every day I let this tiny baby know how much they were loved regardless of the outcome. There were times I smiled, times I sobbed, times I panicked, times I mellowed, times I was unstoppable, times I was inconsolable. Now that it’s over I wish I enjoyed the ride more but I refuse to be upset with myself for what I had to do in survival mode.

I said it once, I’ll say it again. Pregnancy after loss is so permanently tainted. Whatever gets you through the day, do that. You got this mama. You will hold your rainbow baby.

❤️, Nicole