Is there really a plan?

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I've had a rough year. The quick update: I found out I was unexpectectedly pregnant in January, I was not pleased. Dh and the boys and I slowly began to get excited about a new little one, and when we passed the first trimester, we breathed a sigh of relief. We were happy and we were safe! Then at the fifteen week regular checkup, no heart beat. The baby had died a few days before. We don't know why, no answers, all test came back negative, and we found out she was a girl. I sobbed hearing that news over the phone, from the OB, "a genetically normal girl". I wanted to hear that news in the delivery room, and though I would have been heartbroken whether our baby had been a girl or boy, the fact that she was a girl was just like twisting the knife, since I have 3 boys. We named our angel Therese. I have spent the pat 4.5 months trying to figure out why in the large scheme of things we lost our baby girl.

Well, two weeks ago, I was laying on the couch talking to my dh with my boys all around us, when I started to see weird spots in front of my eyes and feeling very strange. I thought perhaps I was getting a migraine, and asked my dh to get me some excedrin to head it off. By the time he came down, I was having a grand maul seizure. I have never had one before, and to say the least it scared the hell out of everyone. I remember vaguely waking up in the ambulance, the er, and finally the nuerological ICU attached to a million monitors. I had suffered 2 more seizures in between. I managed to damage both of my shoulders during the seizures also, so was in excruciating pain. Over the next 4-5 days they determined I had had a small bleed in my brain and the pressure had caused the seizures. I was put on antiseizure medication, and eventually sent home. Less then a week later, another set of seizures and another 5 days in the nuerological ICU to get my med. levels to where they were supoosed to beand fix my right shoulder that I managed to completely dislocate during that batch of seizures.

I have been feeling very down about the past few months lately and wondering why. Then I was talking to my sister and she said very hesitantly, "Can you imagine what would have happened if you had been 8.5 months pregnant when this happened? They wouldn't have been able to do the MRI to see what caused your seizures or the x-rays to show how you had dislocated your shoulder, and it would have been extremely hard to have medicated your seizures and your pain. And your blood pressure would probably have been up and the bleed could have been much worse. Do you think Therese knew?" I suddenly burst into tears finally accepting that yes, even when we don't understand or know, that there is a plan, and maybe Therese chose to gove up her life for mine and our family, and that she is still up there looking out for us and keeping us safe.

To add to that, my dh had been gone for training 3 weeks proir to my first seizure, and had gotten home only a few hours earlier, and that weekend I would have been ovulating and we were planning on ttc again. It is all just too much for me to chalk up to coincidence! I just feel so overwhelmed by it all, but wanted to share that will all of you who have been so supportive and see if any of you have had anything like this happen too you surrounding your miscarriage.

[coleslaw]

Catherine,

First off, :hug for all that you have been through. That's a lot to have to endure in such a short time. And how are your boys and dh since all of this happened?

Second on the plan question, sometimes I wonder myself. But then sometimes it hurts my head to think of it in any rational way, like today. All I know is that if there is a greater being that is all-knowing, I have a few questions to ask.

[nydiagonz]

Catherine,

I am so sorry that you are going through all of this :hug

I do believe that this world has a plan that we have no control over. I do believe that we take many *good* things from a really *terrible* experience. I do believe that our babies came to this earth to make a soul connection with us, spend time with us (even if it is only a lttle) and teach us wonderful things. I think that your beautiful Therese wanted to share a little bit of your love and maybe even prepare you for the rough times that laid ahead. All this, however, cannot heal or take away the immense pain that a mother feels when she loses her child, no matter what age. Take care.

[Erin_82]

Catherine, I'm so sorry to hear what happened.
I know this might sound corny but I like to believe that if something happened to the baby before it was born, then it's soul just waits for another chance to be born by the same parents.
:angel

I'm sorry for your loss. :hug

[coralsmom]

catherine,
i know what you mean when you're thinking about these things. i've talked to my therapist about this... i had been pondering the idea that coral died maybe because something terrible will happen to my partner or i and we wouldn't end up being able to take care of her, so 'it was better off this way'... but this turns out to be a kind of magical thinking... taken aside from an element of spirituality, there is no way coral could have known the future and decided that it was better for her not to be with us- we will never know physically why she died- and i have to accept that she just died. i don't know if there was a master plan involved... it works so many ways... people get through and survive the most increible tragedies, and some people don't and it is random, i think, who gets to survive, and who doesn't- this is why it makes no sense to me anymore spending time thinking about things like 'maybe i'm paying for the bad things i did in my past', or 'maybe it was because i ate too much peanut butter...' anything to come up with a reason, a 'master plan' to make her death understandable. it just is not something i will ever understand. mothers who are addicted to drugs and alcohol give birth to healthy babies, healthy mothers give birth to stillborn babies.

coral did give me many gifts as a result of her life and death, things i wouldn't know or understand or ever have experienced if i never had been pregnant with her or given birth to her, and also through her death. spiritual lessons, physical benefits to my own body, a greater capacity for love... but i can't accept that it was planned- a master plan so cruel to take my beautiful baby away from me? i don't know how i feel about this... these are just my thoughts on this matter, and i do respect yours... i have come to know you a litttle, and little therese through you... sometimes things happen for no reason. sometimes they definately happen for a reason. whatever resonates as a source of truth and confort is an individual experience.

today is coral's 5 month birthday, 5 month anniversary of her death. i'm having a tough time today... i think this is why i am feeling a little angry now thinking there was some master plan to separate us from her- i'd like to take that plan and burn it into ashes and watch the ashes fly away... :(

[amyjeans]

Hi Catherine. I am terribly sorry for your loss and the struggles you are going through. Each person has their own way of getting through it. It can be reassuring to know, just as you felt, you babe wasn't ready to come here yet. She wanted to make sure her mommy was alright. That can be comforting.
When we lost our 3rd baby, we had to realize that everything and everyone happens in their own time. Still I get really pissed off when someone says to me, "Its Gods plan." well, damn it...it wasn't mine!
I haven't suffered such tremendous seziures as you have, but have been deeling with massive headaches since the birth of our 2nd babe in Oct 04. Get them 4-5 times a week, not migraines either. No one can figure out what is happening. Now I need to see a neurologist. Anyway. I wish you the best of health and many blessings on you and your family.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Thank you all so much for responding. It is such a hard thing. I think I just want answers sooooooo bad, that I look for them anywhere! I think I have also just connected the two traumas in my head. For some reason the loss of my baby and the seizures and intracranial bleed seem connected, probably because there are really no clear answers as to why either happened. I just feel so lost in the world right now, that I guess I am grasping for straws. I want to give Therese death meaning, but I guess the meaning really comes from all I have learned from her. Please don't take my looking for answers or connecting things in my head as a way of saying "it was God's plan" that anyone else lost their baby, I guess I just want to think that maybe Therese is up there looking out for our family right now, helping us get through this, and giving me the physical and spiritual strength to get through. It helps me during the really dark moments to think that she wants me to be around to be a mother to her 3 brothers, and that is truly my biggest fear beyond all of this is leaving dh and my boys. I don't think I will, but in the dark moments in the ICU, it helped to think of her.

[amyjeans]

Please don't take my looking for answers or connecting things in my head as a way of saying "it was God's plan"

If this was in reference to my post, I am sorry if you felt you had to justify your statement in response to mine. That wasn't my intention. I just stated what I did as an example of my own internal struggle- nothing against you and your situation mama.
All my best. :love

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

amyjeans-
Not at all, I just went back and read my post, and realized I had left alot of stuff out that was pretty important to where I was coming from, and I also realized that it could definately be taken as one of those "God's Plans" comments, that drives me crazy and doesn't do anything to make me feel better, usually worse, because I wonder why God would want to cause anyone so much pain and what I did to deserve it. Thank you for caring enough to respond, and just be there to listen. :)

[KittyKat]

Catherine,

How scary and awful! I hope you and your doctors are able to find a way to make you better and keep this from happening again!

(((HUGS)))

I am currently pregnant again. I wanted to be pregnant, but at the same time it's very strange. I want to enjoy every moment I get with this person, whether it is a few weeks, a few moments after birth, or many happy years. So I'm tryingto take each day as it comes. At the same time I wonder if Liam had lived, would I even BE pregnant? I still miss him so much, even as I love this little one and look forward to meeting him or her. I can't help but feel scared, since I am now aware that tragedy can strike anyone, at anytime. Even me. I used to think bad stuff happened to "other people" but now I AM "other people" to everyone else. Very weird.

I do believe there is a plan. I believe that as small as I am in the grand scheme of things I can't fully comprehend it. I feel like sometimes, here and now, the plan sucks, but I do believe one day all the hard stuff will turn out to have been worth it.

Kathryn

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

KittyKat-
I hope so! I guess it is the all consuming question of why? And since lately, I have no answers to anything that has been going on, I just want to believe there is a reason, even if it is beyond my knowing at the moment. I sure hope there really are answers someday, somewhere! Good luck with this pregnancy! I hope and pray that everything goes well.

[earthmama06]

Catherine,

I've not personally known your loss, and I don't know that there's a grand plan for everything, but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. It just wasn't the right time for Therese to join you. And as your sister pointed out, if you were pg when all of this was happening, it would have been much worse.

I think I would *try* to focus on the fact that they were able to find the cause of it, that it didn't go undetected. And I say *try* because I know it can be incredibly difficult to be optimistic after so much loss.

You have a second chance at life! Just as it wasn't Therese's time to join you, it wasn't your time to leave. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to join you again in the future.

Lots of love to ya, mama. :Hug

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

earthmama06-
I think you are right. I have been so wrapped up in the losses and traumas, that I haven't really seen that this is a new chance to live, and do all the things that I want to do and be, and just hold tight to my family all the more. I think I have been also so wrapped up in recovering and all the millions of doctors visits that I haven't really been able to stop and think! Thank you so much :love

[CB73]

{{Catherine}}

You have had an unbelievable year.
A new vision of life is a good place to start....love those boys, that wonderful husband and those that support you.

My thoughts are with you.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Cheryl,
Thankyou! Right now I have my 20 month old pulling down my shirt speaking his own special breast language! At these times I feel so positive, but there are the times that I cry and rage, but I am hoping as time goes on, that those times will fade and as I get used to the medication, I can get back to doing more. I think all this sitting around in pain doesn't help my outlook, but when my family crowds around me, I know how lucky I truly am, and how each day wiht them is truly a blessing :) !! I know that things will get better with time.

[craftykitty]

Hugs to you, mama! I'm so sorry for your loss. :( I do think that there is more at work in the spiritual sense than we know about. I lost a baby at 13 weeks when I was 16. I know now that the timing was off and the father was wrong for me. I know that if I would have had her, I would have loved her the best way I knew how at 16, but I think I'm much more able at this point in my life to care for my children. Part of me believes that I *do* have that child, but in the body of one of my living children. I feel in my gut that even when a body passes away, the spirit waits to be born again. I think if the spirit of your baby chose to be with you, then she will probably come back into your life in a different way. Just my mystical 2 pennies. :hug

[butterfly_mom]

Catherine, I'm so sorry to hear what happened.
I know this might sound corny but I like to believe that if something happened to the baby before it was born, then it's soul just waits for another chance to be born by the same parents.
:angel

I'm sorry for your loss. :hug


I think that is the most beautiful thing that i have ever heard so far.

-Lyz-

[michelle07]

I lost my baby a week ago. I do believe that there is a plan and possibly, my baby wasn't ready, or knew that I wasn't ready for him or her, to join our family.

:hug

-Michelle

[butterfly_mom]

My heart goes out to you. I'm so very sorry for your loss. My baby passed away due to an infection. That infection started to work on me after she was born. It may have been her plan to save my life. And to teach me that life is precious and a blessing. She was here on earth for nine months. I felt every kick and hiccup. Those memories are special to me. I know God has a plan for everyone and that was her plan, our plan.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Thank you all so much for your wonderful words.

michelle07-
I am so very sorry for your loss. How are you holding up ?

I am having a particularly hard day. So far all my tests have come back great about the bleed in my brain. The cerebral arteriogram came back negative for any thing else and looks like I'll get the all clear in a couple of months after another MRI.

Then I have to work on figuring out when and if I can be weaned off the medication in 6-12 months. Nuerologist and neurosurgions have exactly the opposite opinions of this, and I have gotten conflicting reports on whether there is increased risk to me or the baby if I get pregnant again. So my family and dh don't want me to risk it, and just want dh to get a vasectomy, but I want to wait because we really won't know for sure for a few years, but dh sneezes and forgets to cover his nose and I'm pregnant! :LOL

I can't be on birth control pills because I have experienced a bleed, not IUD because its copper(may have to have more MRI's to confirm all is well) and the other has progesterone, so we're pretty much on the barrier method, which I got pregnant on with Therese. Problem is I still want another baby so badly, but if there is a risk, I can't put the mother of my children and the wife to dh on the line! :bawl

Today, I watched our family tape of when my last little boy was born, all I could do was cry thinking of how how I would never have a littl one like that again, and I would never get to breast feed a little baby or fall asleep in the bed with my little baby cuddled up so close our waking and sleeping is so in sinc that we hardly have to wake to breastfeed. So many things I want to experience again. And the question that tortures me daily, what if Therese's soul is out there waiting for me, and I don't get pregnant again?

[gabry]

Catherine, I just pm'ed you to see how you are, when I came across this thread and your latest post. I'm sorry you were having a rough day, I hope things seem a little brighter now.
I do think that a vasectomy is a very radical decision, but I definitely agree with you that your safety and health should be the highest priority. It must be hard to face something that might be so definitive, the thought of not having another baby when you want it so much. I just heard I'll be miscarrying again, and sometimes I try to fool myself and say, 'okay, so maybe I won't have anymore kids and ds will be an only child, I'll get used to that', but really I won't, at least not yet.
I remember from your previous posts that the doctors had thought you had a clotting disorder? Did that not turn out to be the case? If not, that's good of course, but it would in a way be nice to have an answer and a possible treatment..
Oh, and regarding contraception, would you consider natural family planning (I think that's what it's called). I never used it before, but since I've learned more about it, I think I would consider it for the future. Although, at the rate I'm going I'll probably go through menopause before I'm done ttc :LOL

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

gabry,
I responded to your pm before I got a chance to read this. I am so sorry to hear that you are miscarrying again. My heart aches for you. Do the dr's have any idea why?

As to the clotting disorder, I have gotten very mixed responses from the dr's. I am pos. for phospholipid somethingorother, but a low positive, and I have one gene of two for another clotting gene, supposedly not enough to cause issues, and then I was told I have high homocystein levels. None of these three things seem to say that they were the reason for the loss, yet I wonder if the three working in conjunction may have been. But it looks as if I will not get any definative answers about anything from anyone :bang

I went to visit my grandmother who is basically dying from cancer, not that you'd know it, and everyone seemed to think it was appropriate to ask me when I was going to get pregnant again, and not even bother mentioning my loss or current medical issues. They're insane. Then I got to hang out with my cousins and their new beautiful baby girl, which was nice, but then Thomas, my 21 month old started loving her, holding her, kissing her, saying mama, I love baby. sigh, :( . Yes, I excused myself to the bathroom for a good cry. Nobody seemed to notice my red eyes, except my cousin who had a miscarriage years before. She just patted my back and said, "I know, it's hard, but please don't think you need to hide that from me :love ." So that was really sweet.

So in general lots of ups and downs, but there are again seemong to be more significant longer ups in between the downs. Now if I can just trust that there isn't going to be another crisis around the next bend, I will truly be able to get on with living my life. :nut

[gabry]

Wow! I'm sorry that you had to deal with so many insensitive/ignorant comments and attitudes. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, telling myself they're ignorant, uncomfortable, whatever, but sometimes that just doesn't seem to be enough of an excuse, does it? Sorry about your grandma :(
Re. the clotting disorders, I would think they could be related to your pregnancy loss and stroke, actually, I think it's very likely. It sometimes does happen that a few 'mild' or 'minor' abnormalities add up to a more severe or serious problem. Did you get the antiphospholipid antibody test repeated? I understand to make a diagnosis you need two tests at least 6 weeks apart. Aside from a hematologist and neurologist, have you seen a perinatologist or RE? I guess it might not be as relevant if you're unsure about ttc for now, but at least keep it in mind. Also, have they recommended folic acid for the homocysteine? Are you/do you need to be on any blood thinners?
Sorry if this is too intrusive / too many questions, and feel free to ignore them..
I am planning on asking my ob next week for either a referral or a bit of a work-up to see if there is a reason I keep miscarrying, but I'm not holding my breath; apparently they don't often find a reason (that can actually be treated).

[AngelBee]

:hug Catherine

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

AngelBee-
Thank you.

gabry-
Turns out that it wasn't a stroke, it was a arterial venous fistula, or malformation. So it wasn't really a clot, it was more like a congenital defect that sometimes blows and sometimes just exists. Seems mine blew for whatever reason. But I guess, or so I've been told, it wasn't caused by a clot. Not sure how they can tell, since it seems all that is left is blood and possibly some minor scar tissue. Guess they probably just know from experience.

They did do another antiphospholipid test and I was still slightly positive. I guess above 12 is positive and my level was 20 both times they tested. I'm not sure what "really positive" would be though :LOL ! I am on folic acid for the homocystein levels, I am surprised they were high, as I was still taking my prenatal vit. because I'm still breatfeeding my little guy. The doctors, all a million of them, didn't think I should be on blood thinners at the time, because they didn't really know if there was a chance of more bleeding in my brain, but I'll revisit that in a couple of months after, hopefully, my last MRI.
After all this is cleared up , I think I will want to see a perinatologist to maybe get some more answers and help see what the possible risks would be to a future pregnancy to myself and the baby. I am hoping that will help with the final decision.

I hope that you do get some answers. I think not having any answers can be one of the most frustrating long term issues with a miscarriage. In some ways, I am hoping that maybe all of this recent trauma, may bring about some answers about losing Therese. I think my parents and sisters thought is was strange that I was so concerned with finding answers about my miscarriage so much, instead of focusing totally on finding out what happened to me. Maybe it is strange, but I just feel so strongly that they are connected in some way.

[gabry]

Catherine, thanks for taking the time to answer my numerous questions. It does sound like you're well taken care of. I hope you're not annoyed to spend your time and energy to go over stuff that you already know, but it definitely makes me feel more optimistic for you.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

gabry-
I am never ever annoyed by kind thoughtful people being concerned for me :love ! That is why I love being here so much. I am walking that tight rope of being optomistic, but trying not to get my hopes up too much. It is an awfully thin rope to walk, as I am sure you understand. I often fall off on one side or the other :LOL . I'm pming you :)