I lost the baby again.

What a terrible time it is for me at this very moment. For context, I experienced a miscarriage earlier this year and now I am experiencing my second one in the same year.

It has been a roller coaster kind of 8 months and honestly, everything has been unpleasant.

When I found out I was pregnant for a second time, I thought wow, I can get pregnant pretty quickly. Although my first miscarriage was a recent memory, I recovered quickly and was optimistic to be pregnant again. What I had learned from my first miscarriage was that this is very common and happens to a lot of people and it is not my fault. I chose to do the D&C surgery and although it was kind of scary, it went smoothly.

What did I learn about a second miscarriage? It is not as common. I should do some fertility testing to see what is causing this. There may actually be something wrong with me or my partner’s body.

During my second pregnancy, I was hopeful and confident because the chances of 2 miscarriages in a row is unlikely compared to having just 1 miscarriage. I was told that now we only do 12 week ultrasounds, no more 8 weeks. So for 12 weeks, I lived my life as a pregnant person and thought everything was going well.

Come the ultrasound, I was nervous because my last ultrasound was not a good one. When the technician couldn’t find the baby right away and asked to do a vaginal examination instead of the belly one, I had a sinking feeling. Again, they could not detect a heartbeat and at 12 weeks, there should definitely be one. My blood tests consequently also showed a drop in hormone levels. It was like the first miscarriage all over again except this time, my hopes and dreams were actually crushed.

Again, I don’t really consider any baby without a heartbeat or brain alive so I wouldn’t say I am sad about the loss of a life. What was actually crushed then?

I don’t even know. I just felt dumb – that is the best way to explain it.

Why was I walking around town searching up gender reveal ideas and buying my mom a $50 shirt from Etsy that says “Grandma” on it for her birthday? Why did I think everything was going well? Why did I think the first trimester was almost over and the baby is safe?

I am not a very empathetic person or compassionate person. I wasn’t even that sad about my first miscarriage. But this second one? It devastated me.

Let’s say I stop caring about my timelines. Let’s say I take time to recover. Now what remains is this unknown fear that maybe there is actually something wrong with me. Maybe I am not able to have a successful pregnancy. Maybe I can never be a mom. And maybe there is nothing I can do about it.

What followed during this time of daunting what-ifs was tears, blood and pain. Literally.

With a longer than expected wait time to see a pregnancy assessment clinic (what is there to assess? I am pretty sure the baby is dead), I started experiencing signs of a miscarriage which I did not experience in my first one.

First came some blood, just regular period amounts. Then came some cramps. I thought this is all normal. I expected this. I go to work and act like nothing is even going on.

What I did not expect was trauma.

One night as I showered, I noticed more blood than usual and then I exploded in blood. I know that sounds dramatic, but I do not know how else to describe it. One second I was standing there watching some blood drip down my legs, the next second there was blood on my shower walls, on my upper body, and clumps of lumpy blood splattered on the ground.

I’m pretty sure I had a panic attack then because I screamed and I didn’t even want to look at my surroundings or wash away the blood all around me. I really didn’t expect to see a scene like this.

The bleeding didn’t stop and I was soaking through a pad every hour until I finally decided to go to the ER because I was starting to feel dizzy and my hands were feeling tingly. I was scared I would pass out, naked and covered in my own dead baby blood.

The ER is a real treat for anyone who has gone. And by treat, I mean that in the most sarcastic way while also understanding the hard work the staff, nurses and doctors all go through. I won’t go into specifics of what happened at the ER, but this was probably the worst visit so far in my life.

Not only was I an emotional wreck because now I have a blood splattered bathroom scene in my brain, I was also still bleeding in the hospital – bled through my pad, underwear, pants and on the examination bed and hospital floors.

I also just felt disgusting. My face was dripping with tears and snot and my bottom half of my body in blood. Just sitting here next to someone with a broken arm playing Pokemon TCG on their phone.

It really makes me wonder: is this what all women go through when they have a miscarriage? And we all just flush our dead baby bits in the toilet or wrap it up in some tissue because we don’t know what to do with it? We just sit through these painful cramps that feel like someone is stabbing us with a little dagger in the side of our body? And we just let ourselves bleed for 6 weeks afterwards and clean up the mess and go to work like any other day?

This entire year so far has felt like a giant waste of my time. I have been pregnant for almost the entire year – feeling nauseous at work and too tired to exercise or cook – and hiding this all from friends and family and pretending like everything is good and this is a hot girl summer. All this but for nothing – I just get a little fatter every time.

Maybe when I publish this post, I will be happy with a newborn or maybe I will have come to terms that a future like that is not in the books for me. Maybe I will never publish this post. I only write this because this is how I make sense of my world. And I am paying for my own domain so I can publish whatever the hell I want, really.

As I sit here and write all this TMI stuff, I just feel empty and depressed. I feel emotionally drained. Physically, I am kinda fucked up. And unlike last time, I am not so optimistic.

I am unwell.

Sincerely, Loewe