The Miscarriage

I guess I'll start from the beginning. In July we found out that we were pregnant, we were ecstatic. We started buying diapers, and outfits here and there, right from the beginning. I had my first doctor's appointment at 6 weeks, but when we went in for the ultrasound, the baby was measuring only about 5.5 weeks. This is not completely uncommon, so I was scheduled to come in a few days later to make sure that I was then at 6 weeks. I was, and everything looked good, we saw a nice strong heartbeat. I was deathly exhausted right from the beginning with this pregnancy, but only slightly nauseous. Everything seemed to be going as it should. 2 weeks later I went in for my 8 week appointment, we saw the same strong heartbeat, but the baby only measured 7 weeks 5 days. The doctor didn't seem to think anything of it, but deep down I felt something was wrong. When my 10 week appointment rolled around, we received the horrible news. No heartbeat could be found on the ultrasound. The baby measured 9 weeks, 4 days. When the doctor confirmed what was happening I didn't believe them. I thought for sure something was wrong with their machine, or that someone had made a mistake. I didn't have any symptoms of a miscarriage, none. The doctor wanted to schedule a D&C right away (a surgery to remove the baby), because my body was obviously not taking care of it on it's own. But with my disbelief, I decided to wait a week for another ultrasound to confirm or deny our baby's diagnosis. A week later I went in for another ultrasound, and everything looked exactly the same. No growth, no heartbeat. And my body had still not begun the miscarriage process on it's own, so a D&C was scheduled. The procedure went fine, and the doctor was extra careful while inside because she knew we were going to be trying again and she didn't want to leave any scar tissue. But those few weeks were probably some of the hardest of my life. I'm a pretty strong person, so I think I handled it better than many others would have, but the worst part was having to update everyone on the status of the pregnancy. We had already told everyone, everyone at work, all our friends, and all our family. But after a while I was able to think about it without feeling saddened, so when someone would ask how the pregnancy was going, I would actually feel more sorry for them than I would for myself, once I explained what happened, I could see how embarrassed they were for not knowing and bringing up such a sore subject. Unfortunately, miscarriage is a very common thing, it is estimated that 1 in 4 pregnancies will end that way. They are usually due to a chromosomal abnormality, that , should the baby have survived, would have caused an issue like down syndrome. So, knowing that there is nothing I did wrong to cause the miscarriage, and that it prevented me from having a child with some disability, I have come to accept what happened as a part of life, and something that will make us stronger and even more appreciative of the baby we will one day have.