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I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for the compassion that you all have shown me over the past week and a half. Thank you for the encouragement and kind words regarding my recent pregnancy loss.

I’ve gotta say, life has not been easy since that event took place. Jobs have fallen through. Rejections from shows. Bronchitis on top of the recovery from the ectopic pregnancy. I haven’t been sleeping at night very well. I’ve been tossing and turning. When I fall asleep, I dream that I am healthy and pregnant. That the job was still a go. That I was shopping for baby clothes and planning our family’s future. Then I wake up. And remember that I am still waiting for the end of this pregnancy nightmare. I have to go in for weekly blood work until my hCG levels are back down to 0.

Waking up to a nightmare. Not finding comfort in rest. Trying to move forward. I feel like a pit of sadness. I’ve turned to junk food and binge watching Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix. Anything to forget.

I started working again. And honestly when I was drawing I felt free. I felt like I was escaping.

Tonight there was a double rainbow. Friends were posting photos of it all over Facebook. My friend Amber called it confetti in the sky. Ironically, from my house all I could see was a tiny sliver of color. It felt appropriate, because I am barely feel anything positive. Barely seeing the beauty in the clouds.

My husband doesn’t find anything meaningful in symbolism. It is the scientist in him. Sometimes that is incredibly discouraging, especially when I am grasping at something to hope for. A sign. But still I hope that the rainbow tonight was just for me. So that I could remember that this moment in time will soon will be a distant memory. Maybe someday I will be holding a new baby in my arms. Maybe someday Nathan will get the job. Maybe someday there will be beauty instead of pain.

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I feel like I need to write this down. Because I have spent the past 2 days in between episodes of tears, coming to terms with my loss. Thursday morning I found out that I was pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy. And by the end of the day, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. Now I feel sad. And empty. And confused.

Sunday was the beginning of a massively intense week. We had to deal with some private family matters that kept Nathan and I up most of Sunday evening. We were waiting on an important phone call from a job interview that Nathan had had the previous week. On Monday, I was supposed to have a Fab sale for my prints, ship out several wholesale orders, and prepare for a photo shoot of my home for a magazine. I was so excited! And was so busy. I was burning the candle at both ends. But, as I usually do, I just kept pushing forward.

All the while, my body was in pain. I was bleeding, but wrote it off as having an off cycle due to the amount of stress I had been under. During the past 3 weeks, Nathan and I had traveled to NYC, Oklahoma, and Kansas for various business & personal trips. Also, I was having intense pains in my right side. And as days passed, the pain grew so bad that I couldn’t even walk upright. But I ignored the pain. Because I have a hard time taking care of myself.

Thursday morning Nathan forced me to call my doctor. He was worried about how intense my pains were. And I promised him that after he left for work I would call. And once I finally got a hold of a nurse on the phone, they told me to take a pregnancy test. I was pretty much convinced by that point that I couldn’t be pregnant. But lo and behold, the test came back positive. I knew in my gut as soon as I saw the double lines that something was wrong. This didn’t feel anything like my 2 previous healthy pregnancies. I was in so much pain.

I immediately called my close friend to come get the kids. Anyone who knows me will attest that I really struggle with asking for help, so my friend Amber knew that it must be legit if I was calling her. She dropped my kids off at KDO, then drove me to the doctor’s office. Blood work was drawn. The terms “miscarriage” and “tubal pregnancy” were tossed around. And Amber took me to get some tea while we waited for blood work results. She comforted me. We talked about the possibility of my having a healthy baby in my arms 9 months from now. Would it be a boy? I cried. She comforted me. I was scared. She bought me cookies. Thank God for friends.

I feel silly now, but at that time I wasn’t going to tell Nathan what was going on. I didn’t want to stress him out. He had to work. He has been under a lot of pressure. He has been dealt a few disappointing hands as of late. Eventually he called me, though, and I told him that we were pregnant, but that something was wrong.

The next few hours were a blur. 2 ultrasounds. An overly sympathetic ultrasound technician. I could just feel that the day would end sadly. More blood work. More waiting. At this point I was by myself at the doctor. I almost called my friend Vanessa to sit with me. Fortunately, Nathan was able to get away from work and be with me.

A few minutes after Nathan arrived at the clinic, the on-call doctor came in and told us that I was probably 5 weeks along. I was completely shocked by how far along I was. I didn’t think that I had missed a cycle. However, our baby was growing inside of my fallopian tube. And that there was no way to save the pregnancy. I immediately burst into tears. Nathan held me. In between sobs, the doctor took my blood pressure and heart-beat. Then they told me that I was lucky. A few more days of ignoring the pain would have been life threatening, as my fallopian tube would have burst.

They treated me with 2 injections of Methotrexate, which, as they put it, would “dissolve my pregnancy”. We finally left the clinic at 7 PM. It was a terrible, long day. I know that I am fortunate. I know that I am lucky, because I will will be able to have more children in the future, although due to scar tissue, it may be more difficult to conceive. I am thankful that I live in a time where this was able to be detected and treated. 100 years ago, an ectopic pregnancy would have been a death sentence. I have several appointments over the next few weeks, to follow my hCG levels and make sure that they go down to zero. If this treatment doesn’t work, we will move onto a laparoscopic surgery to remove the tissue in my tube. Although I already feel as if the shots of Methotrexate are working. The pain has subsided greatly.

Yet I feel a deep, painful sense of loss. There was a baby growing inside of me. But it was in the wrong spot. And I had to end my pregnancy. And with every fiber of my being, I wanted that baby. I wanted to be excited about a positive pregnancy test. It all feels like a terrible fever dream. Like it didn’t really happen. How could I wake up one day, shocked to discover that I was pregnant, only to discover by the end of the day that it was over?

I’ve wept. I feel confused. I am grieving. My sister drove up on Friday and spent the day with me, otherwise I would have just Googled ectopic pregnancy all day and curled up in a ball on my bed. Angie kept me distracted. I am so thankful for her. Yet today, when it was just Nathan and I, I broke down. I’ve pretty much been sobbing off and on. I don’t know anyone else personally who has been through this.

I shut down my shop. I will reopen in a few days. I am going to do what I never do: take time to grieve. Take time for myself. I wasn’t sure if I would share this publicly, but so many people have written to me over the past few days asking what is going on. There is no shame in sharing. And hopefully it will help me heal. Not to just pretend that everything is fine. Because even though I know that I am lucky, and that I had no control over this situation, it still hurts. Tomorrow is my 7th Wedding Anniversary. The timing kinds sucks.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring about me and my family.

-Stacie

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