One year ago today

One year ago today I went to have an ultrasound. I was 9 weeks pregnant and I had started bleeding the day before. It was bright red blood and I was scared. Many things went through my mind, things like ruptured placenta, sub-chorionic heamatoma. The thought of a miscarriage did cross my mind but I tried not to pay too much attention to it.
When the time came the doctor started moving the wond thingy around in absolute silence. This was the same doctor who did all our ultrasounds with R and who explained what he was seeing while pointing it out on the screen. This time he said nothing. Absolutely nothing for what seemed like an eternity. And then he spoke.

This is not a normal pregnancy. I see a sac but nothing else.

I will never forget these words. And how I felt so strange, so hollow. I didn't cry, I vaguely heard him telling us to call my ob/gyn immediately and I avoided eye contact with my husband. It was only when we got in the cab that I started crying. He held me and we cried together. We then called my ob from the cab and read the report to her. She knew something was not right and sent us to the hospital immediately.

When we got to the hospital they drew blood for a beta and asked me to come back the next day. All the while I kept telling myself we would try again soon. The thought of taking time to heal or mourn was horrifying to me. I wanted this to be over with so I could start again and have my baby.
The next day when the beta result was in they told me I had an hydatidiform mole and needed a D&C. They told me it could regrow and cause cancer and I would need chemotherapy. And they told me even if it didn't I would have to wait a year before trying again, during which I would have weekly betas to make sure it was gone.
I can't even describe how I felt.
I also can't describe what it was like waiting for the D&C in the labour and delivery room, having to spend the night in a room with seven women with her newborns, having the nurses ask me where my baby was, and having the BCP prescribed for the next 12 months. All I could think was when would it end, when would I be able to go home and see my daugther.

They say there are moments in your life that define who you become forever. This was one of them. I will never forget how I could take interest in nothing for the next few months, how everything seemed without taste, without colour. I will never forget the panic during those minutes when the nurse was looking for my beta results every week, on Fridays, over the phone. I will never forget when the beta went up and I had the second D&C, a re-make of my nightmare. The same L&D room, the same doctors, the same hospital and the same emptyness.

I did find some closure when we finally started trying again. I felt the nightmare was over and we were on our way to the baby we had been dreaming of. It is taking longer than I thought. There was more heartbreak in this new journey that I hadn't prepared for. I will probably get pregnant again and stay pregnant, and bring a baby home. But this part of my life will leave a very big scar in my heart, a scar I will always see when I look inside.