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I’ll never forget being wheeled out of the delivery room in the early morning hours Tuesday, October 31st. I was being discharged and I was so tired from being awake for 24 hours with very little sleep since the Wednesday prior. I’m in the wheelchair holding onto the beautiful handmade wooden memory box they gave me and as we get ready to leave the floor a baby starts crying. I couldn’t help but tear up, on one hand I was happy for the family on the other side of that closed door but on the other I was so sad because in a few months I could have been hearing my baby cry. I was leaving the hospital not with a baby but with a wooden box I could store mementos of his life/death in. This coupled with the fact they were not allowing us to take him home for burial made it harder for me. Thankfully a Lady called from Chaplain Services on November 2nd and said she was sorry for the mix up and they would release Ean to us for burial.  8.5x11 paper inside for comparison about 6" deep
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For Dr review please. Follow up was not mentioned except the hospital discharge said to call a Dr if there were problems. We plan to give my body and emotions more time to heal and then will try again. My hcg level still isn’t down to zero according to home pregnancy tests and I know I’m not pregnant. I looked further into my past medical records and I think they were checking me for Lupus, one test on March 11, 2004 was PHOS LIPID IGG Result 37GPL, less than or = 12 GPL Neg, Greater than or = 13 GPL positive. I do not know if that has anything to do with pregnancy loss or not but I thought maybe it was worth mentioning. While processing my loss I was confronted with memories of my TTC journey with infertility and secondary infertility. This brought back memories from before my first child was born, I had suppressed/rationalized and I never mentioned because nothing was confirmed by a Dr but I had 2 very early losses at 4.5 weeks in 1999 & 2002, I’m guessing they would probably be considered chemical pregnancies and many don’t count them as pregnancies or miscarriages, I personally do now. I will be attaching pictures of the tests I’ve taken as well as my current basal body temperature charts, it shows the bbt and will show the bleeding and flow where the CM box is located H-heavy, M-medium, L-light and * is spotting. I know the office is closed until after the New Year. I would like to speak with Dr. over the phone if possible. I hope everyone from the office had very happy holidays. Thank you, Helena   Seriously why do I listen to people sometimes!?! Been a very frustrating and painful day. Two months to the day when Ean was induced because his heart stopped. So anyway I’m in a conversation with a lady about raising progesterone naturally and she recommended I get it checked prior to pregnancy to see if I even “need it”, isn’t that why I was tested during pregnancy!?! Levels before can be fine but during is what is critical. Then the conversation takes a turn and she’s trying to link me eating meat and the shots I had taken as the reason I lost Ean. Seriously no, if anything I could have been doing shots every week or twice a week and been fine, heck maybe I should have instead of the occasional shot with daily oral progesterone and topical progesterone. All progesterone I’ve taken is bioidentical. I was on low dose aspirin but with my clotting issues there’s a possibility there was a clot in the placenta but we’ll never know because that answer went right down the toilet, literally they flushed it because there was nothing to catch it. At first I thought it was a genetic abnormality but now I’ve seen some of my old labs I think it’s more a serious clotting issue along with MTHFR especially since this was a second trimester loss. I’m going to insist on more testing because if that’s the case and low dose aspirin isn’t enough to thin my blood during pregnancy then I’ll do what it takes. I don’t care if I have to get a daily shot of blood thinner in my belly along with weekly or twice weekly shots of progesterone in my hips I will not go through this again if it can be prevented. Oh and estrogen dominance is canceled with progesterone and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t dominant prior to this pregnancy just when I was battling infertility.
His tree fared pretty well, hopefully we can keep it healthy until we can get it planted.  The weather is about to get a lot more cold out so I went to Ean's grave to bring the blue spruce "Christmas" tree home. We plan on planting it but may need to keep it watered and inside for a while until we get a patch of warmer weather come in. Cemeteries don't bother me typically but I was a little creeped out while sitting there tonight. There is a field right next to where he is buried and there may be cows in there but when I shined the flashlight I didn't see any eyes although it sounded close. My hubby said it was probably an armadillo because they can be very loud but they are close to the ground so I probably wouldn't have seen it through the grass. I could hear the neighbors kids out playing and laughing, it was somewhat bittersweet, unfortunately it didn't transfer the sound over when uploading the video.  I love an miss you baby boy. Ean Rigel, Mommy will always love you!!!      During my grieving and healing process I made a discovery, one I have long known but pushed away because it was too hard to bear. The discovery was that I needed to face the pain and acknowledge all my losses. I needed to give voice to that which I silently mourned and didn’t talk about because my losses were not verified by a doctor. As the years passed I didn’t feel I fit with mothers of loss because mine were so early and when a family member went through hers I didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to sound like I was minimizing her experience by mentioning mine. My heart hurts for all the mothers that lose a baby at any stage, from the moment you realize you’re pregnant everything changes and you imagine how life will be. Then the day comes when it’s ripped away and you’re left with heartache, questions and pain from every dream lost once your baby dies. I have had 3 known losses possibly more before I began closely tracking my cycle while try to have a baby. My first loss was in 1999. We had decided we didn’t want to start a family right away so I started low dose birth control pills 3-4 months prior to our wedding so my body would have time to adjust properly. I did well with them and regularly cycled just as the pills were set for me to. Until one cycle I had bleeding right in the middle which typically indicates implantation bleeding in a normal cycle. However due to the birth control the lining of my uterus must not have been thick enough to sustain pregnancy and I had a very painful and abnormal with clots period. The pain and confusion of it happening while on birth control was too much for me to process. I now acknowledge it was a early miscarriage at 4.5 weeks. At the time I felt guilt and confusion because it happened when I was trying to prevent pregnancy and I felt like I had essentially killed our baby. I didn’t talk to anyone about it because it was just to painful to accept and I was afraid people would refuse to see it as a baby I lost and just say it was just an abnormal period. I pushed the terribleness of it all to the side, continued moving forward and completely immersed myself in newly married life. Our second loss was early 2002 after we had been trying to conceive for over a year. It had been quite some time with taking supplements and trying to get timing just right. My cycle was always very regular so I realized my period was about 3-4 days late and took a pregnancy test around 6pm. I was surprised to see a faint line on a brand of test I had always seen glaring negatives so I was going to test again in the morning in hopes of seeing a darker line I could use to announce my pregnancy. I would have been 4.5 weeks. Around 9-11pm horrible cramping started followed by a heavy flow of bright red blood with clots. I didn’t even bother retesting in the morning. My way of not dealing with the emotions, I dismissed it as a faulty test and rationalized it as a late period. I didn’t tell anyone of the loss I was experiencing and bottled it inside. We would just try again next month maybe that would be the month I would get pregnant and stay pregnant, it wasn’t. Battling infertility and being disappointed at seeing negative tests month after month it was too much for me, it in it’s own way was a loss each month, loss of hope. It took going to the doctor getting testing done and told to track basal body temperature and about 9 months after my loss I was pregnant and went full term with a handsome, healthy baby boy born September 2003. I was diagnosed with secondary infertility when we ttc again. I charted for months and just wasn’t getting pregnant. My husband went on deployment and I continued talking my temperature every morning before moving or getting out of bed. Due to stress my cycle was long and I wondered if I would ovulate, he returned home on day 42 of my cycle and I ovulated day 46. It took 18mo to get pregnant but we had a beautiful, healthy little girl born almost 6 weeks early in June 2006. I had my tubes tied after that pregnancy because I was scared of having losses, unexpected pregnancy or not being able to physically keep up. I ended up having a rare reaction called Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome and the symptoms were debilitating. I tried all kinds of medications to alleviate the symptoms but they didn’t help and often made it worse in other ways. The only fix was surgery to clear up adhesions from cesareans and to put my body back the way God intended by reattaching the tubes. Surgery wasn’t covered by insurance so I finally paid out of pocket and had it done August 2015. Even before surgery our children were asking for another sibling even though they were already years older. I had wanted another child for a while and Hubby had brought it up a few times in the year before surgery. So we said pray about it and we will see what God says maybe yes, no or not now especially with my past infertility. I conceived Nov 2015. With low dose aspirin, progesterone along with prenatal vitamins and lots of prayer I had a beautiful healthy baby girl born full term in August 2016. Many are aware that we were suddenly confronted by the loss of our baby during my pregnancy. He was a miracle baby I had just had one cycle after I stopped breastfeeding and then on the day of ovulation I asked hubby if he wanted to make our May baby boy. All it took was one time. The early spotting I had was resolved with extra progesterone. I had nausea and difficulty eating but otherwise no problems but I continually prayed for our baby and started to pray that if the baby wasn't going to be healthy or would struggle and suffer that God would take him home and spare him (I thought I was having a boy). It wasn’t until I was induced on October 30, 2017 in a hospital delivery room much like the one I had been in August 2016 that we learned baby was a perfectly formed little boy. He was 13w2d when his heart stopped beating and I delivered him at 13w6d. I was also on low dose aspirin, progesterone and prenatal vitamins. We were told if they took him for testing we wouldn’t be able to bury him so I’ll never know the exact cause of his death. Losing Ean was a horrific experience I would never wish on anyone. It really bothered me that we were rushed and had only given him a first name as that's the only one we knew for sure so a month later we decided on Ean Rigel. Ean: God is gracious, gift from God and Rigel: 7th brightest star in the sky (I nicknamed him my little star) and is the left foot of the Hunter, Orion Constellation. We were able to bury him so that is a comfort and I will have a birth certificate for fetal demise that will arrive in a few days, I had to ask for the hospital to do it because they don't automatically file one unless baby is 22 weeks and over 500grams but I'm happier knowing his life is legally documented. Mommy, Daddy, Brother and both Sisters were looking forward to his birth so a certificate will at least indicate acknowledgement by the state too. I do not know what the gender would have been for our first two babies. So I nicknamed them Baby Wichita for the first and Baby Augusta for the second. They never lived long enough to have a heartbeat but they were still my babies regardless.   Baby at 13 weeks. We have three living Children and three in Heaven. We will try again once my body and heart has healed more. Lord willing God will allow us another little one to raise for His glory, to love and fill our hearts and life with overwhelming joy.
The hospital drama saga continues. I called Vital Records November 30th to get death certificate and hospital hadn’t submitted one. So I called hospital and she said she would have it sent over and would be ready in a couple weeks. I called the Vital Records Office again yesterday and the lady couldn’t find it then when she realized I was talking about a baby she looked at fetal deaths and said it was there and to order a birth certificate when I ordered for fetal demise. I made the order over the phone yesterday afternoon. I received a voicemail about an hour ago from Vital Records stating they couldn’t find the certificate. I called back and they asked me how to spell his name and I said Ean she said oh they have it misspelled. I told her I gave the hospital the right information and she said she would check into getting it fixed and would probably be calling me back. Ugh
Just received a call back from the Vital Statistic office and the Hospital had everything correct but spelled his name Eas not Ean, even she was unsure how that mistake occurred. The person at the hospital that needs to submit the correction is out of the office until next week. She will have to fill out the correction paperwork and mail it in to the Vital Statistic office and then they will get it corrected and sent out to me. She said to check back in a couple weeks if I haven't received it. I didn't get out on Christmas day. So it was nice that a support group on Facebook in England released biodegradable petals in remembrance of pregnancy and infant loss with names of my babies on Christmas.  For all those that haven’t already unfollowed me although I post so much about loss thank you for bearing with me during this difficult season of life. For those that have unfollowed me and are seeing this sometime in the future, some topics are just too heavy for the point you’re at in life, I sincerely understand. It’s not even been two months yet that Ean went to be with Jesus and it feels like I have been trapped in my own personal eternity. I’ve lost so many this year and haven’t talked about it. 2017 has been a very heavy year for our family and myself. This loss will always weigh heavy but some days will be better and eventually it won’t be all consuming although it will still be ever present. Someday I’ll be able to not go into a sort of panic mode when I see someone I know or try to talk with them. I realize sometimes they’re dreading the awkwardness of me speaking of our loss of Ean but I’m also still emotionally raw and cannot speak much without the fountain of tears so I may only tiptoe away from the topic. Please understand someday I may talk about it and for now I don’t bring it up. I’m still healing but until I’m able to voice thoughts it’s ok if you mention Ean as it’ll bring a degree of comfort knowing his little life mattered and you care. One of the most honest and helpful things I’ve heard was “I’m so sorry, there are no words, I’m praying for you all”. I’m so thankful for my kiddos and I have tried to make sure they know they are loved and I’m trying to enjoy Christmas with them. I know Ean is worshipping Jesus with all our loved ones and the angels up in Heaven. Because of the greatest gift of all, salvation through Jesus, I can be assured we will be together again some day. I pray you all have a Merry Christmas and even in the difficult times you find light to guide you forward.
It’s so frustrating I get so unsettled I leave the bedroom. I was feeling like losing every microscopic bit of composure. I was upset about how this week has gone holiday wise and yes it hurts that I put effort into it and get met with bleh attitudes and logical reasoning. It hurts that only now is anyone thinking about me and I always put thought and effort into Christmas. I’m allowed to feel just a little put off. We lost our baby boy 7 weeks ago and the whole experience was completely traumatic for me, it was my body that failed it was my body that experienced the hours of contractions and blood gushing for weeks afterwards. It was so very hard to even have any enthusiasm for Christmas I honestly would prefer to hide away and hear everyone was happy. I should have been feeling Ean’s movements and telling him Merry Christmas I could have placed my hand on my belly to let him know mommy loved him very much. Instead I get to know that he is with Jesus but I’m left with so many questions I’ll never have answers. I at the least expected a bit of comfort from family but that was just totally stupid of me to hope for anything. I’m sad, I’m angry and I’m alone. Goodnight!
Well I’m not ever the typical patient. It’s just taking a while for hcg to drop and body to regulate but it’s getting there.  I love you Ean Rigel, I think of you everyday and miss you. Tell all my other loved ones up in Heaven that I love them and ask them to give you a hug and kiss from Mommy, Daddy, Brother and Sisters. Until we meet face to face I hold you in my heart and I’ll hug my bear pretending it’s you. Every night I hope to see you in my dreams. I love you my precious son!  Nighttime, it's pretty with the lights.  Adorable artwork for Ean  The tree we put at Ean’s grave looks like a sad Charlie Brown tree but it’s alive and we are planting it at home after Christmas.   I guess I still have some of the hormones he triggered, it’s going down but refuses to completely drop. Everything is all weird and I don’t feel well, just takes time I guess.  My Build a Bear I made in Memory of Ean to hug or sleep with when I’m really struggling. I put a little piece of his blanket inside. Our oldest daughter made a Husky and has a little piece of his blanket inside hers too.  We were going to Build a Bear and I heard this, the lyrics to this song I definitely identify with especially since I thought I’d be so much stronger and maybe I am but sometimes I feel like everyone must be thinking I should be more than I am. Holding on and know I need the Lord’s help both in the good and the bad circumstances.
🎶 Hold, hold me up And take me in I'm losing it Lost again So maybe I fall Maybe I fail Maybe my heart's not made of stone Maybe you'll see Secrets I’d never want to show But I can’t help it I'm not superhuman I'm breaking Don't let me fall apart🎶 |
Ean RigelPrecious Boy so loved by Mommy, Daddy, 3 siblings. He arrived in Heaven when his heart stopped at 13w2d on October 26, 2017. His body was delivered 13w6d on October 30, 2017 @ 10:30PM. He was 4.25in long and weighed 0.96oz. He was laid to rest November 4, 2017 @ 2PM. He will be forever loved and remembered. Ean Rigel is buried with siblings Riley Ember and Willow Rayne and are all together in Heaven with their four other siblings. 
Archives
October 2019
CategoriesClick to join Facebook group Remembering Ean Rigel, "My Bright Little Star", Pregnancy Loss Support.
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Remolding Clay
- Thoughts/Studies
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My Losses
- Why It’s Not “Just a Miscarriage”
- Ean Rigel (Blog)
- Riley Ember (Blog)
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Pictures (ONLY CLICK TABS IF YOU WANT TO SEE THEM. *Disclaimer: Images may be disturbing for some)
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- Pictures of Ean. He was not full term, he was 13w2d when his heart stopped and he stopped growing, he was born 13w6d.
- Pictures of Riley. He was 8w4d when his heart stopped and he stopped growing, and he was born at 12 weeks.
- Pics of Willow. She was 8w2d when her heart stopped and she stopped growing; she was born 10w6d.
- Never Forgotten Babies
- Praying For You
