July 7th was one year since my D&C. Sitting with my son on the couch while he napped, I was able to reflect on this past year and everything that has happened since. Bean would have been 5ish months old had I not miscarried, but I also wouldn’t know Little Man. After the loss of Bean, it took three months to become pregnant with Little Man, and a lot of that time was filled with grief. I don’t think of the miscarriage as often anymore, but I still have occasional dreams about it, mostly relating to losing Little Man during pregnancy despite the fact that he has been with us for over a week.

I gave birth to Little Man three days shy of one year after finding out that I had miscarried. After giving birth, I had a retained placenta and had to have surgery, specifically a D&C to get the placenta out. 362 days after having a D&C for a missed miscarriage, I had another D&C. It was less than an hour after giving birth to my rainbow baby boy and it threw my birth plan out the window. I had wanted to have one hour of uninterrupted skin-to-skin time with Little Man and immediately start breastfeeding. That didn’t happen.

After Little Man was born, he was immediately put on my chest for skin-to-skin, but it was short-lived. He wasn’t crying as loud as they wanted. He was whimpering instead. They took him away from me to the warming bed. They were able to bring him back to me after a bit while I was being stitched up, but then again, he was taken away moments later because they were going to try to manually extract the placenta. It didn’t work so they made the decision to bring me to the OR. I had spent maybe 20 minutes with my son after he was born and I was already being separated from him for the same surgery that took away my first baby from me.

As they were finishing the surgery, I felt awful. I was exhausted. I hadn’t eaten in 18 hours. I told the nurse that was with me that I felt really nauseous so they gave me more Zofran. Not even two minutes later, I told them that I was going to throw up. I only dry heaved, but I lost all color in my face and could barely keep my eyes open. According to several people, my husband and mom included, I looked awful even when I was wheeled back to my room. I also had the shakes and had five blankets around me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I desperately wanted to hold my son. Even once I could open my eyes, I couldn’t stop shaking enough to hold him. It was so hard to wait until my body was ready and able to hold him, but it was worth it in the end.

There wasn’t a specific reason medically that I declined after the surgery so quickly, but I believe it was my own anxiety and panic that led me to feel so sick. Thankfully, everything worked out and I have a heathly baby boy currently sleeping next to me.