I Lost My Kid Earlier This Year

I lost my first kid early this year. My wife got a miscarriage after she finally pregnant in 5 years. The feeling was like riding a roller coaster. It was hard but we have to move forward and cheer up again. Although very sad, we also learned many things.

The story started a few months ago. It was early morning when my wife was calling while I was sleeping. She went to her parents home in Indonesia to handle something and not home at the time. Her breath was not steady, it was fast and short, her speech was not smooth. At the other side of the line, I was still half conscious got woken up from the sleep.

Then after she hardly tried to calm down herself, she told me that she is pregnant. I was silent for while trying to gather my consciousness. Then I asked a confirmation. She said yes, ensuring. Without I realised tears drop from my eyes. There was a living human although it was still in his early stage of development, inside my wife. I felt so much grateful and thankful, but I also didn't want to be overexcited. Something that later I found out is so much true.

The first lesson learned, not all pregnancies regardless how hard to it is to get, will end up successfully.

A few days later, wifey flew back to Singapore. While waiting for her, I took out bunches of books about pregnancy and parenting from my cabinet. The books that we got from a very nice deal in Craiglist when an expat need to back for good from Singapore. There were more than 20 books and most of those were very thick. I started to skim some of those and considered to order some more books from bookdepository.

The next thing we did was to make an appointment with an Obgyn. We decided to consult with a doctor in Thomson Hospital from our friend reference. The soonest appointment we could get is about 1 week ahead. We were anxious but happy.

Lesson learned two, Singapore healthcare is excellent but you need a very deep pocket, especially if you are not a citizen or permanent resident that have healthcare subsidy.

Some initial talk that I had with wifey is about how we can save money for having the baby. Delivering baby in Singapore is expensive. We considered moving out from out currently rented apartment with an expectation to save few hundred bucks per month which will translate to some thousands in a couple of months. We also decided to cancel some trips that we planned. Although initially reluctant, we decided to let our families and friends know about this news without delay.

Lesson learned three, some people against the idea of announcing pregnancy considering the risk. But even after this experience I still think whether it is a good or a bad news, it will be better to share it. In hoping that, the more people we share the happy news, the more people also would like to pray for all of us and to share happiness and even sadness. Indeed there are more people that can be heartbroken if the bad thing happens, especially your parent.

Then, the day for the first ob-gyn visit came. It was my first experience to visit such specialist. In the doctor consultation room, after some initial introduction and replying to some of her questions, she asked my wife to come to the USG machine. I was called to join shortly after my wife had done preparing himself in the scan room. It was not really room though, it was just a section surrounded by a curtain. Then the doctor started to move the scan sensor and show us to the monitor inside the womb. I feel stunned for a while. That was the first experience seeing there was a living human inside another human. However, I saw that it seemed the doctor showing a worried expression but without explaining too much in detail.

After completing the scan, she asked us to come again in two weeks. She mentioned that the embryo size is too small for the pregnancy age. She tried to calm us and said there are some similar cases but eventually after some days the embryo development speeding up and the baby was delivered successfully and normally on their due date. Actually, we became worried with the doctor worries. But we tried to stay positive and go home.

Two weeks fast later, we went to the doctor again. We started with a small consultation and we went to the scanning area again. It was very quick. The doctor said, within 2 weeks the embryo size should grow multiple time faster than what we were seeing at the time. Something is not right she said. At the end of the consultation, she asked my wife to do a blood test to check HCG level. The first test immediately had to be done at that day and second test in the morning of our upcoming consultation date in one week. Before leaving, I asked the doctor again whether she had any patient with a similar situation but ended up with success story. She answered yes, although I am not sure whether she was honest or just a white lies.

One week from then, we went to a second blood test and wait for about 1 hour for our consultation. We didn’t start with chit chat like our 2 past consultations. The doctor just mentioned straightly that the HCG level was going down. It indicates that the embryo stopped growing and we have to expect a miscarriage. She did one more scanning and the embryo size stayed the same as what we had seen last week. Then she asked a difficult question, whether we want to take out the baby through surgery or just let it out naturally. Of course, we decided to take the later option. On the way back from the hospital, my wife looked so down and I decided to take work time off. I offered here if she has anything she wanted to buy. But it seemed she had a deep sorrow which I feel the same.

The upcoming weeks from then we, especially my wife felt anxious. First, we were not sure of how to let our parents know about this sad news. Earlier they were very happy when we shared the good news because it had been more than 5 years of waiting. Then we also were unsure how long we should wait for the baby to come out himself. To distract ourself we tried to do day to day activity as normal. We went for a morning jogging, cycling and go outside for weekend breakfast. Then about 2 or 3 weeks later, wifey started bleeding. I don’t have strength to narrate the story from there because it was so painful psychologically, especially to my wife. Long story short we passed that main miscarriage process but wifey still had a bleeding for a couple of weeks that made us worried.

Then, after consulting with her doctor via email, about 4 weeks since we found out to expect miscarriage we went to doctor again. After a usual pre-consultation conversation, the doctor did the scanning again. Thankfully the result was good. The doctor concluded the normal miscarriage process completed successfully without leaving any remains. Even she said a new egg is almost in the ovulation process. The last thing she asked us to at the day is a blood test. When the result came a couple of days later, it was good. I couldn’t recall what our exact feeling at that day. I am thankful at least my wife was fine and there is no unwanted intervention such as surgery that we need to do. Although wifey didn’t look sad as earlier I was thinking that somewhere deep the feeling of loss must be still there.

Lesson learned four, happy and sad are part of life.

Days after that, life went as usual. The daily journal that wifey always write and scrutinise every day were nowhere to be seen. Maybe it brought back an unnecessary sad memory. Although I had repeatedly to myself to keep grateful because at least my wife was fine and healthy, but still there was one small feeling that I feel God was like playing with our heart. Why he gave us a false hope after our waiting. Of course, not long after that, I realised that I was wrong and shouldn't think such way.

Some strong support that at least make me realise to be thankful again come from friends and families. I still feel sad when remembering just a few weeks ago announcing to some of my close friends that we are expecting a baby and they congratulate us and hoping the baby will be born healthy. And now once in the while, some friends will say hi and ask how is the baby because they didn’t know what had happened. They will feel really sorry after that and reassure us the good thing will happen out of that sorrow. Some even told me about their sadder personal or their family story. Which I don’t want to write here because it makes our story is much happier compare with some other people that have to experience more difficult life trial. I felt bad by getting to feel good because hearing other people sad story that was much sadder than our story.

Not long from there too, my in-laws were coming to Singapore. They might be want to share the load and support us during the sad moment. The thing that touched me was, they didn’t say anything about the miscarriage almost the whole week they stay here. My mother in laws only said a thing the day she left home. Reminder to make sure us getting too sad and be assured that a good thing will happen. I assume she also experienced a deep sad feeling seeing two of us experiencing this the journey.

Lesson learn five, when you are hit by sad experiences never feel that is the end of your world because sometimes other people have had more horrible sad experience.

Lesson learned six, friends and families are the best supporter to cheer and accompany you in your lowest moment of your life.

Initially, we had suspended many of our travel plan of the year. Then to refresh our mind and especially to cheer up wifey, we decided to go to New Zealand. Furthermore, we got a flight ticket and campervan rental deals. So, we went for some days amazing road trip to that far south country. We drove to many exotic places. We camped on the very nice lakeside and beach camping area. We trekked to many beautiful spots. Then we returned back to Singapore in 2 weeks time to resume the life hoping the sad memory will cease slowly.

Then a couple of days after we landed home in Singapore. Our biggest curiosity was wifey still hadn’t got her period. To be honest I was in denial state and was telling to myself maybe she just late. But the late become more than 1 week which is very unusual. Then we decide to get a test pack. I was afraid and excited at the same time to see the result. Afraid because I didn’t know how long again we should wait if the result is negative. Afraid also because if the result was positive, it meant we had to re-experience roller coaster feeling we had a few months back. But we excited to know whether God so that merciful to give and immediate answer to our earlier sorrow. Eventually, positive was the result. It was one fine morning when again we were experiencing another tear of happiness.

So there will be some more months of uncertainty. We are afraid, but at the same time, we are also stronger. I think the best you can do in such situation was just to let it flow and let it go. If something meant to happen, then it will happen regardless how fragile it is. I just hope that instead of writing another sad post, I can write a happiness post in a couple of months from now. A post about how our life can feel more complete when there is small human that resemble two of us. The journey to there is still long and even still longer after then. We are excited and happy at the same time. There is still small worries but we believe fear is there to make sure we are careful and not reckless.