Four days ago I joined the ranks of the millions of women who have suffered the loss of a miscarriage. I was thirteen weeks pregnant on Saturday. That night we were out to dinner as a family because the day before all of our belongings had been packed into boxes and there was nothing left to cook with. While I was sitting there I started bleeding. Fortunately my doctor was able to see me an hour later. There was no heartbeat when he searched on the ultrasound. There was no baby to see at all because the baby had died, tissue broken down, perhaps a few weeks earlier. It’s called a “missed miscarriage” I think, because my body didn’t recognize that the baby had died until a couple of weeks later. On Sunday I revisited Telki (the hospital where Elise was born) for a D and C to prevent excessive bleeding or incomplete passing.

Before this personal experience I believe I thought that the fact that miscarriages were common (I’ve heard 1 in 3 pregnancies) would make it less painful. I was wrong. It is still the loss of our baby. And the loss of a dream. And there are still all the awful questions…Why did the baby die? What was wrong that it didn’t continue to grow? Was there anything I did wrong? When did this baby die? Was it a boy or a girl? Will we be able to get pregnant again? Will we ever be able to carry an infant to completion again or will we suffer this kind of loss in the future?

For now I’m really too numb to decide anything about the future. My heart is not yet ready to hope again.

As a post script: Thank you to all of our wonderful friends in Budapest (especially the Cannon family, Coppage family, Nagy Gabi, Julie, Stirlings, Becky, Rebecca, Lippolds, and Tunde) for the love, words of sorrow and comfort, visits, gifts, and assistance to help us get through our last 2 1/2 days before moving. We love you!