During the fall of 2001, on one of our weekly Friday night dates Terrill took me for a walk along the Willamette River in downtown Portland. It was one of those beautiful fall evenings. He had me sit down on a park bench and said that he thought the timing was right to start a family. Of course we had to wait a full month before we could even start trying since we needed to switch health insurance. We wanted to get a good health insurance that would have excellent maternity coverage. I believe the special day when this decision was made was September 26, 2001.

November 4, 2001 was the start of our first cycle of trying to conceive. During the month of November, Terrill and I were traveling down to Eugene, Oregon (a 2 hour drive south of Portland) for a Holiday Craft Show that I was doing. Around November 16, I started to have some intense cramps on one side of my stomach. Later, I would discover that this was probably a cyst that developed during ovulation.

Around November 29, 2001, I went to my women’s health clinic for a regular yearly exam. The type of exam that we as women always hate going to. At the exam, I mentioned that I thought I might be pregnant. The nurse had me take a urine test and the test came back negative even though I thought I was pregnant.

On December 3, 2001, my period still hadn’t arrived. Terrill and I decided to take a home pregnancy test. It was a joyous day as I came out of the bathroom with the positive home pregnancy test strip. I will never forget the look of happiness on my husband’s face.

I immediately called my women’s health clinic. I was told to get an ultrasound immediately because of the pain that I had been experiencing. On December 5, 2001, I went to the local hospital to get things checked out. Everything was fine and I was told that the pain that I was experiencing was probably a cyst that was related to ovulation. I wasn’t able to see much on the ultrasound screen since I wasn’t that far along in the pregnancy.

The holiday season was such a magical time for my husband and myself. The pregnancy had put such a special glow on us. I had started to count the days till August 12, 2002 for my bundle of joy to arrive.

With the announcement of our pregnancy, came lots of advice from friends. One piece of advice came from my best friend. She told me to be sure that my progesterone levels were checked with the first prenatal blood work. Around the 3rd week of December, my ob called with my prenatal blood work. I specifically asked her about my progesterone levels. She told me that my progesterone level was fine. This would of course come back to haunt me later at the end of the month.

On December 28, 2001, I noticed that I had some light pink spotting. I immediately called my ob’s office. I was told to take it easy that day. By the end of the day the spotting had disappeared.

Every year a few days before the end of the year, Terrill and I travel down to the southern Oregon coast to celebrate our wedding anniversary. On December 29, 2001 we were traveling down the state freeway when we stopped at rest stop about ½ hour south of Portland. I used the restroom facilities and discovered that I was bleeding very heavily. We quickly turn back around and headed for the nearest hospital.

I spent 7 hours in the emergency room. Most of the time was spent lying on a gurney and fearing the worst because no one would tell me anything. Although the faces of the medical staff spoke many nonverbal words. At one point I was asked about my progesterone level. I told the medical staff that I had been told that it was within normal ranges.

By 7:00pm, I was given the news about our first baby. I will always be grateful for the caring and compassionate emergency room doctor that turned down the lights in our room and gave us time to process our loss. We then headed back home and called a couple of friends and asked them to spread the news. After about an hour, hubby went outside to start unloading the car with our vacation luggage. He found a sympathy card on our front door. I will never forget the tears that came rolling down his face. My best friend Joan had taped the card to the front door.

Right after that our next-door neighbors called our home because they knew we were suppose to be out of town. During our grief, they came over in the evening and brought a video to watch with them. Because I was spent home from the hospital to wait for the miscarriage to happen, I will always be grateful for the distraction of a couple of hours. I was blessed because by midnight, the loss had passed. I had been told that it could take a week or longer. I will never forget the loss and prefer not to go into the details. It will forever be ingrained with me. Just as the rest stop where I discovered that I was bleeding and to this day I cannot stop at this rest stop.

The month of January 2002 was incredibly tough for me. Time passed and I honestly don’t remember where the time went, what I did during the entire month to this day. In February 2002, I asked for my medical records and discovered that my progesterone had never been tested. I will always believe to this day that my pregnancy might have survived if I had the progesterone level tested.

My first pregnancy loss will always remain strong and forever in my heart.

The second loss was devastating because I thought that lightening doesn’t strike twice. Everyone told me that the next time would be different. By April Fool’s Day 2002, I discovered that I was pregnant again. I was so confident that things would be okay with this 2nd pregnancy. Our happiness was short-lived because by April 9, 2002 I had started to spot. That was the same day that my new ob called me with the hcg levels to tell me that things didn’t look good in term of the numbers. All I could think about was the fact that this second pregnancy was shorter than the first pregnancy. I did not even have a chance to spend as much time thinking about this new potential life inside of me. I was told that this pregnancy was a possible blighted ovum unlike the first loss where I could see the makings of the human body.