9 weeks gestation is when my husband and I lost our first pregnancy. I constantly feel I don't have the right to feel emotional as we were "only 9 weeks along".
To us though he/she was something we longed for... he/she had a heart beat... he/she was our first child.
It was 3 years and our first month on fertility drugs when we finally had a positive test, it was one of the happiest moments of our lives. All the negative tests, one after the other, and finally, after seeing a reproductive specialist (and lots of testing) we finally had that positive! Then Father's Day of 2015, our world came crashing down - I was told I was starting to miscarry...a week of ultrasounds monitoring the heart beat. Some days were filled with hope...others complete misery. June 26, 2015 my husband and I, were were called into the ultrasound room to give us the news, no heart beat was found. Our nightmare became reality, our hopes and dreams were crushed. Our first child had passed away.
I was never told what my body was going to go through...never told I was going to go into labour, or the pain I was going to experience and to not have my child at the end. I constantly blamed myself for this loss, did I do something to cause this? Still, to this day, I constantly blame myself.
For the longest time I was not able to look at an infant with out breaking down into tears, having a fake smile and fake happiness when friends would tell me they were expecting, avoiding anything to do with infants or children. Pure misery, it took me almost a year, when it was close to my due date in January of 2016, that I decided I needed to seek emotional support. I found it hard to talk about, I didn't want to bother people with my problems.
I still feel at times extreme emotion, wondering what our first child would have been like. Looking at our son now, how perfect he is, how smart and wonderful he is. What would that first child have been like.
I am constantly asked is this my first child, I cringe at this question...I struggle and say yes to avoid the further complicated questions and the worrying of if a I am going to be judged as "I was only 9 weeks along". This pain is what I wish no one would ever feel.
-Sabrina Gilkie
