I have been pregnant three times but only one live birth (my doctor’s words).

I am blessed to have a beautiful little boy and I am thankful for him every day.  But most people don’t know that we first tried to start a family 8 years ago when we were living overseas.

Up until that point in my life I hadn’t heard of many women who had miscarried.  I had heard that miscarriages happen, but it wasn’t very common to me.  When women in my family got pregnant things ended with a beautiful little baby at the end.  And I figured people have babies all over the world so it wouldn’t matter that I was living in Eastern Europe.  

Around the beginning of my third trimester I would come home to Florida and stay with my parents until the baby came.  Lucky for me, one of my best friends was getting married and I would be in the US right at 8 weeks so I could see a US doctor and explain to them my situation.

I made my appointment and, since I was traveling without my husband, my mother came with me.  The doctor and the nurse helped me plan out how I would see a doctor in Romania regularly and send them the medical records to keep them in the know.  Next I was to have my first ultrasound to see how things were progressing.  The nurse calmly said that I must not be as far along because they couldn’t find anything. It didn’t even occur to me to worry.

Jamie Waiting To See Her Doctor

So back home to Romania we went and I was told to have another ultrasound as soon as I could.  I spent close to a month in the US, so I think I was around 10 weeks when I had the next ultrasound.

Hubby and I made an appointment at a clinic near the hospital in Bucharest.  I was so excited to finally see the baby and hopefully hear the heartbeat.  When we walked into the clinic, there was a large stark room with no decorations.  But the lobby was very bright with the beautiful cloudless day with the sun shining through these large floor to ceiling windows.

I checked in and waited to be called back.  I barely noticed the construction across the street as we picked two seats in the open lobby.

We were called back by a young Romanian woman who was our ultrasound technician and we followed her to another stark room with nothing but the table and ultrasound machine next to it.  The ceilings were high because they only had A/C units but once again nothing on the walls.

The room had the table for me to sit on with the ultrasound machine next to it.  There was no counter or table and I am not sure if there was a seat for the hubby.  I know he was standing next to me holding my hand expecting to hear good news.  The lingering effects of the communist culture were evident here.

The young technician looked at the screen and abruptly said “there is no heartbeat there, next you will need to have an abortion.”  I was stunned and her words took all the air out of my sails!  It took me a second to gather my thoughts to form a question.  I asked if she could explain in more detail but she didn’t speak very good English so I asked for the records and left the clinic.

When we were given the records we walked out the same door we came in and found our car.  The day was probably still beautiful and cloudless.  But when I heard the words there is no heartbeat, my world had grounded to a halt.  I climbed into the back seat not noticing people walking by or the cars out on the road.  Once in the back I just sat with the window down staring out the window but not really taking anything in as we drove back to the apartment.

“When I heard the words there is no heartbeat, my world had grounded to a halt…”

When we walked in the door we were immediately greeted by our little Westie Rory. She wasn’t even a year old so she was always happy and playful when we got home.  But today she wasn’t as hyper and she just followed me around.

I walked straight to our bedroom and laid down on the bed.  Rory couldn’t jump high enough to get on the bed so I picked her up and put her on the bed.  She immediately snuggled up next to my heart and just laid with me while I cried.

“What the hell just happened?”  At that point I really didn’t know anyone who had had a miscarriage so I had no one to talk to about this…or so I thought.  When I got a hold of my mom, she said “oh baby, these things happens.  I miscarried with my first too.”