G's and P's

On a Labor and Delivery unit, a nurse or doctor can quickly summarize a patient by their "G's and P's," their Gravida and Para. Gravida means how many pregnancies the woman has had and para refers to the number of deliveries she has had after 23 weeks. Ideally, all of our patients have para that is only one less than their gravida since our patients are all still pregnant, but often we see G's and P's that don't match at all.

My G's and P's are Cara Brown, G3P2. And then there's this special little addition: LC 1. (living children). I have been pregnant 3 times. Our first baby was an early miscarriage, our second baby was 40 weeks and 2 days! Our third baby was a stillbirth at 34 weeks, but I still had to deliver him so he's one of my P's. 

This is sad that I even had this thought, but after my first miscarriage, I thought, my G's and P's will never match. My mom's did, and I guess I just assumed that mine would too.

One of the hardest thing about Henry's death is having to prove to some people around me that he really was alive. In my mind and in my heart, Henry existed for 34 weeks. Even before I knew he was there, I loved him, prayed for him, and his future spouse. My love only grew deeper as he grew inside me. Henry's entire life was in my womb. But it was a life nonetheless. 

I was so thankful that so many of our friends and family came to Henry's memorial. Some of them said, "I'm so glad you're having a memorial for him." I thought to myself, "Well, why wouldn't I have a memorial for my son who passed away?" 

Then, I thought to myself, we didn't have a big memorial when our first baby passed away. The Facebook world didn't even really know about my miscarriage. I had just found out I was pregnant that week and had scheduled my first appointment, but had not heard our baby's heartbeat yet. Then, I started spotting. I knew that I was miscarrying, but the doctors couldn't confirm it with lab results for a few more days. They saw a dot on the ultrasound that they thought could be the baby, but it was too early to tell. In the end, they called it a "chemical pregnancy." All of my levels had gone up indicating I had been pregnant, but something happened and we didn't have a baby growing inside of me anymore. 

As a labor and delivery nurse, I was devastated. I knew people had miscarriages all the time, and didn't even realize it sometimes, but I felt the loss of my child and thought that I might not ever be able to have any more children. It was so hard when it happened because we hadn't told anyone that I was pregnant yet, so we had to tell them and then un-tell them immediately after. That was not how I imagined telling our families I was pregnant for the first time. 

It wasn't even a month between my pregnancy with baby #1 and Mack. I probably conceived about 2 weeks after my miscarriage. Talk about a nervous Nelly! I was scared the entire pregnancy that something bad was going to happen. As awesome as it was to feel Mack move inside me, (and Henry too!) I never felt like my 5-6 week old baby was less of a baby since I had not heard its heartbeat or felt it move.

At Mack's one year photo session, the photographer suggested we take a couple of pregnancy announcement pictures. She said, Mack can hold a chalk board that says "#1" and you can hold one by your belly that says "#2." My heart sank and I thought "I don't want to dishonor our first baby by calling Mack #1. He's actually #2 and Henry's #3. This is what he ended up doing instead:

This weekend was hard. It marked 6 months since the delivery of Henry and it was the due date of our first little baby. I guess I like that Henry and baby #1 will always be part of my G's and P's. For all of the arguing out there about when life begins, when you can electively end it, and when it "counts" or doesn't, the medical community recognizes my baby #1 and my baby #3 as G's, and it recognizes Henry as a P.

Some friends of mine recently shared this link and I think it eloquently explains some of my feelings on the subject:

http://thelewisnote.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-miscarriage-matters-if-youre-pro.html

I know I am not the only woman with non-matching G's and P's and some women are never blessed with G's in the first place. In fact, I would say the majority of my patients and many of my friends and family have uneven G's and P's. Since Henry's death, I have had so many women come up to me and tell me about their miscarriages, some 1st trimester, and some 2nd, and they say, "I know it was nothing like your loss." There are some differences, but in many ways it is the same. Most women who want a baby have hopes, dreams, a Pinterest board, and a list of names picked out before they even try to conceive. Sometimes loss is about what was, and sometimes it's about what never came to be.  

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for our family. Here are some more pictures I took at Henry's memorial: