It’s a dreary Tuesday afternoon. The kind of afternoon you could stay on the couch all day, hiding under a blanket. Hiding from the rain, the cold and the world outside.

The clouds set in yesterday, just about the time I found out I was losing my second pregnancy.

The call came shortly after finishing up my morning classes at the gym. I had a breakfast bowl nestled in my lap as I drove home with my pup in the back seat. She was sniffing the air at each bite, waiting for the possibility that I would share, when the phone rang.

“Hi, this is nurse Danielle. I am calling with your test results….” a silence fills the air, “We are sorry to tell you that we believe you are having an ectopic pregnancy and we need you to get to the office as soon as possible.”

Nothing really prepares you for news like this. Much like a car crash, it just hits you from out of no where. Before you know it, your left lying in a pile of twisted metal wondering what’s going on.

Once the news finally sets in, it’s like a speeding train goes flying through your brain. It’s passengers of doubt, fear, worry, anger, sadness and despair are all boarded up and ready for their departure. It’s your mind where they will take up residency.

Then you cry.

A deep, wailing, mournful cry. Because you know you are now standing at the bedside of death and your belly is the casket.

Another child is lost.

Modern science and doctors alike will tell you there was no child there. My doctor said it was just a small blood clot of unformed cells that never found its way to my uterus.

Yet to my Fiancé and I, it was our child.

It was going to be our first child. I know I was only a few weeks along, six and a half weeks at most. Never the less, we already caressed my belly and spoke words of love to those “unformed cells.”

After a day of waiting in waiting rooms, giving blood and taking ultra sound, it was confirmed. Although it could not be seen, the baby was not where it was supposed to be. So the next steps were to stop the baby, “the cells,” from continuing to form.

One percent.

One out of every 100 pregnancies are ectopic and clearly an ectopic pregnancy is dangerous to the mother. The unborn child on the other hand, has no way of ever being saved or has any chance of survival outside of the womb. So it was settled. Something needed to be done immediately.

A shot.

One single dose of methotrexate, divided into two and injected into each cheek of my behind was all it would take. They told me how lucky I was to have discovered it early and how I had been saved from what could have been life threatening.

So there I was, bent over the hospital bed as two kind nurses injected my rear end.  While the second shot was being administered, I watched a Medevac helicopter land on the hospital roof. In that moment, I told myself, no matter what I was going through, that person had it worse. I thought of my brother. He has been battling colon cancer for years now and has multiple surgeries. I needed to be strong like him because this was nothing. This was just a shot, simply a shot. A shot to end my pregnancy.

So back to this dreary Tuesday.

The clouds outside are still thick and ominous. I lay on my couch with my dog as my sister covers my coaching classes. Our members will be told I am home with a stomach virus and I will return to work on Thursday and no one will know the difference.

I will smile through this miscarriage just as I did with the last one, six months ago.

Or will I?

I always say everything happens for a reason. But does it? I figure the only reason anything awful should happen is so we can turn it into good.

I try to ask myself the reason behind this loss. If I keep it to myself and just continue to smile through my loss am I making the world any better?

No, I am not.

I am keeping it the same.

I share my loss with you today not for your pity but for all the men and women out there smiling through their losses. Crying behind closed-doors, only posting when they are happy and life is good.

That is not the truth about life.

Life is sometimes hard. It has suffering and loss.

We need to share those times too, so we can comfort each other. This allows the one giving comfort to feel like they are helping and it brings love to the one who is suffering. We bring love and compassion into the world when we comfort each other.

Sharing our struggles allows us to build relationships with others and it helps heal others who are suffering the same pain in silence. You are not alone.

Let’s not be actors in our lives.

Only showing others what we want them to see. Let us be authentically ourselves. In our losses and our gains, so we don’t have to hide behind fake smiles.

The world needs our tears just as much as its needs our smiles.

My losses are not for nothing and neither are yours.

Let us open our hearts and be honest. Giving others an opportunity to love. This is how we will learn to love and give love, through compassion for each other.

This is how we will help heal the world.

Write back soon, love Annie.

5 days later two things happened.

This blog still sat in my computer as a rough draft and I was rushed into emergency surgery.

This blog.

That Thursday I showed up to work and smiled through my loss just as I promised myself I would not… and I was right, no one noticed. I continued to carry my loss in silence.

My emergency surgery.

Unfortunately for me, the shot did not work. I was told to wait until Sunday to find out if it had terminated the pregnancy but I never made it to that appointment.

Saturday around 9:00 pm I was suffering with tremendous abdominal pain. In complete denial of what was happening, I told my fiancé it was probably just gas. Yet shortly after, I began to bleed. After changing my cloths and contacting my doctor Jerry rushed me to the hospital. Once there, we were told that I had blood in my abdomen and was internally hemorrhaging.

I was bleeding to death on the inside.

Just as I was hiding my loss, my body was hiding my unborn baby in my fallopian tube. Unlike myself, who thought I could keep it all together, my body could not and it ruptured at the site of my growing baby.

I had coached myself through this whole past week. I told myself it wasn’t ectopic, it was just an early pregnancy they could not see, until I found out it was ectopic. Then I told myself at least it wasn’t ruptured and they found it early. Except now that I was being rushed down a hallway on a gurney into surgery.

After all that, I still entered surgery with hopes that they will be able to save my tube. Yet in the end, although they saved my life, through clouded, foggy ears, I heard my doctor whisper, “We had to take her tube.”

I felt in that moment that I had lost everything… but then I told myself, at least they saved my ovary. The truth is, it can always be worse. Trust me, be grateful for whichever ledge catches you on the way down.

This unborn baby.

This baby, this “mass of unformed cells,” came into my life and left with a piece of me. Both literally and figuratively. My life will never be the same and now I can not help but believe that there has to be a reason.

This baby brought me a message and the message is this.

If you do not share your struggles, what you hide inside you will destroy you. From the inside out.

We can not walk around internally bleeding, telling the world it’s just gas!

We are hurting and we must release that pain before it kills us.

What ever your pain may be, what ever loss you are smiling through, I understand. Whether it’s depression, loss of health, a loved one, a job or that you simply are overwhelmed with life. What ever your loss/pain is, don’t hold it in.

Share your losses and pains before they rupture inside you. It does not have to be publicly or in a blog but find someone who you feel comfortable with and let it flow. It can be the start of your healing.

I’m lucky to still be here and because of it, I can now share my loss with you, so you can be strong too.

ps… To my fiancé Jerry, who loves me so unconditionally. Thank you for allowing me to share this most intimate part of our life. In your ability to allow me to be vulnerable, you are in turn being vulnerable too.  I love you so much. xo

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