Beyond the Pink Lines

This is going to be a really rough one to write and relive. All of our losses have deeply impacted us and shaped us, but Riley was the hardest one. It changed me and shaped me in ways I never thought were possible. So here is Riley’s story.

December 12, 2021. I was babysitting my nephew for a few days while my sister and her husband were on vacation. My period was due to start on the 14th, so I had packed pregnancy test with me just in case I wanted to take one while I was gone for that week. I knew the chances of it being positive were slim because James and I hadn’t been intimate much due to me being in a knee brace from tearing my PCL in November, but the thought of “what if” still crossed my mind. At this point we were 4 years into our infertility journey and I was obsessed with testing and testing early because it “only takes one time”. Anyway I something made me test that morning, so I did and there was a very faint 2nd pink line. I didn’t really see it so of course I did the thing were you take what seems like a million pictures of the test, flash, no flash, black/white, brightness ext. But then I was like I should just take the digital test I had. I didn’t like taking digital test because they were the more expensive of the brand I like, but I knew they were reliable so I always kept them “in stock”. The digital came back positive as well. Right after I got the 2nd positive Luke (my nephew) woke up and came into the bathroom to find me. He was the first person I told, he was 2 and a half at that time so I know he didn’t fully know and understand, but I told him “Luke, aunt B has a baby in her belly.” He just smiled and then we hugged and went on with our morning. James was going to come over that afternoon to hang out with us for a while, so my plan was to give Luke the test and have him give it to uncle Jamie and repeat “Aunt B has a baby in her belly”. But we didn’t get that chance. I went to the bathroom and discovered I was spotting, an all too familiar feeling and sight. At that point I called James and told him what happened, once again no cute announcement, no surprise just a heartbreaking conversation. We knew nothing could be done at the ER and we didn’t want to take Luke with us, so I decided to just portal message my doctor and wait for her response, and by the evening the spotting had slowed down and I wasn’t full on bleeding like the other losses. The 12th was a Sunday, so I sent her a message and waited for a response. Monday came and my doctor messaged me back, she said that she recommended me going to the Urgent care to get checked out because she couldn’t get me for about a week. On December 14, I went to the UC. There they gave us the diagnosis of “spontaneous miscarriage” and said to follow up with my doctor. This was heartbreaking in itself because we were coming up on the angel anniversary of Hayden on the 15th, so it made this loss more difficult because it was surrounding a trigger date. Even though I couldn’t get in to see my doctor for a while, she was able to put in a repeat HCG lab order at the outpatient lab to ensure my numbers were going down. Since the bleeding had subsided I was just what I thought was denial that this was real, so James and I went to the store on the 15th and bought many pregnancy test, every brand every type: digital, pink dye, blue dye, name brand expensive ones to the 97 cent ones. I took them all that night and the lines had gotten darker then my first test on the 14th. So on December 16th I went and got my labs drawn. The results however were not what we were expecting. To our surprise my HCG doubled from what it was in the UC on the 14th. I was in disbelief so I took more test to compare lines just to ease my anxiety and again the line progression kept getting darker. I know it sounds obsessive and not necessary to take literally 15 or more test, but when you’ve been through this many losses and years of infertility, it makes you do crazy things and phsyically seeing line progession helps with anxiety. With the news of my HCG doubling, this gave us some hope. We knew we were far from out of the woods, but it was positive news. We kept the mindset “at this moment, we are pregnant until proven otherwise. Riley is strong and a fighter and this will be a successful pregnancy.” repeat lab draws were on December 18, and 20th. Again HCG kept rising at a rate that was consistent with a viable pregnancy. My doctor message me on December 21st and said since my hormones were good and rising that it looks like my pregnancy is viable, and unless I started bleeding again that I didn’t need to get it rechecked unless I wanted to and we would go ahead and schedule an ultrasound for when I would be about 8 weeks pregnant, and at the time I was estimated to be 5 weeks pregnant. We also scheduled my first “offical” ob pregnancy appointment to be on December 28th. This was such exciting news. We were pregnant, Riley was safe, growing and fighting. What started out as another sad loss was turning into a miracle pregnancy. We would finally have our rainbow after years of a storm and losses. Of course we knew Riley wouldn’t replace Landyn, Marli and Hayden and we would always keep their name and memory alive, but we were celebrating. This was the furthest I had gotten in a pregnancy, and the first pregnancy where we got good news. I opted to have my blood drawn one more time on December 23rd and if it contiuned to rise we were going to tell our families at Christmas celebrations. As we hoped and prayed for the results of my HCG had continued to rise when we got the results on from the 23rd draw. I was going to see my granny on Christmas eve, and go with her to the Christmas eve service at church, James had to work but I was going to record her reaction. Our families knew that we had found out we were pregnant the few weeks prior, but we did inform them all of the bleeding and the miscarriage diagnosis from the urgent care. Even when we knew my HCG doubled from that first lab draw we kept our hearts guarded until we knew if this pregnancy was viable and successful before we jerked everyone’s emotions around. I went over to granny’s assisted living and before we went to church I told her James and I had got her a present. I started recording: I handed her a box and inside there was a pair of baby overalls, with a note that said “Merry Christmas great Granny Gray. I can’t wait to meet you August 2022! Love, Riley Turnbull, your great grandson or granddaughter.” Granny’s reaction is one that I can still see and hear vividly in my mind and that I will hold close to my heart forever. As now she has Alzheimer’s and is not the same granny from the mental aspect as Alzheimer’s has taken over and progressed, but she is still our granny and she has shaped me. Anyway, granny was beyond excited and we went to service and then to dinner and it was the perfect Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we went to James’ moms house for our family Christmas. We had gotten two onesies to announce to his mom and sister. we all opened our presents and we got to the last one. We had mom and Brandi open theirs at the same time, and recorded their reactions too. We also announced on social media. We will also cherish their reactions. Finally we were getting our happily ever after, and we were able to celebrate this precious life we created after loss and pain for years. The 26th we went to a Kansas City Chiefs game and we were over the moon happy, celebrating with friends and family and of course the energy of an NFL game and the holidays. When we got home from the game I started having sharp pains on my right side. I didn’t think anything of it much, but figured I would mention it to my doctor when we went in for our appointment on the 28th. My doctor was both my PCP and OB so I knew I could bring it up to her. The pain kept coming and going but I just put up with it and focused on our first “happy” OB appointment. On the 28th we got an estimated Due date of August 21 2022, and got our first ultrasound scheduled January 10 2022, which we were super excited about because James’ birthday is January 7, so it was going to be the perfect belated birthday present. I did ask her about the pain, she said it was probably nothing since it wasn’t persistent and subsided gone could’ve been anything from gas pain to just a weird twitch/pain but if it came back to let her know.

We left the appointment excited and happy, what could go wrong? I wasn’t bleeding, my levels were where they needed to be and everything seemed happy and normal. Everything changed that evening. The pain got intense to the point I couldn’t get comfortable and I was in tears. With it being after hours we decided to go to the ER, knowing it could be nothing or it could be something because it was right lower quadrant pain, which could point to something like appendix or it could be something wrong with riley. We got to the ER, and typically we have good experiences with this hospital as far as how the staff treat us and how the care is. This night was different. I got a male doctor, who was dismissive. I was concerned that I was pregnant and having this pain. His response was “I’m not worried about the pregnancy, I see a young female with lower right pain all I am thinking about is your appendix, but we will do other testing too” I remember James and I both pushed back and advocated for other testing first because my first thought was ectopic pregnancy based upon my knowledge and where the pain was. Not to mention I didn’t have any other symptoms of appendix problems. Hesitantly the doctor agreed to give me an ultrasound first. With the abdominal ultrasound they could find my ovaries, so they opted to do a transvaginal ultrasound. Oh “Wanda” my nemesis, if you have ever had a transvaginal ultrasound you get it, its uncomfortable and not a fun ultrasound. From past ultrasounds I knew I would have to have a full bladder so they could see everything better especially with it being early pregnancy. In the past I was given the option to drink 32 ounces of water and let them know when I felt like I needed to urgently use the bathroom or given a catheter they would put saline in my bladder to make it quicker. Up to this point I had never had a catheter and I didn’t really want one because from helping insert them as part of my training in the medical field and knowing the process I knew it was just not a fun thing and chose to not get it unless it was necessary. The doctor on duty did not give me the choice this time. He popped his head in and said they were going to come in and put a cath in and then they would do the ultrasound. I asked if I could just drink water, but he automatically dismissed it and said “we need to rule other things out so this is the quickest way” and left. Well alrighty then, I didn’t want to do it but at this point I was just scared in intense pain and wanted to know Riley was okay. The nurse came in and put in the cath and filled it up with saline. Shortly after the radiology tech came in and started the ultrasound. She was almost done but I told her I was really uncomfortable and felt like I was going to pee, she said “oh honey that’s just what a catheter does just “let it go”. So I “let it go” and the bed was soaked with saline and urine. Apparently the nurse put the wrong size catheter in so it didn’t do what it was supposed to do. So that was fun. She reassured me she got enough images and that the provider would review them. After what seemed like an eternity the provider came in. He said that it was an ovarian cyst and should resolve on its own but to just follow up with my OB, and while they couldn’t see the baby on either ultrasound it was probably “too early” and that since my cervix was closed there wasn’t anything pregnancy wise to worry about. So we left, tired but we both had to work the next day, but we trusted that everything was fine.

The 29th was a day that changed our lives forever, a living nightmare. I was working as medical assistant in a pediatric clinic at the time so I wasn’t able to answer my phone. I got a phone call from my doctor’s office but didn’t think anything of it figured it was just giving me some results or checking up on me from my ER visit. I checked the voicemail on a break and immediately knew it wasn’t good; the reason being is it was my provider herself who left the message and asked me to give her a direct call back to discuss some things. This was a red flag to me because being in the medical field I knew typically the nurse or MA called with test results. I called her back and I still remember the tone of her voice and her words. ” I wanted to let you know your HCG has dropped dramatically to 27, that combined with your side pain and what the ultrasound found in the ER made me consult with another OB. I am so sorry but after reviewing everything and your HCG going up then down then up to back down it looks like that it’s not an ovarian cyst, rather that is the embryo. It has implanted in your right ovary versus the fallopian tube where ectopic pregnancies are typically seen.” I immediately had started sobbing, screamed and had a panic attack, she calmed me down and was very kind and gracious about the whole situation. She knew our struggle with infertility and all of our losses, she knew how excited we were for Riley and she knew this pain herself.Once I gained my compsure as much as i could, She explained that I would have to get a methotrexate injection to end the pregnancy because it wasn’t viable and my life could also be in danger if the pregnancy continues. With it being the holidays we couldn’t do the methotrexate injection until January 4th. After the phone call I left work, and I had to tell James the hard reality of what happened. We were both devastated. I had to tell him over the phone because he was working a double, he was able to leave early but he had to get coverage first.

On January 4th we picked up the methotrexate injection and went to the doctors. James held my hand as tears streamed down both of our faces knowing Riley was gone, and once again we gained an angel instead of a little one this side of Heaven.

After 23 days of a roller-coaster emotional ride, our little Riley was officially gone. Riley’s wings were gained January 4, 2022. Going from finding out we were pregnant, to being told it was a miscarriage to my HCG doubling and it looking good. We had the joy and excitement of the Christmas magic to announce our rainbow and in an instant it was all gone. Our little Riley was in Heaven with their siblings. Our hearts shattered. One of the only things that gave me even a shred of peace is that Riley is with me, physically still. After a methotrexate injection for an ectopic pregnancy the body absorbs the embryonic tissue meaning that some of Rileys DNA was absorbed into my bloodstream. We will forever miss Riley along with our other children, but I am thankful we shared the news of Riley and we were able to announce. Riley was so loved and wanted by so many, even in the short time she/he existed.

We love you Riley Blake. Fly high love.