The Invisible Loss

I’ve learned things that I didn’t know. Like that sometimes you don’t lose a pregnancy suddenly but instead by slow, measurable days.
They diagnosed the pregnancy as ectopic on June 10, but it wasn’t until July 2 that the amount of pregnancy hormone in my blood was low enough to count as negative. Still measurable, just not high enough to show up anywhere other than a blood test. Which meant that for most of June I experienced symptoms that otherwise would’ve sent my heart racing in excitement at the possibility; signs that would’ve had me reaching for a home pregnancy test; and the cruelest part is that for most of June, the test would’ve come back positive.
I lost her day by day, minute by minute.
Sometimes as I’m falling asleep, I go back to that day and imagine what it would’ve been like if we’d seen something on the ultrasound. Instead of the tech searching and searching and my grip on A’s hand getting tighter and tighter, what if we’d seen a little sac with a little bean baby inside it?
Instead she was hidden away, betrayed by my body that couldn’t give her a safe place to grow. Instead, I lost her, the little invisible life that took with her a piece of mine.

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