I remember a really sharp pain.

It was on a Friday after school and Ms. Taylor was teaching a few of us a dance for the homecoming pep assembly.

And then I felt a really sharp pain.

I had no idea that something was wrong. I don’t dance, so I was like, eh, whatever; I probably just moved weird or did something stupid. It really wasn’t until the next morning that I thought something could be wrong because the next morning I started spotting.

I took another pregnancy test and the line wasn’t as dark as it had been before; this time it was really light. I hurried out and bought one of those expensive tests that definitively tell you whether you are or are not pregnant, and this one said I was for sure not pregnant. And I was like, wait, what’s going on here?

By this point, I was bleeding so much; it was just coming out in droves. It was like a period, but quadrupled. It was really clotty and gross.

Then, the cramps started. The pain was absolutely unbearable and I didn’t even want to get out of bed; I felt so sick.

Hour by hour it just got worse and worse.

Finally, I called the doctor, only to be faced with the worst news imaginable. News informing me that I would be unable to bring this child into the world.

“You’re probably miscarrying.”

I didn’t do a whole lot that weekend besides cry.

That next Monday, I had a doctors appointment, and they told me there was zero sign that I was ever pregnant, other than the fact that I was still bleeding. Up until this point I was still holding out hope. I kept thinking that things were going to be okay and that I wasn’t really miscarrying. That weekend, all I wanted to do was drink a glass of wine, but I didn’t because I kept thinking, maybe, just maybe.

I decided to come back to school on Tuesday and it was a really bad decision on my part; I should not have come back yet. It wasn’t because of my colleagues that I was about to face because they were such a support for me. I asked a couple other teachers to go ahead and tell everybody what had happened. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I wanted them to tell others so maybe people would understand when I wasn’t acting normal. And my coworkers did more than just understand. Ms. D’Andrea left flowers on my desk for me; Mrs. Sutherland brought treats and dinner for that night and somebody else brought dinner too, and it was really awesome.

My students, on the other hand, weren’t quite so understanding or considerate. Apparently one of my AP classes didn’t like the sub that I had on Monday and didn’t like the assignment that I had very hastily thrown together for them. It wasn’t a good plan, but I really didn’t care.

On my way into the building, a group of girls accosted me in the hallway and started yelling at me about class the day before. I didn’t say anything to them and just kept walking, hoping they would stop talking to me.

Then, another group of kids from that class saw me in the hall and decided the best way to deal with what happened would also be to yell at me about how much they hated the sub. It may very well have been that they were just joking, but it was not the time nor the place to joke about it. So I just laid into them: “You have no idea what people are going through. I wasn’t here yesterday; there’s obviously a reason for that.” And then, because I didn’t care anymore at that point, I said, “You guys want to know why I wasn’t here yesterday? You’re going to feel really bad about it. It’s because I lost a baby.”

And their faces immediately dropped and one girl started bawling, tears pouring down her face.

I said, “I have zero sympathy for any of you.”

Things at home weren’t much better than they were at school; I still was really depressed. One night in November, I was sitting at dinner and I don’t remember what I said exactly, but it was enough to finally set my husband off.

“Either you need to get counseling, or you need to shut up.”

And that was like the snap back to reality that I needed. I don’t think I fully realized how depressed I was. Not only was I miserable, but I was also making the people around me miserable. I hadn’t even realized the depths of my own despair. It took my husband saying this to me for me to notice that he couldn’t handle listening to me anymore. This baby was his, too; he was grieving in his own ways, and I wasn’t helping him. That’s when I decided that I needed to climb out of this hole. And I did–slowly but surely. I was beginning to feel much better about life and by the time February rolled around, I felt a bit more like myself.

As I was still on my way to getting better, my husband and I talked about it and decided around Christmas that we would start trying for a baby again. I think I had doubts about being a mom the first time I got pregnant, but it was pretty clear from how destroyed I was at the loss of my baby that I wanted to be a mother. I may have been uneasy the first time around, but this time I kept thinking, I want to be somebody’s mom. I’m ready.

We tried for two months, and while some women try for months and years with no luck, I was getting stressed that maybe it wouldn’t happen or maybe I’d have another miscarriage, and it was torture. And I feel like once I decided that this is what I wanted, I became hypersensitive and suddenly everywhere I went there were babies. I tried to deactivate my Facebook account, which only lasted for a week, because all over Facebook and on TV and everywhere I looked, people were having babies left and right. But finally, that jealousy turned into shared excitement and joy when I found out that I was pregnant again. 

And then, in October of 2013, I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy: Ethan.

Every once in a while, I hear a story of someone losing a child, and it reminds me of my baby that I lost. The pain and emptiness you feel doesn’t really go away and I was only pregnant for a short period of time. I can’t even imagine what other women experience when they lose a baby at 10 weeks or 20 weeks or they lose a child that they’ve already brought into the world and started to raise. I don’t know how you survive the loss of a child when you’ve been able to hold that baby in your arms, and I hope I never do have to experience that because my loss was bad enough.

But I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything because it gave me Ethan and he has taught me so much.

Ethan makes all the heartache worthwhile. If I hadn’t lost that baby, I wouldn’t have Ethan, and he’s the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me.