Losing

As I drove home, don’t worry I waited until the hysteria had stopped, all I could think about was that the baby inside me was no longer living! That is about the craziest thing I’ve ever had to wrap my mind around. Let me start by explaining that even though the baby’s heart had stopped beating nearly 10 days prior, I still felt pregnant. I was still having my morning (evening) sickness, had already gained a ton of weight (yeah, weird), major league gas (clear the room) and was extremely tired. Oh yes, the cruel irony is that I had been able to enjoy that morning sickness and not being able to eat for 10 days even though technically, I wasn’t pregnant. Evidently the body still makes all those pregnancy hormones leading you into a false sense of security. My false sense of security! Believe me, I had thought about the possibilities of the pregnancy not going full term. After all, I was 40 years old and no spring chicken. But I didn’t REALLY think that it would happen to me. I was thinking like a foolish teenager who thought they could drive home after having one too many beers…Yeah, it happens, but not to me. Crash!!! Fatality - 1.

The next day was my birthday (Oh Joy!). Since I’d had no cramping or bleeding, my Dr. wanted to do a DNC as soon as possible. I let him know I just couldn’t do it on my birthday, so we scheduled it for 2 days later. I didn’t make a cake.

After I got home, hubby and I had the unpleasant task of telling our children. Yes, we are one of those couples that can’t wait to share our news and pretty much call everyone from the bathroom, after the stick shows us the plus sign. Now I know plenty of you are saying, “See, that’s why you should always wait”. Honestly, I just can’t do it. For one, I’m a terrible liar, I am always just ridiculously happy, I can’t keep something like that from my BFF and after waiting so long to have children and all the troubles we had gone through just to have our first, this is who we are. Don’t be hatin’.

The 2 oldest, Jack and Finn took it especially hard. They remember what it's like having babies and look forward to it every time. Dunn and Kelly really didn’t get it and were pretty much like “ok”. I didn't make a cake.

So we get to the day of “the procedure”. I’m nervous and don’t want to talk, even in the car when it’s just me and hubby. We arrive and everything goes “smoothly”. I get home and stay in bed for the rest of the day, and half of the next. No real pain, and some very slight, I mean slight bleeding. At this point I’m thankful that it didn’t have to be a big physical and painful reminder. Until the next day... which changed me forever!

To be continued.

Not a Celebratory Anniversary

I’m coming up on an Anniversary. It isn’t one I’ll celebrate, but it is one that I’ll always hold in my heart. November 26th is the one year Anniversary of my one and only lost (as in no longer pregnant) baby.

I was 12 weeks along and was going in for a diagnostic sonogram because I was measuring 4 wks. larger than my gestational period. This was normal for me ever since I became pregnant with baby #2 when I developed a fibroid. Fibroids will enlarge due to hormones during pregnancy, and shrink back down after birth. For me, it never caused any problems except the oh-look-she’s-4 months-pregnant (when in reality I was only 3) stares, and necessary early maternity clothes. To top it all off I carry big anyway. Go ahead, laugh.

So to me this was just another sonogram to see how large the fibroid was, and make sure everything was fine. I had had a previous sonogram the month before, just to date the pregnancy officially, and due to my AMA (advanced maternal age), see how everything looked.

Yes, just 4 weeks prior, the baby’s heartbeat was “strong” and we looked good to go!! But, on November 26th after I hop up on the table, and she turned the machine on – with sound- I saw and heard a flat-line, under the picture of the baby. I can’t explain it but even though I knew what it meant, I instantaneously pushed that thought away and rationalized that she was checking the blood flow in the cord, or something like that. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at her. She quickly turned the sound off. But I knew. I waited. I waited for her to tell me everything was fine. I waited for her to start taking measurements. I waited for something, anything.

After about 3 minutes I just looked at her and said “There’s no heartbeat is there?” She said “No Sweetie, there isn’t.”

I laid there quietly. Still. Hardly breathing. I still thought the baby would suddenly move around…like it had been holding it’s breath. Not dead. It couldn’t be. I’ve never lost a baby. 4 pregnancies…4 babies. This was number 5, why would it be any different? But it was.

I managed to hold it together, throught the measuring and chronicling of the baby. All I really wanted to do was run out of there screaming No, No, No.

Luckily my preferred Dr. was in that office on that day. I got to see him, which was some comfort since we have a history. We talked about the options of what to do, why it happened and how to proceed.

Mind you, I’m still holding it together. My Dr. handles everything, and I am free to go. Until I see him in another 2 days for the DNC. I get in the parking lot, pull out my cell and call hubby. Instantly, this is when I lose it. Completely. I’m amazed he understood anything I said. Although, when your wife is calling you after a sonogram appt. and she’s hysterical, you pretty much know it’s not good.

Come back as I share more of the details on what went wrong…so very wrong.