The Difficult One....

     I have struggled and wondered if I should write/share this blog, I changed my mind several times over and wrestled with it being something so terribly personal and then feeling like I needed to share. Once we began communicating with the outside world again we were amazed at how many others had lost a baby as well and I feel it is important to let others know that they aren't alone.

    Jim and I debated about the right timing of starting a family for awhile. We both knew we wanted children it was just a matter of waiting for things to line up, and then the time just came that we realized "what are we waiting for?" And then it happened and we finally saw those two pink lines! It was a little hard to believe as I had very few symptoms. I cannot even explain the complete happiness and relief I felt when we saw that little heart beating on the ultrasound in our tiny bean. I was relieved too that I seemed to be gliding right through the first three months with some nausea and my only food aversions were super sweet sugary foods and ground beef (I actually craved fruit). Jim was the worry-wart and would have had me in a hamster ball if he could have and was constantly telling me what I should/should not be doing/eating. Then it was time for our second and 11 week appointment. The doctor let us know that all the tests from our first appointment came back perfectly and she found Baby E's heartbeat with ease and it was still going right along at a healthy 170 beats per minute. The doctor even gave us the green light to plan a camping trip and eased some of Jim's fears. Again I was in complete bliss of how wonderfully things were going.
     On Friday February 17th I had a bit of a racing heartbeat (like when you have too much caffeine) and my mom and Jim convinced me to call the OB who I was sure would tell me to just take the rest of the day and relax. Instead they suggested I go to the ER just to be sure... still I was confident in Baby E's health just worried I would be labeled with high blood pressure or gestational diabetes. My EKG's came back normal and the ER staff was very upbeat and casual and seemed to have no concerns. After several tests the nurse came in with a doppler to check fetal heart tones just in case before releasing me. She was unable to find them but let us know it wasn't her specialty as it wasn't something they had to do all the time, she went to get another nurse who also couldn't find them but explained that their doppler was not as sophisticated as the one the OB doctor had and left to get the ultrasound. Still I sat confident and waited eagerly as this meant we would get an extra chance to see Baby E as something more than a bean. And we did, for a few moments we saw the profile of a perfect little baby before it seemed all we could see was the top of Baby E's head. The nurse commented that he (we were sure Baby E was a boy) flipped, which seemed reasonable with someone poking at him with an ultrasound wand. She brought the doctor in to try to get back to a profile view of Baby E and with much poking and prodding he was unable to view more than the top of Baby E's head. Then he said that it was not good that Baby E was not moving and that "sometimes these things happen" I felt like someone had jerked the world out from under me. I barely heard him say that maybe Baby E was sleeping and he would like me to have a better ultrasound done in radiology. The radiologist began looking at Baby E and taking measurements, she was able to see a profile and I clearly saw our perfect little baby being perfectly still and began to cry. Later the doctor again explained that "these things happen" and "nature sometimes knows the child would have had a disability" but I was prepared for that, I know all too well the likelihood of having a child with a disability and had concerns but knew it was something that we could handle and that we would be a family just the same (after all I see happy families every day).  I just couldn't wrap my mind around the truth and just wanted to go home. 
 The weekend seemed to take forever. Fortunately we had family visiting and it kept our minds busy and allowed us a break from the constant thinking. We did a lot of crying and wondering just what happened. Had we really heard Baby E's heart beat at the 11 week appointment? Had I done something in the past week? Maybe it was that one time that (insert anything here). The doctor reassured us that she could see that Baby E had made it to 12 weeks and that Baby E appeared to have developed normally up to that point. She did discuss with us that we would need to have some testing done after my hormones returned to normal to check for several things it is not common to lose a baby after the 12 week mark. The worst moments for me were going into surgery and coming out of surgery, it was the only time that I knew they were going to take my baby away and that my baby was really gone that Jim could not be by my side.

  In the four weeks since we found out I have had many moments or days where I am sad, angry, or confused. Tuesdays are the hardest since those are the days I was technically into the next week and I always think I would have been 14/15/16 weeks and of course I had read ahead in the What to Expect book and can recall exactly what I should have been expecting. I am sad when I see my not growing tummy. I worry that testing will find something and I worry that it will find nothing. I am jealous of those who have perfect first pregnancies and realize that I will never again know that blissful and trusting "My body is amazing, and can create another human" feeling without the deep fear that something will go wrong. I am angry that this happened to us. I am not sure what comes next. For the first time in a very long time I do not know what to plan for. I trust that there will be better days (even Tuesdays) in the future and that we will have beautiful and healthy children one day.