I'll Carry You In My Heart

It has been a long time since I have written.  There have been so many good things happening since my last post that I couldn't wait to write about when the time was right.

Then, the bad happened.

I will write about all of the good things soon, but I need to write this story while it is still fresh.

June 8th, we found out we were expecting.  Dan and I were both elated.  Gabe was going to be a big brother!  We started celebrating that day.  We told our families via a super cute Big Brother T-shirt on Gabe.  Our baby's due date was February 13, 2014.  Finally a reason to celebrate Valentines day!

The next few weeks business happened as normal, life is crazy all the time, but we documented the ever growing belly that I had.  We told Gabe all about his baby and he even started lifting my shirt and kissing my belly.  Dan would take time to rub my belly, and talk to our baby.  We would tell the baby how much we loved it and all about it's family and all the people so excited to meet it.

We were waiting to tell the world our good news until our midwife appointment on Tues. July 23rd.  We would finally hear our little Sprout's heartbeat that day.  I was fighting a stomach bug the day before, and thought about postponing the appointment, but decided I was way too excited to even really think about that.
We go to the appointment and our two wonderful midwives are just as excited as we are.  This will be a homebirth and we all get a little giddy talking about how great a big brother Gabe will be.  We then take the doppler and see if we can hear the heartbeat.  Since it's still under 11 weeks, we need to use the early sensor.

The doppler is silent.  Neither midwife seems concerned since it is still early.  My heart started sinking a little, but I try to remain positive.  We set up an appointment for the following week, to give the baby more time to grow and have a better chance at hearing that precious sound.

We head home and are having a normal evening.  I had to use the restroom and when I did, I realized I was spotting lightly.  I started getting a little more concerned, but reminded myself that I bled much worse early on in Gabe's pregnancy.

I called my midwife, and she suggests ordering an ultrasound the next day.  To ease both our minds.  We both think that the spotting could just be from the stomach bug I have irritating everything in that area.  The spotting stops a short while later and I let her know.  She asks if I would still like an ultrasound, and we decide that it would be a good idea.  Just to calm nerves and fears.

So, on Wed July 24th, Dan and I go into the hospital for an ultrasound.  By this point, I am spotting again and really starting to get scared.  My mom meets us at the hospital to watch Gabe while we are having the ultrasound.

They call us back and with every step I take, my stomach clenches a little more.  The tech is very nice and asks due date etc.  She turns down the lights and positions the ultrasound screen away from me.  In my mind, I know this is protocol and I shouldn't read into it, but at this point, everything is scaring me.  She begins the ultrasound and asks if my midwife wanted to see me later that day.  I told her that we hadn't really talked about it, but it would kind of depend on what they found.  The next few minutes are complete torture.  The tech is totally silent through the entire thing, as is protocol, I can't see what is going on and frankly, the transvaginal ultrasound is not the most comfortable thing to endure in the world.

The tech finishes and says that she will take the images over to the doctor there to evaluate and that they would come and go over everything with us.  She leaves.  Dan and I are now alone, in a dark room for I have no idea how long.  To me, it seems like hours.  It probably wasn't more than 15 minutes.

Finally she comes back and tells me that she has my midwife on the phone and she would like to speak with me.  My heart drops at this point.  I know.  As she hands me the phone, Dan wraps me up and I try to choke back the tears that are threatening.

My midwife has no idea that they haven't said a word to us and we have no idea what is going on.  She proceeds to tell me that all they let her know is that the baby isn't growing and doesn't have a heartbeat.  I am done at this point.  She gives me a quick overview of our options and says we don't have to decide right now and to take our time.  She understands that Dan and I are very much the "what are our next steps" type people and that helps.

I hang up with my midwife and collapse into Dan.  My worst nightmare has happened.  The tech comes back in and gently asks if there is anything she can do, I ask her to go get my mom.  The tech tells us that it looked like the baby stopped growing around 7 weeks and 4 days.

My mom and Gabe come in and we all cry and hug.  There really isn't much else to do.  I reached the point where I couldn't be in that room anymore.  I had to leave.  So we went over to the birth center to meet with the midwife and talk options and get more information.  Information soothes me, it gives me a productive outlet when I don't know what else to do. Our midwife is wonderful and is upset along with us.  She loved this baby too.  I have to say, I adore my midwives for how much they really care about their clients like family.

Dan and I decide to let nature take it's course and see if the miscarriage will complete on it's own.  The next day is a horribly painful waiting game.  Cramping begins in the afternoon on Thursday and with every one I cry all over again.  In labor, you can talk yourself through contractions by reminding yourself what you are work towards.  This is like a sick joke.  Every cramp means that it's closer to being over, but what is "it" exactly?  "It" is the reality that our baby has died.  The cramps continue through the night getting increasingly more painful.  While the rest of my family sleeps, I am laboring through delivering our baby.  I am using the terms labor and deliver because that is what it was.  It felt like labor and in the end, our baby is born.

I will spare the gory details, but it was finally done around  3 am.  I had been speaking with our other midwife through everything and keeping Dan updated to what is happening.   I wanted to be alone for this.  I knew that Gabe would need someone the next day and we couldn't both be exhausted.  I also needed to do this myself to heal.  I delivered our baby in the bathroom of our house.  So we had a homebirth.

The next day I had an eerie sense of peace.  I still felt horrible and continued grieving, but at least we were beginning to move forward.  The waiting had been terrible and I am thankful it was only for a day.  I had been able to catch the baby and on Saturday one of our midwives came over and made sure everything was intact and nothing was left behind.  She brought flowers and we created a perfect little coffin with flowers in a box that had once held some of my grandmother's jewelry.

We are going to bury our baby soon and plant a bleeding heart with it as it's headstone.  Our hearts are broken and not soon going to mend.

I wrote this because I want to celebrate the fact that this child existed, even for such a short time.  It is still our baby and we love it very much.  I don't want to pretend it never happened.  I don't want to forget.  This is our second child.

We have been surrounded by so much love and support the last few days.  For that I will be forever grateful.
We are not alone in our experience.  1/4 pregnancies end in loss.  No one talks about it.  We are expected to mourn in silence and not bother others with our sadness.  I share our story to help others who may be dealing with a loss of their own, to know they are not alone.

You would think that after all of this, I would feel differently about birth.  I do.  I feel stronger about it.  I view birth as an even more beautiful and powerful experience now than ever before.  I honestly can't wait to attend my next birth as a doula.  To experience the joyful side again.

I know that as time goes on, days will get easier.  We will laugh, we will be happy.  We have so much to be happy about.  For now though, sometimes, we just need to cry. Someday, we will get pregnant again, and Gabe and our third child, will know about their sibling that left too soon.

For now, we have one child in our arms and another carried in our hearts.