Expectations

This was not the post I wanted to write.

This post was supposed to be all scanned-in ultrasound pictures and “can you believe I’m having another December baby” and “ha-ha I got pregnant the day we left for Disney World even though I hadn’t had my period in 42 days!” and “the heartbeat is only 117 OMG – do you think it’s a boy?” and “I found out I was pregnant at my first infertility appointment, what a great story!”

I still have the ultrasound pictures.

In fact, I am still technically pregnant.

But I stopped feeling nauseated two days ago. My boobs stopped hurting a week ago. And nine days ago, a second ultrasound told us that our baby, the baby we waited so long to come, would not be coming after all. Sometime after that first joyous ultrasound, his little heart stopped beating.

For two days, the only thing I got out of bed to do was attend Mother’s Day Tea at Rachel’s school and go to the bathroom. I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t face people. I couldn’t put on a fake smile and ask after their children or their job or their spouse (though I did all that to be there for my little girl’s Mother’s Day program).

I cried a lot. I am still crying, almost every day. That part of me that hoped that they were wrong has been silenced. Dave and I comfort each other in our grief, and comfort Rachel, who had looked confusedly at the first ultrasound pictures and declared her new sibling looked like a dog. She was heartbroken, but in her grief, found it in her heart to crawl into bed with me, stroke my hair and whisper “Shhh, Mommy. It will be okay. I’m here.” She is getting me through. With every prayer to God to take care of our baby and every peal of laughter that gives me some normalcy, she is getting me through.

They estimate the baby died three weeks ago. My body is not giving any sign it will miscarry on its own, so I made the painful and scary decision to have the D&C next Thursday. I got the call from the hospital today to go over my medical history. They asked, “How far along are you?”

How far along am I?

That’s a good question. I didn’t know how to answer. I said 10 weeks, because that’s how far along I would be, under normal circumstances. But I felt the need to clarify – I had to tell the nurse that I wasn’t choosing this, that I had been carrying around my dead baby for three weeks. I just want some closure.

But I’m not throwing away those ultrasound pictures. Not ever.