A Small Piece Of The Story

I lost two babies in 2007. We (my ex husband and I) finally worked up the nerve to try to give our son a sibling. It took 7 years to get to a place where we felt like we could. Our son had Chiari Malformation decompression surgery in January 2006, and his quality of life was better than ever. We celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary with a trip to Maui in August of that same year. We had a beautiful, intimate vow renewal on the beach. We were in a healthy, happy point in our lives as special needs parents, and as a couple. I threw out my birth control pills on the second day in Maui. 

We got pregnant pretty quickly. My pregnancy with my son had been glorious. No morning sickness, I was stacked like a porn star, and every test came back positive for good things, and negative for bad. It was a breeze. His delivery was NOT. But that's another story.

At 12 weeks, we went in for an ultrasound. I had some spotting while we were on a camping trip the previous weekend, but I wasn't terribly worried. I had some spotting with my first pregnancy too, and it turned out to be nothing. My husband got the day off work, and we were going to get our little Polaroid photo, and go have lunch. We were joking around about trying to decipher our little *gummy bear* out of the shadows of the grainy ultrasound printout. 

The technician first put the Doppler wand on my belly, to try to find a heartbeat. No heartbeat. She confirmed my dates, and then used the actual ultrasound to try to see our baby. The screen awoke, and there was our gummy bear! I smiled and my eyes filled with tears. She took some measurements, and again confirmed my dates. I knew immediately something was wrong. There was no movement. Our baby was lying on it's back, and we had a perfect profile view. I stared at the screen, willing it to show me the flutter of a heartbeat. Any kind of movement at all. When she took the measurements, I saw that the computer assigned them a size measurement of 8 weeks. The technician turned off the screen, and excused herself from the room. When the door closed, I burst into tears and told my husband "There's no heartbeat!" He made comforting noises, and was trying to be positive. When the technician returned, she explained what she could, but instructed us to wait for my OB/GYN to call.

There was no heartbeat.

I don't remember the rest of that day....what we did, or even the OB/GYN call. I remember that my fears were confirmed. And I remember feeling what I can only guess, was my heart shattering into tiny shards. 

I can't go into details about how I miscarried, or why the Catholic hospital  my OB/GYN's office was affiliated with demanded I go through a very traumatic and painful miscarriage, induced by medication at home. I can't go into the details because it still hurts. It was psychologically, emotionally and physically..... Tearing. It tore my soul wide open. 

I couldn't stand the unfairness of this loss, following the unfairness of my son's struggles and pain with ACM1. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to keep happening to good people, DAMN. IT. 

I spent the next 2 weeks in a fog. Some of it medication induced. I needed to be allowed to feel emotional pain only in small doses. Even writing about it now, I'm a little dizzy, and need to stop. I'm aware right in this moment that a torn soul....perhaps never fully heals.

To be continued.....