Sadness part 1

I think to say I'm sad feels just not enough. There's this whole sense of vulnerability and rawness and its just so very hard. I don't think I even want to put a name with it, but just to know its there.

This year was already hard enough, Helena was diagnosed with an extra membrane near one of her aorta heart valves and just coming to terms with that was enough.  You see the week I found out I was pregnant was the same week I also had to bear the heaviness of my kid maybe not being okay.  There was a lot of emotion, happy and sad.

And then this week happened. I was not warned by anything. I was nearing 13 weeks and I was just beginning to tell people about a baby coming. I was thinking it was okay to do that and not have to untell everyone just a few days later.  I thought I was going to meet my fourth live baby healthy and happy come this November.

 I woke up on Tuesday night with blood soaked underwear, but felt nothing, there was no warning sign of anything being wrong.  Yes Monday had been a rough day, but we all have those. Last time I miscarried it started with a little trickle and then got worse.  This time wasn't like that.  I felt fine and pregnant going to bed but that changed. I don't even know how to write the next part, except to say that there was sadness and flashbacks and me calling a friend, and Keith calling the midwife.  She was so calm and said if I wasn't in any pain I could wait till morning to get checked out.

I cried a lot that night, I texted friends who I thought would listen. One happened to be up in the middle of the night and was kind and listened. I couldn't talk, but I wrote.  I cancelled appointments and called off work because at least one thing had changed, and unlike last time where I tried to go on and ignore everything, I knew that I couldn't this time. So I didn't.

I called the midwife, and for a bit because of how the bleeding was she wasn't convinced it was a miscarriage, but she thought at the very least I needed to go in and see an OB to get Rhogam due to my Rh negative blood and having a significant blood loss and hopefully he would give us good news with a ultrasound.  So as soon as his office opened I called and I got a standing appointment for that afternoon with knowing that we would be waiting since we were last minute.

There was a lot of not knowing what to do with myself.  A friend came over and brought food with her knowing I probably didn't eat and she was right, I didn't.  Food never appeals to me when life is rough. She sat with my while her kids played with my kids, it was nice.  And then another friend just happened to be in the area that day and said she would come over to babysit the kids when we needed to go to our appointment, she didn't have anything pressing and just wanted to help.

And you guys, that's the one thing that I feel that God was there.  Because lately, when I'm struggling, I remind myself that God is there in that moment. That I'm not alone, and at this moment I could feel God's presence in the way that people were willing to come and help and be there for us.

So we went to the appointment, and it was a bit of a drive to this particular doctor, and the one thing that kept coming to my mind was that I couldn't will this away.  That no matter what, the outcome would be the outcome and while I was hoping that it was just a bleed from the placenta lifting, I had no idea what we would find out.

The OB came in and he was really kind and funny, and oddly he brought in two med students with him that day too, and at this point I've come to not care about those things, but I'm sure it was awkward for them, since I would think for the most part they haven't experienced the ups and downs of being in the field yet. But the doctor, he was really nice and just had a comforting presence.

As soon as he did the ultrasound, he was sad to say that he didn't have good news. He instead had to tell us our baby died and it looked like it died a few days before.  There was no heartbeat and it had stopped growing. Even though at this point my heart already had some sadness, at this point my heart offiically broke.