My little guy

The title of this blog may lead you to believe this post is about Mason.

It isn't.

2 years ago today, I had an extremely traumatic miscarriage. I've never really wrote about it in detail on here (although I have mentioned it). For some reason, I feel like I've put him on the back burner, especially since having Mason. I never talk about him, I never really talk to others about him, and I don't fight to keep his memory alive with others (I do, however, think about him multiple times a day). Every year in October I light a candle for him (October 15 being a day of remembrance for all babies who were taken too soon). It doesn't seem like enough. I don't even talk to Scott about him- I think its just too fresh and painful still, for either of us.

I guess the truth is, I don't really know how to talk about him. I only knew him for a short time. I never felt him move or kick. I saw his little heartbeat, and I saw him on an ultrasound twice. I'll never forget either time. I'll never forget the whole experience I had with him- it taught me so much.

I can remember going to the ER one night after seeing a bit of blood. I was already on edge due to a previous miscarriage. They hooked me up, did an ultrasound, and assured me that everything was perfect. He was measuring just as he should, he had a strong heart beat, and he looked incredibly healthy. This gave me so much peace- I thought the first miscarriage was surely a fluke, and this was the real deal. I was only about 11 weeks along at this point, too soon to tell what it was. About a week later, I started bleeding again, but this time slightly more. I went back to the ER (again, I needed some sort of peace of mind). They hooked me up to the ultrasound machine again, except this time midway through he turned the screen from me. I knew right then something was wrong. I could still see the screen, although I had to strain to see it. The familiar heartbeat didn't come across, nor did any movement. They told me to hang tight, a doctor would be in shortly to talk to me. The doctor was a huge jerk- came in and said, "the baby is dead, I'm sorry". Very matter of factly, as if this happened to everyone, and my number had been called. I just stared at him, then I burst into tears. He apologized for his lack of bedside manner. He instructed me to make an appointment with my doctor first thing in the morning so I could discuss options- as if I really had a ton of them.

I made the appointment, and got in almost right away. The doctor ordered blood work- she wasn't 100% convinced that the ultra sound tech knew what he was doing. She couldn't understand why my body was holding on to the baby if it had, in fact, passed. The blood tests gave me a false hope- like maybe my eyes had betrayed me when I saw the ultrasound. I got my hopes up again. The results came back, and it confirmed what my heart knew- the baby had passed. Since I was still healthy, my doctor opted to let my body work the way it was supposed to. If I got sick, she'd do a d&c.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I prayed that somehow the blood work and ultrasound were both wrong, that somehow a miracle was taking place inside me.

Nearly 3 weeks later, when I was 15 1/2 weeks "pregnant", my body decided to quit being a jerk. I was sitting on a chair outside. I went to re-adjust myself, then I heard a big POP, as if someone dropped a water balloon next to me. I looked down and noticed the porch was covered in blood. I calmly went inside to see what was up. In less than 4 minutes, the bathroom looked as though someone had been murdered. Blood everywhere. I couldn't make it stop. I was visiting my aunt at the time- I told her I should probably head to the hospital, but not before I attempted to wash off (you can only imagine how much blood there was). Clearly, I was not thinking straight. I got as clean as I could, and got in the car. In the 10 minutes it took to get to the hospital, I had soaked through a roll of paper towels that I had Macgyvered into a pad/diaper thing. As soon as I got out of the car, I had a huge gush of blood start. The poor lady at the front entrance of the hospital- I'll never forget the look on her face. After I was rushed back to a room (they didn't even check me in), I got into a gown and passed out. I woke up to the nurse putting a cold cloth on my head. I got violently ill, which prompted another nurse to come in and help. Soon, I had a team of 8 medical professionals in my room, trying to figure out the next course of action. The doctor who was checking me out asked for a plastic tub from the nurse- that's when the baby came out- no pushing or anything required.

The doctor thought that maybe since the baby was out, I'd quit bleeding. No such luck. In fact, it seemed to pick up. They had a phlebotomist come in to attempt to put an IV in for some fluids and a potential blood transfusion. 18 sticks later, and they called in a guy with special certification to put IVs in arteries. They were going for my neck, and I was flipping out. While we were waiting for the OB on call to show up (which, coincidentally, was my doctor), I asked the nurse about the baby. I asked if she could tell what it was, and she said it was a boy. She asked if I wanted to see him, but I told her no. I wanted her to reassure me that he wouldn't be treated as trash, that he would be taken care of. She did. I remember saying "I know this seems dumb, but I can't look at him. I know if I do, I wont let him go. I wont be able to- I don't even want to let him go as it is". I tried to cry for him, but I couldn't. I was numb. My aunt looked at him for me- she told me he looked peaceful. That's all I needed to know. As the super certified phlebotomist hung my bed upside down, attempting to look at my neck, another nurse got an artery in my wrist- I was saved from having my neck being pierced, thank goodness. My doctor showed up, and informed me that I had to be taken to emergency surgery because the placenta wasn't releasing itself. I also needed to have a blood transfusion (which ended up being two). I was whisked away to surgery, while my baby was sent up to the lab to have tests performed on him.

Obviously, I survived the surgery. A piece of my heart is still in that emergency room though. I think about him everyday- I didn't even name him. I call him Baby B in my head, mainly because he was my second miscarriage, and because he was a boy. I like to think he's watching over us, helping guide me with raising Mason and the girls. I wish it didn't happen to us. I wish we had a different outcome. But I cherish the lessons I learned with this loss.

I wish I could talk to him. I'd apologize for being a coward and not looking at him when I had the chance. I'd hold him close to my heart, knowing that was the last thing he heard. I'd tell him that a day doesn't go by without me thinking of him, and that I have never once stopped loving him. I loved him from the very beginning of his life, and I'll love him until the end of mine.

For now, all I can do is pray. Pray for comfort, pray for healing, and pray that he has a better life in Heaven then he ever would have had with us.