So, Thanks

I have to thank so many friends and families for so much support and happiness that anything I writes just lapses into cliché and sap.

So, to everyone who has shared in my joy and supported me through pains and sorrows, thanks.

So, Now?

Now, I am getting back to normal, there just isn't anything else to do. I still find I like to have a series of distractions to keep me from reminiscing. It's a bit harder right now because L still has the physical pain of the D & E to deal with. She is mostly fine, but by the end of each day, she wears out and she gets cramps.

Sports and Abba, that has been the focus for a bit. Things that are fun without being particularly thought-provoking, that's what I like right now. Fortunately the absurdist comedy that is the Browns' season is completely lacking in any sort of tension. Will they win, this week? That's not really a question at this point. Abba has been a favorite for ear candy for a while, but my father took me to "Mamma Mia!" last week, so now I have a bevy of catchy tunes stuck in my head rather than pesky deep thoughts.

It doesn't always work, but it helps.

It is weird, I keep telling myself that I didn't lose anyone, really, I lost the possibility of someone. It's just that telling myself that doesn't really help. I was looking forward with delight to another 18 years of parenting just as much as I had looked forward to the plans we had in place before the pregnancy. Knowing now that we can go back to those plans helps, it helps a little more each day. Whatever happens, I expect L and I to have a wonderful life together.

Will we try again for another baby? Probably not. We have reached the age where we had always planned to exit our baby-having years, and we are still thrilled to look forward to our lives together. Our grief tells us differently, but we had good reasons for making our plans as we did and we see that this is probably not a great time to make huge changes to those plans.

Family, close and extended, has been a huge comfort through this time. I have been blessed in my life to never have to go through any adversity alone. Except, of course, being the only person in the whole world who could possibly understand me from ages 12 - 18. Though, that probably doesn't count.

Moving On

11/09/2009

So, it has been a week.

New Baby stopped developing early in the week 13 (Last week was our 4 month check-up) - one of the quietest weeks we had. We will never know why. Because of the time lapsed, there was no information to be gained after the pregnancy ended last Wednesday.

What we do know: We did everything right. Living with the possibility of miscarriage for so long, we followed every precaution we could. Our quiet motto was to do nothing that we could regret later, nothing that we would look back upon and blame ourselves if the worst happened. We knew the job was dangerous when we took it, and we were careful. There is no extra rest L could have had, no extra step we could have taken, this was simply how it was going to be. That being said, I have never had a smaller comfort. Like Genny told us(while holding back tears),"We were always walking on eggshells here, we just hoped we could get through, somehow."

Pulling the Rug Out from Under Us

I have been accused of burying leads before, so let me make sure I don't here: L is no longer pregnant. Writing about these stresses helps me, as does posting it to "Time for Meds", so I am doing so.

Monday, L woke with just enough cramping and spotting that she decided to stay home rather than go to school. I had taken the day off work rather than have to scramble from Mayfield to home to Parma for the midwife appointment.

And so we slept. The appointment was at 3:30, and we didn't have to be anywhere, so we slept for quite a while and woke up when L became too hungry to stay in bed. J2 had one of his phantom fevers in the morning, so he was home from school, but he loves to sleep through a morning, so he didn't wake up until the eggs and mashed potatoes were ready for breakfast.

We spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing. Mostly, we watched "Psych" on Hulu until it was time to head out.

Around 3, J1 was home to watch his brother, and we were on our way to Genny's office. Everything was great; compared with the prior troubles, the pains from that morning - that had not returned after the extended night's sleep - were nothing. L felt great. L felt relaxed. L felt well-fed. It was a good day.

Genny wasn't ready for us when we checked in, so we did what we always do: We sat in the waiting room, quietly judging the interactions between the other patients and writing a list of updates and questions for Genny like we were writing an essay thats due date had sneaked up on us. Fortunately, Genny's office doesn't move on time, so we can always wrap up our list before we get called in.

We finally got called, and we went in. The assistant weighed L and deposited us in the office where we could wait some more. Blood pressure was good, weight was good, everything was good.


Genny arrived and we chatted with her for a bit - she'd like to see a little more weight gain, but at least there was no drop this month, yes, we want the Quad Check, wait until next week for the ultrasound, don't worry about the cravings, but make sure to get protein, OK, let's hear this baby's heartbeat....

A few posts ago, I told you about how I love baby's heartbeats - they are the most joyful noise I know. In that post I talked about how things that happened quickly seemed to take forever. I was wrong. THIS took forever.

Genny spent minutes - really, minutes - poking L's belly with the Doppler, reapplying gel, lowering the Doppler, going from any angle she could find, eventually pressing so hard I knew it had to be hurting L. Nothing. There simply was no heartbeat.

Genny, obviously shaken, told us we had to move up our ultrasound to ASAP, and that here at 16 weeks she really should be able to hear a heartbeat. She talked to L about other stuff, but I was on the phone to the ultrasound lab. While L got her blood taken for the quad check and I moved our appointment up from Thursday to Tuesday (the next day). Before we got to the car we had an appointment at Parma Community in a shade over an hour.

We grabbed some water for L at a gas station and headed out to the hospital. We figured to tell no one until we had confirmed the miracle of finding the baby hiding behind L's spleen, but I had dinner with my father scheduled. I called him to cancel and he asked how I was - it's always the tough questions that break me down. I told him I wasn't well and that I would have to cancel. He said fine and proceeded to chat. I couldn't do it. I said, "look, I can't talk, the midwife couldn't find a heartbeat and we have to get to the hospital." After a little more talking: don't tell the boys, OK, you can tell my sister.

Now we had to tell everyone - except the boys. My family couldn't know and L's not. Not because of politics, but because it just doesn't feel right, someone in my family can't know without everyone knowing. It's just how it is. Besides, we want all of the good thoughts and prayers we can have walking into this situation.

We got to the hospital and got checked in. Waiting for our number to be called at check-in reminded me of the elevator scene in Blues Brothers sans "The Girl From Ipanema"; disaster was clearly waiting for us, but here was an oddly calm interlude.

We got checked in and followed the red line to radiology. We barely waited when we were taken in to the Ultrasound Room. After some adjustments the tech found the baby. Thankfully, the monitor faced away from L. New Baby Medvick, who, just 6 weeks before in the midst of L's worst bleeding bounced and swam so very actively, was completely still. No heartbeat, no movement.

This had just become the worst day of my life.