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.