Grief-stricken

My hands are shaky as I type this and my eyes are swollen from hours of crying. I have no idea how to even start and I've debated back and forth about if or how I was even going to write about what we've been going through since yesterday. It's incredibly personal. It's incredibly difficult. It's incredibly heartbreaking. But I've come to the conclusion that I need to write this. I need to write it for me. I need to write it for every other parent who has gone through this and who feels alone. Or for every other parent who feels like no one understands. I just need to write it.

We lost our baby.

I can't even breathe right now.

My head is pounding and my eyes are burning from sobbing for so long. My body is exhausted and our hearts are absolutely broken. Shattered.

Here is our story.

I came out of the bathroom at school yesterday shaking, wiping my tears away, trying to get myself together before I stepped back into my classroom full of my kindergarten kids. The blood had started at that moment and my heart immediately started to crumble.

I all of a sudden found myself hiding out with my cell phone in a quiet room in the school, sobbing to my mom, Terry and my sister as they frantically tried to get a hold of our doctor and set up an appointment for me before the end of the day. I felt like I was in a dream. Watching this happening to someone else. Pretending that it wasn't real.

As I hung up the phone I wiped away my tear streaked face, dabbed some powder around my eyes to cover up the evidence, took a deep breath and walked back to class. Because life moves on when 24 little children are waiting for you. As we walked down to the gym together for an assembly, a little four year old hand clutching mine with every tiny step that she took I could feel the cramping coming on and I felt my body starting to tremble.

This isn't happening, I kept telling myself.

I had had bleeding before with Carter's pregnancy and I now have a beautifully healthy boy, so I tried to convince myself that we would be so lucky once again. But as I sat watching the assembly, a little girl snuggled up in my lap, I knew that something just wasn't right.

As my stomach started to sink and I could feel my body cramping and starting the terrible process, the little girl snuggled up so tightly on my lap leaned over to me, unaware that in that very moment my heart was actually shattering, and she whispered "I love you so much". 

Tears welled up in my eyes as I hugged her and rocked her back and forth.

From a little girl who has been through more tragedy and unimaginable treatment from others than any child should ever have to endure, she needed me in that moment, but what she didn't realize is that I needed her even more.

I left school shortly after that and all of a sudden Terry and I were sitting in our doctors office, telling him about what had happened, holding back our tears, willing him to tell us that we'd be okay...that our baby would be okay.

His eyes told us otherwise.

We left the office with paperwork in our hands, sending us for blood work and an ultrasound. Terry and I didn't speak. We held hands, walking in a daze out to our car. It felt like the world was spinning--everything out of control. Every step that I took was heavy. Every breath that I took was deep. Everything felt different.

As my name was called and I walked into the ultrasound room my heart was pounding and my mouth was dry...I could barely breathe.

I laid down and watched as the cool gel was placed on my belly and I looked up at the ceiling, begging God to please save us. Save our family. Save our baby. Please don't take this from us. Tears streamed down my face with every aching moment of silence in that room. Each click from her computer key echoed throughout the room as I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Then she broke the silence..."I'll go get your husband", she told me. And I was all of a sudden alone in that dark room.

I sat up immediately and looked at the screen that she had hidden from me and stared at it intently, trying to figure out what she had found. I saw a sac--the same beautiful sac that we had seen only weeks before where our baby's heartbeat fluttered so perfectly and that tiny baby was so...well, perfect.

She walked into the room with Terry, and I laid back down. Terry stood beside me as she turned the screen towards us. I could barely breathe. My entire body felt heavy and I wanted to run. Run away from this moment. Run away from what she was about to tell me. Run away from the pain that I knew was coming. I just wanted to run.

She looked at both of us and the words "There has been a demise" came out of her mouth.

I crumbled as she pointed to the screen. I couldn't stand the pain. It was too much to endure. It was too much for any human being to bare. I looked over at Terry as tears filled his eyes.

"I'm so sorry" she said, "I'm so very sorry".

We walked out of that building, hand in hand, in complete silence, in a horrible, exhausting daze...and with the slam of the car doors behind us we sobbed. We held each other and sobbed. There were no words. Just uncontrollable tears. The world was closing in on us as we sat in that car and the grief took hold of us. A grief that I had never felt before. A grief so deep that it's indescribable. Because losing a child is like nothing else.

"I need to go to mom and dad's house", I said once I finally caught my breath.

And all of a sudden we were pulling up to their house, getting out of the car and falling into their arms.
My dad literally had to hold me up as I wept like I have never wept before--every inch of my body wanted to fall to the floor in grief, but he held me up...and we all cried. Sobbed. The grief was too much.

"Why is this happening to us??" I kept crying. "Terry losing his job is more than we can handle right now--but why did we have to lose our baby too?".

All within two weeks of each other.

Mya came over to me gently "Why are you crying mommy?" she said.
I didn't know what to say. How do you even begin to tell a three year old that her baby sister/brother is no longer with us? How do you even begin to tell her that her own dreams of being a big sister again are also shattered? She was so excited about this baby. No one prepares you for these moments in parenting. No one prepares you for a broken heart.

"Mommy's just really sad Mya", I said slowly..."because we were just at the doctors office and he told us that our baby unfortunately isn't with us anymore. The baby died and is now in Heaven"...and I froze...not knowing what to do or say next.

"No mommy, I want that baby to be in your belly. I want to take that baby home", she said as she wrapped her arms around my neck and nuzzled into my chest.

"I know, I know...I want that too", I said carefully, "But it's okay because that baby is in Heaven with God now. God is holding our baby and rocking our baby and taking such good care of him/her. I'm so sad that we can't have our baby here with us too. I'm so so sad too Mya", I said.

And we all cried.

I held Mya as I put the phone up to my ear to call Jen and Jeff.

"Hello?" she said.

And I sobbed. I just sobbed. Uncontrollable tears that took my breath away.

And she cried. The two of us not even saying a word--because she knew without the words. She knew that our world was crumbling at our feet and all that she could do was feel the grief with us. We all felt it.

Terry and I went to bed last night with swollen, burning eyes. We stayed at mom and dad's house and held each other in bed as we wept together, holding each other until there were no tears left. Until our bodies gave out and the dark began to tell us to rest.

I laid in bed absolutely exhausted, but willing the morning to come. I couldn't sleep as flashbacks of that ultrasound screen haunted me and as my body continued to cramp, torturing me with the reality that the loss was happening. Terrified to even step into the bathroom because I didn't want to be faced with what I might see. Dark grief tortured me all night long. And when I finally heard Carter's cries from his crib in the room next to us that morning and I heard my mom's footsteps into his room to get him I curled over to Terry and cried, because a new day was here...which meant that a new grief was emerging once again.


Erica xo