I'm struggling with reliving certain moments that continue to haunt me. I can remember every minute detail of these moments. With the exception of holding our baby, which I want to remember even though it was extremely painful, I wish I could erase the rest of these memories.
I'm hoping that writing about them helps get them out of my system a bit. I hate talking about these things, but I've found that writing is a good therapy for me.
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The moment my water broke. I was 99% sure what had happened and knew that it was very bad. It's honestly hard not to think about it every time I use that bathroom. That was the moment when everything changed.
The moment in the ER when the doctor confirmed that my water had broken and said that our baby had only a one in a million chance of surviving.
The moment when I started gushing blood. There was so much that it soaked through multiple layers of clothing and the towel I had been sitting on (because water was still leaking). I couldn't leave the bathroom for at least an hour until it slowed down.
The moment I looked in the mirror and realized I didn't have a pregnant belly anymore. Even though the baby was still there, after losing so much fluid my bump was gone.
The moment when I found out that our baby didn't have a heartbeat. I had gone to the hospital alone because I was just supposed to be getting antibiotics to ward off an infection. First a nurse tried to find it with two different dopplers. Then a doctor came to do an ultrasound. He said he thought he didn't see a heartbeat, and then another doctor had to come confirm. The entire process took about an hour.
The moment when I was being wheeled to the labor and delivery floor to be induced and I saw multiple baby items on the way... incubators and cute little blankets. I just sobbed and kept my eyes closed until I was in my room.
The moment when a doctor came to give me induction medications and he kept calling me 'mom.' That made me sob again. How could he not realize that I desperately want to be a mom but that I don't get to be one? That calling me 'mom' when my child won't ever call me that is just rubbing it in my face? I asked him to stop and his response was "Sorry, most women in your position want lots of validation.", said in a very condescending tone.
The moment when at first the epidural only worked on one side (just as things started to get really painful), and the terror I felt that they wouldn't be able to fix it and I would have to feel awful pain without the reward/motivation of a baby at the end.
The moment when we got to see and hold our baby. He was obviously very tiny and fragile, with very red and sensitive skin. I only got to see David be a dad for a few minutes but I can tell he would have been so good at it. Watching him hold and talk to our son was the most heartbreaking, bittersweet thing I could ever possibly see.
The moment when we held our baby one last time and I could tell that in those few short hours since we'd last seen him that he had already physically deteriorated. And he was so cold.
The moment when we were getting ready to leave the hospital and were required to talk to a social worker. She asked how we were doing and, trying to be optimistic, I said that I hoped the worst was over. She laughed and said, "I doubt that," and then asked if we had other kids... I said no and she said "Too bad." How is this person a social worker? She was by far the least sensitive person I interacted with.
The moment I realized that just days earlier I had been planning my son's adorable nursery, and that now I needed to plan his funeral.
The moment that I had milk come in. How could my body grow a baby, betray me and kill that baby, and then be stupid enough to not even know that there was no baby to feed?
The moment I watched our baby be lowered into the ground.
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