Baby Steps...

Well, it happened.  The dreaded thing every pregnant woman fears and no one wants to talk about.  We lost the babe. 

We went to the doctor the day before thanksgiving excited to hear a heartbeat.  I was hoping for at least one “bean” picture to share during the big dinner, showing off exactly what I’m most thankful for this year!  Turns out I was 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant but our babe stopped growing around week 6. 

I don’t know what’s more difficult: knowing I was carrying around our dead baby for 2+ weeks in my belly or feeling all the “could have been” “should have been” “might have been” moments we’d created in our heads and in our hearts and just having to let them die too.  See it’s not just the baby we are grieving, it’s our futures we were dreaming about.  This whole life we’d created in our heads revolving around this little bear.  The lack of sleep we were joking about dreading.  The nine months of sobriety I would constantly complain about.  All the diapers and the breastfeeding and the nursery.  The baby shower and showing off my belly in the cutest maternity clothes I’d already started to shop for.  Holding our baby, the epitome of our love for each other embodied in the single most important person on the planet. 

We are going to Costa Rica in a month and I bought a new bikini specifically to show off my huge boobs and my slowly growing belly.  Now it’s just a bathing suit.  We cleared out the spare room to start making it a nursery for our baby.  Now it’s just an empty room.  I have to keep the door shut because it breaks my heart every time I walk past the emptiness of it. 

Some days I’m ok!  I can go to work and have my routine and don’t focus on the heaviness that such an empty spot can leave in your heart.  But the emotions inside, they are so close to the surface -  it’s like I’m walking on a thin sheet of glass and one wrong word, one sad song, one holiday commercial I didn’t change in time and it starts and I just can’t stop.  All the hurt and anger and sadness just come pouring out of my eyes like a faucet and I physically cannot stop crying like a two year old in a candy store who can’t have all the chocolates. 

It’s been a week since the surgery and I don’t know that it’s any easier today than it was getting up that morning knowing where I was going.  I try and put on a brave face, and most days I can accomplish that.  I had 2 solid days last week where I didn’t lose my shit and I considered that a HUGE win!  And then it hits, like a ton of bricks, and it holds on and squeezes your heart and it’s all you can do to just keep breathing. 

And even though we are already talking about trying again, there’s a part of me that is dreading it.  Getting that positive test will never be the pure unadulterated joy that it was the first time.  Going to the doc to hear the heartbeat will be a day of fear and anxiety instead of a day filled with hope and happiness.  I hear that once you hold your baby in your arms all the heartache we feel now will be worth it.  It will heal. 

But it’s such a huge hole.  I don’t know how someone ever gets over this. 

Trying to stay positive, though!  We have my post-op appointment tomorrow and are going to get a plan together to move forward.  Close this chapter and start a new one.  Try again as soon as I’m healed and healthy and able. 

If there’s anything at all positive that I can take from this, it’s that I know I’ve found the absolute love of my life.  He’s the reason I went through all the (what I thought was) heartache, all the terrible first dates, all the awkward dating and misery and bitterness that goes along with it.  He’s never wavered with his positivity and hope in this whole situation.  He’s put up the most beautiful Christmas tree and decorated our house with the best Christmas lights on the block!  We’ve watched Christmas movies and wrapped presents and are even having a party next weekend.  He’s held me up when my knees gave out, and lifted me up when I was having a not-so-bad day.  And I know that our baby will be the most beautiful baby I’ve ever ever seen.  And I am hopeful for that day.  

I will not lose hope.