I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. How to say it. When to say it. What the title should be.

After nearly two weeks, I finally feel ready to write it. To tell you that our baby is gone. To have some sort of record of the feelings and thoughts I’m okay with making public. To say goodbye, again. And probably over and over and over as I’m sure this will be with me for a long, long time.

Of course it’s a long story, but essentially at my 24 week OB appointment on February 13th, they couldn’t find a heartbeat, which was confirmed via ultrasound. Following that was the heart-wrenching process of deciding how to deal with this information.

So, on February 22nd, after consulting with specialists, family, friends, and more people than I knew existed who had dealt with a similar dilemma, we had our baby. We named her Abigail Beatrix. We found out later (H did an internet search) that Abigail means “Father’s Joy” and Beatrix means “Bringer of Joy”. We had no idea both names meant joy. Very appropriate since she did bring such happiness, hopefulness, and joy into our lives.

The big piece of news we got was that they found a knot in her cord. From what they said and what we’ve read, this is a freak occurence and there’s nothing we or anyone else could have done to save her. I’d been mentally compiling a list of everything I’ve done wrong these past few months, so it’s a relief to know it wasn’t me. (An autopsy will confirm all this, but it seems likely the knot was the problem.) It probably wasn’t my blood clotting condition or that I forgot to take my vitamins every once in a while. It just happened.

Baby Bea’s birthday (as I had taken to calling her.. Baby Boo and Baby Bea) was more peaceful than I was expecting. I really felt like so many people were supporting us and thinking about us. I know the next few days, weeks, months, and maybe even years will have their ups and downs, that it may be difficult to see other babies (although so far it isn’t) and I make no promises for June. But I know that many people are out there, loving us, and hopefully sending some thoughts Abigail’s way too.

For the moment though, I am particularly feeling fortunate to have Boo. He’s such a joy, even when he runs screaming across the room and throws himself in the corner. He makes me laugh much of the time. It’s felt so strange to be sad one moment then laughing the next. He did brilliantly with the friends who cared for him while we were at the hospital, so he’s being a brave little trooper too. I’m sure he doesn’t understand what on earth is wrong with us.

I am going to put together a box for Abigail. Her ultrasound pictures, my hospital bracelet, maybe some of the little dresses I’d already bought for her. I’m going to make her something too, I just don’t know what yet. If there was any way to bottle up even a portion of our love and hopes for her and pack that carefully away for safe keeping, I’d do that too. Any cards we get will probably go in there. I know it was still early days and Abigail was mostly in our thoughts, so it will probably be a small box. But it will be something.

To answer some questions that you might have, we will have her cremated
but we won’t be holding a ceremony or anything like that. I’m not much of one for rituals so it feels enough to me to remember her birthday, even though she passed away a few weeks before it, and that we’ll keep her ashes until we decide what to do with them. Another question that might come up is how she was born, which was by D&E. I don’t know if “born” is the appropriate word, I haven’t figured out how to describe that one yet. I find the thought of D&Cs appalling in general; this was my baby, not a lump of inanimate cells, but under the circumstances we decided that was easiest for everyone. Maybe not best, but easiest. I can give more details on this if anyone is really interested, but it involves some pretty ugly words, like “decomposing”. I would have given anything to at least have been able to hold her.

So that is pretty much that, I think. We are sad and we are grieving. And I do want to talk about it. It feels strangely cathartic to talk about it. Everything about this is strange, I guess.

I know most people probably won’t know what to say, and that’s okay. I wouldn’t know what to say either. I noticed in the store the other day that they don’t make sympathy cards for this. There are loads of happy baby cards, but nothing that says sorry your baby didn’t make it. There are sympathy cards for your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your grandparents, and I guess anyone that maybe it was expected that might die someday. We all die someday, right? You’re just not supposed to die before you’re born. You’re not supposed to die when you’re a baby. Baby’s are happy. Sympathy cards are not. They don’t make cards for this and people don’t know what to say.

I sort of expected I’d want to run from this, to not want to think about it, so I find it strange that I do. That I want to recognize my daughter, that it’s okay for people to hug me and make me cry. My baby died. It’ll be okay eventually even if right now it’s not. I miss her.

So, if you want to say or send something, please do. If you don’t, that’s good too. Every “I’m sorry to hear that” whether in thought or words means a lot. I’m sorry too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 4:42 am and is filed under Preggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.