Someone You Never Knew

And her...

She was too tiny to know for sure, but we were all but certain that she was a girl. We kept inexplicably referring to her as "she". Other people did, too. 

I was going to tell you all after that doctor's appointment yesterday. I even had a draft post lined up in which I talked about how wonderful it was that we were expecting our miracle.  How I hated deleting that post to replace it with this one. 

It was going to be a routine checkup, and while I was past the danger point, something just seemed to make sense about waiting. Everything was so routine. I was almost 14 weeks - enough to be considered in my second trimester. I had no bleeding or cramping, unlike my pregnancy with Jack when I had a sub-chorionic hemorrhage. I felt sick. I looked pregnant; people were already asking me if I was expecting. 

And I told them. I didn't want to lie. I was past that 12 week line of demarcation. I was in my second trimester with what was proving to be a textbook pregnancy. I had only just started to feel better, as would be expected at that time. I had slacked off on my writing for all of the nausea. There was no reason to think differently. 

We had seen the baby on ultrasound at 9 weeks. The baby had actually measured a week big and had a fantastic heartbeat. We got the requisite first baby picture like you see above. We were told that everything looked great, no worries at all. 

What's more, I was on cloud nine. We were finally expecting the sibling that I had wanted for Jack for a long time. 

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I went for what should have been a routine second trimester appointment. They were going to listen to the baby on the Doppler, take some measurements (I was measuring bigger than my dates - a good thing at this stage) and run some standard bloodwork. No big deal. 

Until my midwife came in and couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. She reassured me that it was normal at this stage to have difficulty, as the babies are wiggle worms and have a lot of space in which to move even mentioning that she finds it easier to find a heartbeat at 10 weeks rather than further along when the babies are more active. So, we popped over to ultrasound to take a peek. 

There the baby was; she was still and perfect, curled up as though asleep. In horror and disbelief, I watched as the midwife, then a technician, then an OB all independently confirmed my worst nightmare, one that I could see plainly on the ultrasound. 

My baby girl didn't have a heartbeat. 

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I was in shock. I had no miscarriage symptoms. I was told that - at this point - the odds of losing the baby with no symptoms of a loss whatsoever in the second trimester were about 0.5%. Less than 1 in 200. The odds that the baby would be autistic, on the other hand, were astronomical in comparison, somewhere between 5 and 18%, or between 1 in 5 and 1 in 20. 

We had seen a heartbeat. We had seen a healthy baby. We had pictures. There were no complications. I was healthy and - by all indications - so was our little girl. 

This wasn't supposed to happen. My midwife could could the number of times on one hand that she had seen such a sudden, unanticipated loss this far along with no bleeding, no concerns, no nothing. 

I was just one of those unlucky few. 

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I thought I could handle pain. After all, I'm an autism mama. It's natural that we hurt for our children. Instead of trepidation over a baby that would be watched developmentally from day one, I would have to mourn the loss of a child I wanted so much and loved so fiercely and whom I would never get to meet. 

I can't fully describe how it feels. I feel numb, cold, and as though I was in an out-of-body experience. Having to go for surgery was the worst part. I was simply too far along to wait for nature to take its course, as delivering my baby would be painful and the risk of hemorrhage or infection great at that point. It was hard knowing that I would walk in that surgical center carrying her and walk out without my baby. 

The doctors, nurses, and staff - both this morning in surgery and yesterday at my midwife appointment - were unfailingly kind.  They did not leave me alone for even a moment.  They held my hand and dried my tears.  Several cried a moment with me.  They knew how much I wanted this baby.  They knew what I had been through.  They were as blindsided as I.

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I miss her so. I am still in love with that little girl that I never got to meet. I was so hopeful for what she represented to us all. Hope. A new beginning. A friend for Jack. A promise that he would never be truly alone. 

Unlike my delivery with Jack, I left my surgery empty-handed. 

Even though people will tell me not to do so, I have been angry at God and everyone and everything in between. Why? Why would I be the one to have a child with multiple disabilities - a rare occurrence in and of itself - then only to lose a baby in the second trimester, which is also a rare occurrence. Why did lightning have to strike my family twice?

For now, I am simply going through the motions of being a mom as best as I can while healing physically and emotionally. I cancelled therapy. I have wanted to be home with my husband and son.  I want to be near Jack, as though he's a reminder that I am still a mom even after losing a child. I am doing what I can do to survive until the next moment when it will catch me and I will start crying. I feel horrible for dumping Jack in front of his iPad all day at my side, but I need to simply survive in these first few days. No progress is going to be obtained here at this time when our hearts are so heavy.

I wish I could say that I have some great epiphany from this experience to share, but I don't. It just seems so senseless that a baby that was fine would suddenly die. 

We are running a chromosomal profile on both me and the baby. The coincidences are too great that this baby would inexplicably pass away after looking so healthy and also have an older brother with neurological conditions that have impacted him since birth. The OB implied that maybe we would get some answers about Jack in this process. 

Perhaps, but every day I would forgo more knowledge into Jack's complexities to be able to hold a healthy, living baby in my arms.  I would take whatever condition that sweet one may have been facing just to have her here.  There is no silver lining to this story, nor will there ever be. 

I'm not sure why. I'll likely never know.  Or maybe - with testing - I will.  That won't make it easier, but with knowledge comes power. What I do know is that I have an angel watching over my Jack right now with a vested interest in him - his sister.

I hope she knows how loved she still is. I hope she knows how much I miss her. I hope she knows that not a day will go by in my life that I don't think of her and hope that she is loving life up in heaven.  I have to believe - I have to hope - that she'll be waiting for me one day.  I'm sorry that she has so long to wait, but I hope that she's getting lots of love from her extended family members who passed before her.

I hope she knows that I will not allow her to be forgotten. She existed. She was as real to me as Jack. She will always be in my heart.