Loss

It wasn't supposed to happen. I was past the critical first semester. But it happened anyway. I lost my baby.

I shouldn't be writing this. I just came from the doctor two hours ago, and the pain is...raw. Unreal. But I have to talk about it.

I would have been 17 weeks this week. When I went in for my check-up at 10 weeks, the baby's movements and heartbeat were strong. Today, the nurse couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. She thought maybe he was moving around too much for the fetal monitor. So she brought in the little ultrasound machine. But the baby wasn't moving. And she still couldn't find the heartbeat.

She called for the doctor to be sure. He looked for a long time. Took measurements. He told me the baby was only measuring 12 and a half weeks. Somewhere on the way to 13 weeks, the baby simply stopped growing. Perhaps a chromosome didn't develop correctly, but that was only speculation. There was no way to say for sure what happened. But my baby was gone.

I cried a lot. Wailed. I didn't mean to. But the news hurt a lot more than I thought it would.

I know I have to take this one day at a time. But I can't see how I will move past it yet. I'll eventually have to tell all my friends, family and neighbors that there will be no new baby in February. And I'll have to have the tiny body removed from my womb.

Right now, I'm just shattered. Staring at all the little pieces of myself and wondering how I will pick them up yet again.