My heart is heavy. My pregnancy has ended. My two little guys are still a part of my family and are in all of our thoughts but they won't be joining us here on earth.
My amniotic sac ruptured on Thanksgiving night. I had leaked fluid earlier in the pregnancy but everything had resolved, so I wasn't overly worried. I went to the doctor the next day, and the babies were fine. They ran some tests and I went home and rested.
Monday morning the perinatologist's office called me first thing. They were really nice. It was a clue. I went in that morning and Baby A, who we call George, had met his demise. They say that there. Demise. They can't say dead or alive because then that would be admitting the fetus is living. Weird. I was devastated, as you can imagine.
Baby B, Duncan, was still happily floating around and kicking, so I went home to my husband and we started making plans for our next step. The doctor told me he had about a 25 percent chance of survival, so I was going to hold on to that. The effects on my health were dangerous because a demised fetus is an infection nightmare, and Carl was worried.
The next day, Tuesday, we went back to the doctor. Duncan did not look good. He barely had any fluid left because his sac had also ruptured, which the doctor had suspected the day before. He was gone by the afternoon and I was prepped for surgery that evening. The prepping was the worst part. Seaweed in the cervix, avoid that at all costs, people. Step away from the seaweed.
In the hospital, I basically had to go through labor without the drugs, which nobody told me and I'm mad about. Finally they put me under and removed George and Duncan. I went home that evening.
The babies will be cremated at a local mortuary and returned to us. I don't know what is going to happen next. Understandably my kids are traumatized, and I am worried about them. We will need to have some sort of ceremony. Has anyone done that?
I'm feeling fine now physically. Pregnancy really knocked it out of me.
Mentally I am screwed up, which is to be expected. I feel like I've been screwed up since I got pregnant. I was just coming to embrace our new little people and now they are gone. Grief is a sneaky bastard. I just don't know when it's going to hit me.
I'd like to tie this whole thing up in a package and be done with it, but I know it doesn't work like that. I have learned about a million life lessons in this short time, and I'll be darned if I forget them. I don't want to have to learn them again.
I have had so many good people helping me and caring about me and serving me. People's generosity and goodwill have really changed my outlook in life. I can feel the love.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much HF and the HG have helped me in these past few months. I've had some wonderful sacred experiences and been comforted whenever I turned to prayer to ease my troubles. I just wish it had ended differently.
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