What Happened?

I must apologize first that the blogs are posting with the most recent one at the top, so in order to read the story in order, you'll have to start at the bottom. I have not figured out a way to reorganize the order of the entries. . .

So, let's get started with the story. . .this first part will be hard to read, but I do feel that if I can somehow relate my story to encourage someone who has been through this I will tell all, every aspect. All I can say is that I had felt our baby moving pretty violently on Thursday or Friday (I didn't like the way that felt) and then we had a very busy weekend with my aunt and uncle in town and a Christmas program at church. By Sunday night, I was going to bed and reflecting that I didn't remember feeling the baby move. Of course I also thought, maybe I hadn't noticed it move, because we were so busy. So, I got out the pregnancy books to look up the chances of something being wrong, and it said only 1% of babies died this late. So, I went to bed with nothing to worry about. I took my aunt and uncle to the airport on Monday, and my mom called later that day. She told me that she'd had a dream in which my grandmother was really worried about me and said she had to come see me, and we both were puzzled what that was all about. I remember closing the conversation after that with, "well, we're going to find out the sex of the baby tomorrow, so I don't know what that would have been about." Tuesday, we went in for the appointment at the German hospital, because they had the high-tech machine that was necessary for the measurements. Scott and I passed time in the waiting room revising our Christmas letter for how we were going to announce to everyone about our "Greta or Klaus" and how excited we were. We went in for the ultrasound, and I remember thinking, why isn't the baby moving? We won't be able to see the sex. . .why can't I find the heartbeat? Thankfully I didn't know that like the American machines I should have been hearing the heartbeat--I just thought maybe they did things different in the German hospital--of course, Scott knew right away what was happening. I even asked, "is that the heart?" as I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing, and everyone said "no." The technician called for a doctor, but once again, I thought, maybe they have a doctor come interpret the results or maybe there's a disability they are going to tell us about. Then it came--the 20-year-old technician put his hand gently on my arm and said "your baby has some problems; I'm sorry your baby has died; I'm sorry" or something to that effect. It's the strangest feeling to think that something is already over before you even knew it, and there's no turning back.

My first reaction--"this morning, I had that thought--what would I do if there was no heartbeat?" but I still brushed it off. Now it was already over, and my mind was racing about what was going to happen next--of course my body wasn't ready to get rid of the baby, and then I felt disgusting, knowing I had a dead baby inside of me--then it all flashed in front of me--"how long until I'm pregnant again? what happened? is it something with my body or why did it die?"

Thankfully Scott had his head on his shoulders and denied the services at the German hospital and said that we would get things taken care of at the American hospital.

He called the doctor on call at the Heidelberg Army hospital, and he informed us that generally they induce labor to get the baby out, and they like to wait a couple of days for emotional reasons. This terrified me--both going through labor for a dead baby and waiting a couple of days. I didn't want to see anyone, because I knew they would look at me and think--oh, she's pregnant, how nice or whatever and not know I was carrying a dead baby. I also remember thinking--this pain does not feel half as bad as it did when Nicole's husband was killed in Iraq--My heart hurt so much then that even though this hurt badly I knew it was something I could get through, especially since I actually had my husband with me through all of this. It really put things in perspective for me.

We kept our scheduled OB appointment for that afternoon, and we were given the choice of the induction or a procedure where they could put me under full anesthesia and get the baby out. I chose the latter, and on Thursday morning we were scheduled as the first case. The day before I was able to say good-bye to our baby, knowing that after Thursday I would no longer be pregnant. I imagined myself cradling her as I prepared myself for the next day. Looking back I can see why a couple days' wait is a good thing, but at first it is traumatic--every twinge you wonder if you are about to go into labor, and then I remember waking up the next morning to the reality that the baby inside me was dead, wailing and thinking to myself, "it's not enough to lose a baby, but then to know that we still had another large hurdle to get through before it was all over." I know a lot of people were praying, because I woke up after the procedre feeling like I had had a good sleep and had no pain. Later, I found out I had lost 1800mL of blood, but I wasn't anemic a week later, so I was grateful to God for healing me so miraculously. I don't regret my decision to not undergo the emotional trauma of induced labor, but if you're ever faced with this decision, I did live with some regret of never seeing the baby or holding her or having some physical evidence like footprints (besides ultrasound pictures). It was often easy for my brain to pretend I was never pregnant once my body went back to its pre-pregnancy state.


Then began the hardships of seeing people at the grocery store--people asking how my Christmas was or excited because they had heard I was pregnant. I did not want to go out in public much, because I always ran into people at the store that I knew. There wasn't really much I could say at that point--didn't really know what to talk about. People were trying to encourage me that I wasn't alone and that they had experienced miscarriages, but it was difficult for me--I probably had heard of about 20 women at this point who had miscarriages, and being the empathetic person I am, I couldn't handle hearing about them. (I knew they were only trying to encourage me so I appreciated the stories, but I also was struggling with fear that I would lose more than one baby as these women had). I also felt a little different since ours was actually classified as a stillbirth, because we were past 20 weeks. I was encouraged by people reassuring me they had children after their miscarriages, but ironically I longed to be around a mother who hadn't had any miscarriages to give me hope that I would not have to experience this again.
Anyways--enough about that. I will close with an exerpt from my journal entry from
December 18, 2007

"I've gone through a lot of emotions today. . .all the while wondering what went wrong and then being upset that we have to start the whole process over. We were excited to finally start a family in 4 months. Now it will be another year at least (and then you dread going through the same thing again.) I know God has helped ease the pain by many different events/circumstances, and I would much rather go through this than lose a spouse. Lord, we need You so much these next couple of days as many things have to fall into place. I've seen you do that before. Please help the surgery to go well with no complications. . . I don't know why God kept the baby alive this long-why He chose this timing if He knew it wasn't going to survive. I did feel so blessed to be pregnant, and I didn't take it for granted. I just hope I don't have to go through this again. Lord help us to know if we should adopt or not. Give me strength to get through what lies ahead these next couple of days."

Please keep reading the story--there is so much of God's story that I want to share. We just had to get through this first part together, and I promise you'll be encouraged and uplifted by the rest.