Because Thursday was a holiday (MLK day) I had to wait until Friday to go into Dr. Rosenburg's to listen for a heartbeat. It was my idea and initiative that got my into his office to listen for the heartbeat. Dr. Rosenburg did not think that it would be necessary. I think he assumed that the baby would still be alive. However, with trisomy 18, the baby could die at any point. And being the "lay all your cards on the table" kind of person, I wanted to go ahead and rule that in or out. If the baby was indeed dead, then my appointment at Obstetrix for Monday would take on a completely different focus. Thursday night (early Friday morning 2am) I woke up and I grieved. I sobbed. The thought that my baby was gone was heavy on my heart. Bob tried to comfort and encourage me. I was so so sad. I was not as optimistic. We had met with Steve and Wanda Belton earlier Thursday night. Steve was so great to invite us over to talk things through but he did not paint a rosy picture. He presented the facts and the statistics just how they are. I left with a more realistic and less optimistic picture. (A side note 3 months into the future... Feb 2011: I am so glad to have grieved then. It really was the only time up until now that I grieved with a deep sobbing grief. It was a gift from God, I think. He allowed me to grieve before I knew anything.) I didn't want to lose the baby... but I had a sinking feeling in my heart. All night my heart seemed to be pounding in my belly. It was weird. I had been feeling my heart pounding harder in my belly all week. It was not the first time I had noticed it. I had been trying to feel for a baby kick- but every night I kept feeling my heart beating in my belly instead. It was omninous to me. It didn't feel right. I couldn't put my finger on it.
I decided to go the doctor's appointment by myself. I guess I was still optimistic enough or maybe I believed that if I remained optimistic things would be OK. Bob had taken other time off recently and I didn't want to make him take more time off from work. I had emailed my mom that morning, however. I basically said, "If I find out the baby's dead, will you come down for a few days?" So I wanted my bases covered. I was optimistic, but I couldn't help but start preparing myself for the possible devastating news.
I get to the doctor's office. There is a really young, nice, cute gal that is one of the front office ladies that check you in. She knows I had been seeing Dr. Trobough for infertility stuff for a while and was so excited that I had "graduated" over to Dr. Rosenburg. So she says to me, "Guess what? My due date is one day different than yours." "Oh, that's cool!" I say, trying desperately to keep my cool! She asks, "Are you going to find out the gender?" I respond, "Yah, we want to." But meanwhile thinking to myself, I may be about to find out my baby is dead. I am barely keeping it together at this moment. I hold it together to get my print out think to take the doctor. I walk back to the office and hand the nurse my paper. She asks me to sit down for a minute and she'll be right with me. I'm not doing too well. I'm going to lose it so I go into the bathroom and sob as quietly as I can and try to pull myself together enough just to get back to the examination room. The nurse takes me back there and I lose it. I tell her about the sweet but clueless girl up front and I tell her that I just don't want to lose my baby. I all but collapse onto my knees in deep sobs. I couldn't hold it back any longer. I finally get myself together a bit and Dr. Rosenburg comes in. He has the heartbeat monitor. In the past he has found the baby's heartbeat with in 1 second of putting it on my stomach. So when he put it on my stomach, you could clearly hear a heartbeat... but it was mine. He moved that thing around my stomach... nothing. I knew it then. I started to sob. I asked me to try to calm down so that he could continue searching. He tried so hard- he pushed down and tried all sorts of angles. But I knew... that baby was gone. So then I wanted to get an ultrasound. So he walked me to another room. I wasn't sure if I could look... but I couldn't NOT look. There was my sweet little baby- all curled up in fetal position. It was gone. The image is clear as day in my brain. I sob again. Oh Lord! Why?!? Dr. Rosenburg takes me back to his office. It is there I have to make the call to Bob and then to my mom. Then I had to call Christa who was taking care of Mattie at the time. It was like after that, the wound in my heart scabbed up and I went into task mode. I couldn't cry any more tears. Dr. Rosenburg got me an appointment for Obstetrix in the next hour. We had to act fast. We ended up dividing and conquering. I drove to Christa's house to pick up Mattie so I could then take her to the Bozarth's house. Sarah would take Mattie for as long as we needed. (Praise the Lord! We have such supportive friends!) Meanwhile, Bob was going to pick up something for us to eat in the car on the way to Obstetrix. We met up at the Bozarths and then drove to Obstetrix together. There we had an appointment with a genetic(?) counselor- doctor- who would help us look at our options. I also was going to get an amniocentesis that day and an ultrasound. We decided to get a D & E rather than having to try to birth the baby. I went in for my ultrasound and amnio. The tech came in to do the ultrasound. I asked her to show me as many parts of the baby as possible. This was my last time to see my baby ever again this side of heaven. I wanted to take it in. She said that the baby was measuring only 15 weeks and that it was already breaking down so it must have been dead at least a week. She could not see the gender of the baby at that point. Then the doctor came in and did the amnio. I found out later from Steve that that doctor was a Christian. After all of that was done, we called Sarah. She told us that she would gladly take Mattie as late as we wanted or needed- the she could even spend the night. What a dear dear friend! We decided that having her spend the night wouldn't be a good idea (Mattie wouldn't do well) but that we really would enjoy being able to come home and rest and then get some dinner by ourselves. So that is what we did. We came home, I wrote that email, and then we went to Dish Dash for dinner. We picked Mattie up at 7Pm and came home and put her to bed at 8PM. My mom will be arriving the next morning.
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