My husband and I decided we were missing someone from our family and we wanted to try for one more baby. Our third and final baby. After some difficulty conceiving our second, I expected it to take a while. After a year we got in touch with a fertility clinic and started the process for IUI. The cycle before we were to begin, I managed to fall pregnant by some miracle, on our own. We were SO overjoyed! I cried every day out of pure happiness.
At 6 and a half weeks pregnant I began bleeding. I had some bleeding with my two previous pregnancies, but for some reason my heart told me this was different. My sister drove me to the hospital while a dear friend watched my two young daughters. We sat in the ER for 5 hours. A very abrupt doctor told me my blood levels of HCG were too low for where I was and the ultrasound showed a baby that had no heartbeat and was only measuring 4 weeks. He said to return in the morning for a follow up ultrasound.
The next morning my husband and I went back for the follow up. We were sent to a waiting room full of pregnant women, who were there to find out the sex of their babies. It was a room full of joy, except for me. I was silently streaming tears while my heart broke. When the nurse called my name I crumpled to the floor. I didn’t want to hear what I know had already happened, considering the amount of bleeding I had already done. The doctor who performed the ultrasound confirmed that my uterus was empty. My baby was gone. I remember the haze of the next hour, standing up, leaving the hospital and driving home. Sobbing and feeling like my heart had been crushed in a vice.
Telling our daughters their younger sibling was not going to be joining us was an important conversation. It was hard and heartbreaking. We are now at 2 years of trying to have our last baby. I just can’t imagine my lost baby being my last. And while I am eternally grateful for my two living children, I miss my lost baby so desperately. It’s a grief that overcomes me sometimes.
Death is already taboo. But when it’s the death of someone who no one ever even saw, it becomes a silent mourning. There is no body to bury. No picture to cherish. No footprint to trace with my finger. I don’t even know if my baby was a boy or a girl. All I have is the feeling that there is a person I won’t ever get to know. My own child. That is a devastation that cannot heal. Someone I will always wonder about till the day I die.
