What I grieve

The loss of my daughter Brynn as a person

The loss of my pregnancy

The loss of the idea of having matching names for my girls and giving up a favorite name

The loss of Corynn having a sister

The loss of my kids being close in age

Bad week = depression

The last week was terribly depressing for me. I sort of went down hill compared to the week before and after talking it out, I realize it was a pretty heavy week and vulnerable to depression. It was really a perfect storm of events.

Last thursday I got that horrible email which although I know she is crazy, did hurt my feelings. It made me cry. How could someone be so hurtful to a person who just lost their baby? To say such personal and hateful things to me about how I'm trying to grieve. I was blown away and seriously hurt, but couldn't really talk about it because everyone just kept telling me not to worry about her and not to take anything she said seriously. I knew not to, but I just still needed to talk and cry about it.

Then last Friday I got the call reminding me of my appointment for my perinatologist ultrasound and I had to say the words out loud "my baby died".

Sunday I discussed how we would be doing a christmas gift exchange with my family. I wanted to keep it very simple for $$ reasons and they did not. I had to mention that I am swimming in thousands of dollars of medical bills without a baby to show for it. I broke down at this point.

Monday. 19 weeks exactly. This is how far along I was when I found out Corynn was a girl and it was such a fun celebration. No celebration for Brynn.

Tuesday (my moms birthday) This was the day of the big ultrasound, knowing the gender for sure, finding out all the details of the baby, if she was healthy and if everything looked ok (I will never know for sure)

Wednesday I was supposed to have an 8:30 OB appointment. Instead I had a 9:30 dentist appointment to get a crown. Something you can't do while pregnant. As I was laying in that chair getting my tooth drilled on, I was thinking "I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be hearing the sound of a drill, I'm supposed to be hearing the sound of my baby's heart on a doppler right now."

Thursday. Thanksgiving. I have to work and it's the first holiday without my baby inside of me. It feels lonely, I want to cry, but I have to put on a happy face at work. I had a plate of dinner my mom had brought over for me. It was good, but I started crying after a few bites.... I'm not supposed to be eating these carbs. I should be checking my blood sugar.

Friday, I can't recover from my hard day at work because I have to go back and do it again.

Saturday we were supposed to celebrate thanksgiving with Erik's extended family. His mom had moved the celebration a while ago just for me since I couldn't celebrate on thursday but I couldn't do it. Couldn't celebrate with extended family members that I maybe see once a year. I had to ruin thanksgiving and stay home.

Sunday. It's now time to move on to the next holiday without Brynn. Christmas. I put on the christmas music, light some candles, get out the tree and try my hardest to feel the holiday cheer, but it is sad. I struggle to be happy. I should be at the half way point in my pregnancy. I was supposed to be pregnant on christmas, but instead I'm hanging up her "memory" ornaments instead of "baby's first christmas".

I think I'm ready for January. I'm ready to be done with the holidays and the reminders that I'm not pregnant. As soon as you find out you're pregnant, you think about how far along you will be at every holiday, every milestone. I had pictured Halloween 16 weeks, Thanksgiving 19 weeks, Christmas 24 weeks, Eriks birthday 28 weeks, Valentines day 31 weeks, Easter 39 weeks. Each time one of them comes up will be like another loss. A loss of where I would've been, what my belly would've looked like, how happy and excited we would've been. In January, the major holidays will be over and I will be able to start trying again for another baby. Then maybe having something new to focus on will help.

Game face

Working is harder than I thought it would be. My first day back to work wasn't so bad because I had my orientee with me, who pretty much did all the work so I just had to be available for any questions she might have and the babies we took care of didn't have any visitors all day and I only had to work one day and then was off for six days after that and I had a support group meeting immediately following work that night. It really was a perfect way to ease back into work.

But then this week was hard. I had already been feeling significantly more depressed than last week, for several reasons I think, and it happened to be the first holiday since losing Brynn and I had particularly needy, chatty families. Taking care of the babies does not bother me at all, because they don't need anything from me emotionally. It's easy to take care of a baby's emotional needs. Just cuddle them, hold them, smile at them, give them their binki.... but the parents are the ones who demand me to be on my "emotional game". I have to hold it together for them, be their support, validate their feelings, show sympathy or empathy, be little miss customer service and this is really hard to do when my own emotions are taking me down. When I want to sit in a corner and cry because it's thanksgiving and my baby just died but instead I have to feel sorry for a mom who is complaining that her baby didn't make it home before thanksgiving and all I want to say to her is "be glad your baby is alive, it could be worse." It is hard. And then to have to go home, cry a lot and then come back the next day to the same parents and do it all over again was draining to say the least.

I really wondered this week if I was emotionally ready to be back at work. I had thought I was, but I definitely struggled.

I technically could've taken FMLA and had up to three months off if I felt I really needed it, but the only reason I came back to work in a hurry is because of the hope that I will get pregnant again soon. I hope I will be having a baby by this time next year. Hope. And if I do, I will be needing that FMLA for maternity leave.

But then there is a good chance that this won't happen as quickly as I would like, and then I won't need that FMLA time within the next year, and could've used it now. I think this makes it hard for me to be at work as well. I know that the only reason I am making myself suffer through my very emotionally giving job is because of a little thread of hope that I'm holding on to but that I know may not be real. I may be setting aside my emotional well being all for nothing. But the hope of a quick pregnancy is what gets me to put my game face on for a twelve hour day of work and give what little I have to give of myself.

I can relate

These are exerts from a book about a woman's miscarriage. Some of the things she says are exactly what I feel:

"It should've been october when they wheeled me down the hall in to the room and hooked up an IV bag, poked and probed and prepped, but at six months early there are no videos of a baby screaming into life in full color. Just a black and white sonogram snapshot of a baby still cradled in its tomb. No soft flesh to pass through me into life, just a sterile metal rod to scrape the death from my womb. No certificate of birth, just a bottle of pills for the cramps. I guess that's what happens when it's April and it should've been october."

The bill came in the mail today. I didn't recognize the return address, but when I opened the envelope and read the description of services, I knew. Anesthesia, D&C. I shuddered. Had I really expected him to do it for free? It was just a job to him. Tidying up the death that had ravaged my dreams. At the end of the day, he would go home to his family and forget the details of the day. Did I really expect him to weep for me?

"The clank of the mailbox lid, the click of the mailman's heals on the white cement porch, tell me the mail is here. My husband opens the door and brings it in: the Penny-saver, a coupon for dish soap, the electric bill, a sweepstakes giveaway. I hate the mail. It stings like salt in an open wound. It tells me that to everyone else, today is just another ordinary day."

next time

gone are the days of enjoying a care free pregnancy. I was never really the relaxed type to begin with. I wanted all the testings and screenings. I had a home doppler to listen to the HB, I wanted to be on monitors at all times while in labor, I had to know what was going on at all times, but despite all of that, I did have a certain amount of worry-free happiness after I would hit the twelve week mark. Yes, I still worried, but pretty much felt like things would more than likely be ok.

Brynn's unexpected death has turned my thoughts about pregnancy upside down. I thought I was a worried freak before, but look out, now it's going to be ridiculous!!

Next time I will not get excited or relieved when I hit that 12 week mark. I will not jump for joy each time I hit a milestone in the pregnancy because cord accidents can happen up until the moment the baby is born. "20 weeks, 32 weeks"... etc.. will mean nothing to me. You are never out of the woods.

I will not designate a name for the baby until it is here and alive and well. The name will depend on the outcome. I will not decorate the room. At all. I'm not putting the crib up, not painting the walls, not even unpacking clothes until the baby is home with me.

What I will probably do is just put up the bassinet next to my bed about a week or so before the baby is due to come and just get a handful of sleepers to dress the baby in at the hospital, this way there won't be too much of a reminder to come home to in case the baby doesn't make it.

Normally not having everything completely done and put together would drive me crazy, but I don't even care about all of that anymore. With Corynn, I HAD to have the entire nursery done and everything in it's place by 32 weeks. But I've heard so many stories in the support group of people who have lost their babies between 36-40 weeks and had to come home to a completed nursery and it is a reminder every time they walk by that room, but it is also too painful to take it down. I can't imagine that. I am fortunate that we lost Brynn the day we were supposed to find out she was a girl. Once we knew what she was, I had planned to start painting, buying things for the room and start to get things set up. I'm soooo glad I never had a chance to do that. That would just be like pouring salt in a wound. It's bad enough to just walk by the empty room and think what would've been.

I don't want a baby shower or baby "sprinkle" or any type of celebration until the baby is here. I don't want to buy anything and if anyone feels like buying something for the baby, I'm going to kindly request that they do not give it to me until the baby is born.

I wonder if I will have a harder time bonding with the baby while I'm pregnant because of this. I don't want to get too attached, although I probably won't be able to help it.

I would rather have nothing ready to go and have the chaos of having to set it up last minute WITH the new baby than to have everything ready to go and have the pain of coming home WITHOUT a baby. This whole experience has put such a grey cloud over how I will experience pregnancy. It is sad.

comfort

I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, 'Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief! You came near when I called on you; you said 'Do not fear!' - Lamentations 3:55-57

A falling leaf. On my first day back to work, as I was sitting at the computer charting a single leaf seemingly fell from the sky and slowly floated in front of my window for about 30 seconds until the wind finally swept it away. In some strange way, this brought me comfort. I'm not usually a "signs" kind of person, but the symbol the use for "loss" at shawnee mission was a falling leaf. Somehow I thought this leaf was some sort of symbol of hope that day. It was like Brynn saying "you'll see me again, I'm still here."

He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds - psalm 147:3

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life- proverbs 13:12

"I know the sun must set to rise"- song Paradise by Coldplay

I will continue to add to this list...

can't get away

I continue to take prenatal vitamins every night for the possibility of a future pregnancy, but every time I pick up that bottle with the pregnant woman on the front, and swallow that pill it is a quick reminder that I'm no longer taking these pills for Brynn.

I was sitting in church on Sunday trying to find comfort or guidance and next to me sits a brand new mom with her fresh newborn baby.

The perinatologists office called on friday and left a message reminding me of my appointment for my level two ultrasound at 9:30 am Tues Nov 22. I called and told them my baby had died.

Thanksgiving is this week. I can have all the carbs I want but I'm not happy about it.

I get new medical bills almost every day. I owe over $3000 out of pocket now, but have no baby to show for it.

Every monday through April in my calendar has a little number written in the corner that marks how many weeks I would be. Today it says "19"

I finally did a bunch of laundry a few days ago and had a bunch of maternity clothes that I had to return to the very back of my closet.... until next time.

My monthly OB appointment is written in my calendar for Wed Nov 23. I made a dentist appointment in it's place. I can have dental work done now that I'm not pregnant. Guess I should take advantage of it.

I keep bleeding. I won't bleed for two days, so I'll think it's done, but then on the third day it comes back for one day, and then goes away again for another two. It's like it just wants to torture me.

Corynn goes to jump on my stomach and for a second I flinch thinking I need to stop her, but I quickly remember there is no need.

Winter is setting in with it's depressing grey sky and short days. I remember when I realized I would be pregnant through the winter, I thought "oh good, I'll have something to look forward to to keep me from getting winter blues". Now I just have something to make me even more depressed than winter would by itself.

My newly changed password for my work email meant "in November I'll know if it's a boy or girl". Every time I type my password I wanna puke.

M response to the email

This was my response yesterday to the email I got. If you haven't read it yet, read the post below this first, then read this one:

Goodness. I'm sorry you're so angry that you feel you have to take it
out on me. I don't want to feed your anger, but want to address some
points.
1. All people hope for healthy babies. It is a fact. You yourself said
when you were in the NICU that you were so upset because all you had
pictured when you found out you were having twins was having two
little kids running around at your feet while making dinner. I do not
KNOW what you go through on a daily basis, but I can only imagine and
just like you validated my point NO ONE would WANT that or ask for
that. I think every mom prays that their baby will be healthy and
perfect. I know how hard it is for moms in the NICU, I see it all the
time and that is why I would pray that I never had to go through that.
I would never wish it on anyone, including you. I know that anything
could happen to Corynn at any second and I think about it all the
time. But if she were to have some tragic accident, I would still love
her with all my heart and care for her. I would NEVER want her to die
or anyone elses baby to die. I did not want Brynn to die. I did
nothing but cry about it and wonder why this happened. Everyone kept
saying "this probably happened for a reason" so I searched for any
"reason" I could find and while if I could make the decision myself, I
would have choosen for her to live no matter what, the ONLY comfort I
can find is to say that maybe it is better, maybe she would have been
a complete vegetable. I don't even know for sure that anything was
wrong with her, but it is the only thing I can tell myself to keep
myself from falling apart every five seconds.
I could never abort my child. EVER. I do the non-invasive, zero risk
screenings because I talked to a mom of a baby in the NICU once whose
child had downs syndrome and she already knew about it from an amnio
at 18 weeks. She said that having the information early on helped her
prepare, get in touch with support groups and government assistance
programs etc.. She was also able to mourn the loss of her image of a
"perfect" baby before he was born. SHe said it was great because she
was able to tell her family and get it all out before he was born and
by the time he was born, they were done grieving and just happy to
welcome him. She said she thinks it would be so much harder to have
the birth "ruined" by the shock that something is wrong with your
baby. This influenced me. I didn't do the screening with Corynn
because I thought "I won't abort anyway" but did it this time after
talking to this mom. The tests are not just used to decide on
abortion. I thought that if one of the tests had come back with high
risk, I would then get a third trimester amnio so I could know for
sure and be able to prepare myself emotionally before the big day. NOT
to kill my baby. I would love my baby no matter what!
The other reason I do the screenings is to get the best medical
attention possible. Knowing about heart defects and spina bifida or
other problems help make the decision early about what hospital to
deliver at or what NICU to transfer to and you can meet with doctors
and surgeons and get an action plan. I think being prepared for a
tragedy as much as possible is very healthy if you can have that
option.
I do screenings so that I can be proactive in SAVING my baby not KILLING it.

2. When I talked about "letting go" of my matching names, it was clear
I was being sarcastic and critical of my own need to have control and
that this was indeed a wake up call for me that I in fact do not have
control and it is a great lesson I've learned from this horrible
tragedy. You just repeated to me my own blog. I shared my names
because I chose them based on meaning should I ever be unfortunate
enough to be in this awful situation again. I want the names to be
meaningful and mean things like angel, heaven, peace etc.... I think
the fact that you are mocking my grieving process is very hateful.

3. You are probably right, I should probably have had my blog private,
but I had so many people that wanted to read it and I hadn't looked
into how to add each person individually, so I just allowed anyone who
wanted to read it, read it. It is simply a reflection of how I'm
dealing with my grief. Everyone deals with it in a very personal way.
For some, thinking about the next pregnancy would not be helpful, for
me, it helps me get up off of the couch and stop crying. Hope is the
only thing that gets me through and hoping for a healthy child is no
crime. You said in your email that you did not "ask for this" and of
course you didn't. Nobody would pray to God for an unhealthy child.

4. As I said in my "in my face" blog, I love all of my pregnant
friends very much. They have all been supportive and kind (bringing me
meals) and understanding. I am so so happy for them all and have
congratulated them on their arrivals and asked to see pictures and
stay updated. I was also just journaling that it is at the same time
difficult for me to see them and know that we were supposed to be
pregnant together and it reminds me that my baby is gone. That is sad.
It would be for anyone. I never "badmouthed" any of my friends. I just
said it is overwhelming to see so many in one week immediately after
losing my baby.

5. I want nothing more than for your children to be healthy and
thrive. I would never hope for L or anyone else to die!! That is
why I'm a NICU nurse because I only hope I can help make these
children healthy and normal because it is what every parent is hoping
for. I hope that the care we give can give them that wish. The wish
doesn't always come true and it makes me sad because every mom
deserves that. But if the wish doesn't come true, I know that every
mom grieves that loss, but then goes on to love and care for their
baby no matter what and adjust to the new life they never expected. I
would do the same. Every mom does what they have to.

6. I said myself that this entire experience has made me appreciate
Corynn even more than I already did. I already knew how lucky I was to
have her and was grateful for her every second. Does that mean I never
complained about being tired or needing a shower or her being fussy?
No. Every parent struggles with those normal everyday things. But I
never felt that I didn't love her or appreciate every second I had
with her. They are normal complaints. There are support/play groups
for moms to simply get together and talk about the daily life of being
a mom. I am not the only one and it does not make me an evil person. I
actually remember putting her to bed one night a few months ago and
she was playing games and would not go to bed and I remember starting
to get frustrated but also said the exact words to my husband, "she
can be frustrating, but I'm glad she can be frustrating. I'm glad I am
fortunate to have a normal child that can get on my nerves." I already
appreciated her, now I just appreciate her even more! She is the best
thing in my life. You said to "pick a side?" There are no sides. I
have never changed "sides". I'm just pulling any bit of positive I can
from the death of my child and one positive is gaining an even GREATER
love for the child I have.

7. I am not so selfish that I NEED to have TWO kids. I think every day
how lucky I am to have my first child and that if I never have
another, I am grateful I got the chance to have one. What I know is
that I do not want to end my childbearing years with a death. I want
to end on a positive note. I want one more so I can end with a happy
birth, not a dead one. Why should I stop? Why not try to fulfill a
dream of having two healthy children? I think it's a pretty reasonable
hope to have. I have said many times in my blog that it could be a lot
worse, and acknowledge my blessings and that is why I wrote about my
life being perfect. I KNOW things have been good and that things could
be worse. That's exactly the point of that post.

I hope that you are able to get the care you are looking for (but
can't find) for your children and that they grow and surprise every
doctor out there. I am sorry for your tragedy. You never ever deserved
to go into preterm labor or have a child with disabilities, just as I
never deserved to have my baby die. All of us have different struggles
in our life and we all deal with them differently, but I don't think
attacking someone who is newly grieving the loss of their own baby is
a healthy way of coping. I hope that you can find help for yourself to
get healthy and cope with your own difficulties

Private blog :-(

This is an email I received yesterday from a mom of some former twins I cared for two years ago in the NICU. I was their primary nurse and she was a Facebook "friend". THis is why I had to make my blog private.

Tiffany,

WOW!!!!!!

Do I have a lot on my mind right now.......The past 2 weeks I have been thinking alot about you. FYI I have been seeing your facebook updates and reading your blog for the past year or more. I am BEYOND PISSED and UPSET that I even know you or that you ever took care of my children to say the least.

1. You should not be a nurse, much less a NICU nurse.

2. You should probably not even be a mother or have been given the chance to be a mother- especially to a HEALTHY baby, GOD FUCKING FORBID you from ever having a UNHEALTHY child or a child that has CEREBRAL PALSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. I am completely DISGUSTEDDDDDDDDDD with what I have read the past couple days in your blog especially tonights blog!

You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. You have no fucking clue what mothers go through on a daily basis of children with special needs or any deficits at all. How can you be taking care of sick, preterm babies, babies fighting for their lives each and every single second. Talking to their moms and encouraging them???????????? You probably secretly hope that every single baby you take care of at work just DIES because they are not HEALTHY!!!! KARMA IS A BITCH! And yours is not done my dear!!!! (remember your life has been utterly PERFECT until 10/31/2011. :)

I spent 110 days with L in the NICU and 115 days in the NICU with G. You have no idea what I went through as a mother and you have no idea what any mother of a child in any NICU goes through because you have never been on that side of things. You are on the other side (which you shouldn't be!!!!). I pray you never take care of a sick child again as a nurse.

Do you have any idea what I go through on a daily basis?????? NO!!!!! My daughter is over 2 years old and just now can sit up on her own. She doesn't walk yet, doesnt' talk, and is still on thickened liquids (there is much more to list of her deficits but I will SPARE you the details because I know how DISGUSTING this is to you to hear about a NON-PERFECT child being born and that is still alive-STRUGGLING!!!!!. I guess you should bring a gun over and shoot L in the FUCKING FACE because she is diagnosed with CEREBRAL PALSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why woulld anyone want a child with this diagnosis. WAIT?!!!!! Thats what I always hoped for!!!!! I wanted this!!!!! I wanted all of these struggles in my life and every day wondering what I did to deserve this, going to couseling, taking medication, and being a complete bitch to my husband for no reason at all because I still BLAME myself for something that I may have done (which all the doctors keep telling me that nothing I did was my fault). I wasn't even trying to get pregnant much less have twins. AND no I didn't drink caffinne or smoke or do drugs to deserve going into spontaneously preterm labor at 26.6 weeks. AND no I didn't get punched in the stomach or get beaten to deserve my daughter to have a subdural hematoma that caused an anoxic brain inury!!!! I have so MANY fucking questions for GOD/doctors (AND NOOOOOOOOOOO ANSWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that I don't know if he will ever be able to answer them. Atleast you TIFFANY have answers of why your second child "died". I have felt so sorry for you since this happened on halloween and now I am disgusted that I ever wasted any time praying for god to comfort you or have ever spent any time thinking about you or how you were feeling.

If you have all of these things running through your mind then maybe you should write them in a notebook and keep it to yourself-no one with UNHEALTHY children wants to read this SHIT!!!!!!! I hope all the people that you assume are reading your blog have HEALTHY children. And for you to even bad mouth J of all people for bringing you food while she was 9 months pregnant and being pissed about her being pregnant is crazy. At least J wouldn't kill her child in the womb if it had a genetic defect. You have been so fucking paranoid about genetic defects, getting all of these extra tests done to make EXTRA sure your child is healthy is ridiculous. I BELIEVE that you are a person that if found out there was any chance at all that your child might have a predisposition to be genetically defected you would get an abortion- probably even in the 9th month!!!!!

GUESS WHAT?!!!!! Reality is you have 1 child, Corynn that is supposedly PERFECT (now) and you are still a UNGRATEFUL BITCH! You have to have 2!!!!!!! Healthy!!!! Right??????????? (OH NO HOW THEIR NAMES WON"T MATCH- damn it you had to use that "matching" name for your DEAD baby!) You can't wait to start having sex and get pregnant again, can you?????????? Better hope that it's healthy!!!!! OR doesn't do summersaults again and wrap it's cord around it's neck, and better hope that your multi vitamins work and your folic acid is high enough for your baby to not develop spina bifidia- oh wait that wouldn't matter because you would just KILL it by having a abortion (because you already have a ANGEL name picked out!!!!) Then you could just go have sex again and try for another HEALTHY baby.....oh wait, that might not happen but don't worry Tiffany because you have 4 ANGEL names picked out!!!!!! Since your such a planner you better hope that you don't have more than 4 more miscarriages or sontaenously early labors- because then you might have to use a name that you didn't prepare for?!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!! something might happen in your life that you didn't plan!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE NOT GOD AND CANNOT PLAN YOUR LIFE!!!!!

Lets talk about the quilts of DEAD children at childrens mercy for a second- YES THEY PISS ME THE FUCK OFF and probably every other parent of a sick child in the hospital that is living, has cancer, or is fighting to stay alive in the NICU. I don't want to see that shit every time I walk to the caffeteria, to an elevator, or to a doctors appt. I DON'T WANT my childs picture up there. It doesn't give you hope it gives you FEAR that your childs picture will be up there. Maybe it is comforting to those that have lost their child but do they have to go to that hospital multiple times a year and see that quilt? NO it's the parents of sick children that have to walk by them. I walked by those damn quilts from 7/11/09- 10/20/09 every day praying that my childs face wouldn't be up there. They should be in a certain spot in the hospital that is optionalfor people to visit. NOT shoved down your throat every corner you turn seeing dead faces of babies with tubes down every orifice of their body. Now that I think about it you probably like seeing all of the dead babies up there because they were UNHEALTHY and should have never even have been born much less lived!!!!! RIGHT TIFFANY?????!!!!

I have pages and more pages to write to you and much more on my mind- believe me!!!! But for now this will do. I hope to never see your face again or hear about "horrible" your life is. And I hope you never bitch about how Corynn is annoying you- but wait she is walking now and that is so "freeing!!!!" right????? You bitched for the last year about how annoying she has been to you and you can't get shit done and now you are grateful for it. Pick a fucking side- do you want children or not? And if so then don't complain all the time. If you for some reason you ever do have a child that does happen to have special needs I feel sorry for them because you will never give them the love or attention that they deserve because you are a selfish awful human being. If for some reason I do see your face again I want you to not acknowledge me, my kids, or my husband. You better run fast! I wish I would have never met you, or have you taken care of my kids in the NICU.

In the end.....God will give you what YOU truly deserve!

OB follow up

Today was my two week follow up with my OB. I had a million questions and meant to write a blog before the appt about some research I'd done and thoughts I had about Brynn's death. I'll write about those first.

At the delivery, my mom had noticed that her cord was very thin and fragile and the doctor had made the same statement to me and at the time I simply asked if that was because of the early gestation and she hesitantly said "ummm partly" but acted like there was something else she was thinking but didn't want to share. I just thought maybe she was thinking that it was also just fragile from all the stretching and trauma of being pulled so tight and she just didn't want to be too graphic with me. But as I've been reading Dr Jason Collins book "Silent risk: issues with the human umbilical cord" I read about straight cords. I had never heard of this.

A normal umbilical cord has one vein and two arteries and the vessels sort of braid over one another creating a helical pattern and then the whole thing twists around as if taking a braid and then twisting the ponytail. This coiling gives the cord extra strength against being compressed too easily. Then the vessels are surrounded in the white thick connective tissue called Whartons Jelly. The Jelly is there to also protect the vessels from easy kinking or compression. The book reads that cords that are straight and lack whartons jelly almost always end in fetal death because it is so easy to wrap around things and pinch off.

After reading this I wondered about her cord. I looked up a picture of another 16 week fetus and compared it to hers and they were VERY different. I truly think her cord was a two vessel straight cord with little to no whartons jelly.

As I read about these things I read that two vessel cords are often straight because having the three vessels is what makes them want to braid themselves in the first place. These cords are also associated with other congenital anomolies, but not always. Sometimes there can simply be an issue with the cord, but the baby is otherwise fine. I read online in a couple of places that they are associated with gestational diabetes, but couldn't find any solid information about this link.

After I read this information, I started to feel better about what happened. I wondered if she had had abnormalities and if so, then that would have been life altering for us to care for her. OR, if she was otherwise normal, the book says that babies who do get lucky enough make it to term with a straight cord can have neurological deficits from the cord being periodically compressed for short periods of time throughout the pregnancy; not enough to stop the heart, but enough to just slow it down occasionally until the baby moves away from it. This can cause insults to the brain and lead to cerebral palsy, mental retardation or worse. When I read this I realized that this may have been a bit of a blessing in disguise. When I was trying to get pregnant I would pray and pray for God to give me a NORMAL and HEALTHY baby and I would say that if I couldn't have a normal healthy baby, then I didn't want one at all. I started to think that God was actually answering my prayers by taking Brynn.

I felt that Brynn was right where she needed to be.I had wondered though that if God were answering my prayers about having a "normal" child then why would he have given me Brynn in
the first place? Why not just wait and give me a normal baby? I like to answer my own question with the rationalization that God knows I'm impatient and if I had not gotten pregnant that month, I would have been soooooo upset and frustrated. He knew that was not the right baby for me, but let me have the reassurance that I can and will get pregnant. I hate when other people tell me everything happens for a reason, but it's ok for me to come to these conclusions about my own life. Thinking that this was the reason for everything gave me some sort of peace about what had happened.

So, today when I went for my appt, I had really hoped that my doctor had some kind of report about what they found with the cord, but she didn't have anything like this. It didn't sound like the other doctor had reported any abnormal findings or written anything about the cord at all other than the fact that it was wrapped around the neck and that was the cause of death. It was as though she saw that the cord around the neck was the cause and saw no other reason to look for any kind of abnormalities or examine the cord or placenta any further. I'm a little frustrated about this.

My doctor came in and said that this is just a rare fluke accident. I asked if it was a two vessel or three vessel cord and she said she didn't know. HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW?! Did anybody really look at it? I thought that was standard procedure at EVERY birth! This was a little frustrating for me because I was really hoping for some solid answers. My doc assured me that even if it were a two vessel cord, she has delivered many two vessel cord babies at term with no problems. So then I asked about it being a straight cord and lack of whartons jelly. She gave me the line about it being fragile because of the early gestation and that it was otherwise normal. Well, I'm not sure she KNOWS it was normal, she just knows that nothing abnormal was written about it, so she is assuming so.

I pulled out my comparison pictures of Brynn's cord and another spontaneously aborted 16 wk fetus and it's cord. VERY different. But she took a look at it, studied the differences for a moment, said "I see what you mean" and then quickly explained it away.

You see, I LOVE my doctor but she has one flaw and that is... if she doesn't think of something or come up with an idea on her own, she is slow to warm up to the suggestion. So, in other words, since she didn't know of any possibility of a cord abnormality prior to me suggesting it, she doesn't want to totally validate my point. She has to be the all knowing smart one. She IS the doctor after all ;-)

So I got the feeling that she sort of agreed with me but was hesitant to really make a diagnosis. She said that my baby had endured a lot of trauma from the way she died. She had a lot of internal bleeding and swelling and her cord was damaged, so it wasn't going to look normal.

I had wondered about her abdominal organs being abnormal because her belly was swollen and her organs were just sort of hanging out compared to the online fetus picture, but my doctor said that that is just from the bleeding and swelling and that the online baby looked like it was a spontaneous premature rupture of membranes (water broke early) but that the baby was totally fine.

She also pointed out that I had a 12 week ultrasound from a perinatologist who looked at those things and said they were perfect. I asked if E and I should have our chromosomes checked to make sure they are normal and we did not cause some kind of problem. She again reminded me that my 12 week genetic screening put me at VERY low chance of a genetic problem and the ultrasound was great. And we had one totally healthy baby already so the chance of our chromosomes being abnormal is low and she still did not see that anything was wrong with Brynn that would warrant that kind of thinking.

But as I went on asking about possible causes of her having a straight cord, my doc never directly argued with me saying "no she didn't have a straight cord". She was willing to talk about causes which tells me she DOES think she possibly had a straight cord, but just isn't willing to say for sure.

I asked about the GD link and she said this doesn't make any sense because GD occurs after the cord is already formed. I had agreed with this point, but just wondered what the association would be. She said she'd never heard of this and thought it was ridiculous.

But, I took metformin in the first trimester with Corynn. This med was originally prescribed to boost fertility/ make me ovulate more frequently. The thought is that I lack the normal amount of insulin receptors which makes me have a higher level of "floating" insulin in my blood... insulin is a hormone and it throws off my hormonal balance of estrogen and progesterone. Metformin makes you absorb less sugar, therefore needing less insulin and it's supposed to make your insulin receptors work better. Then I stayed on it through the first trimester to help my hormone levels and prevent miscarriage.

When I started trying to get pregnant with Brynn I was not noticing any more frequent ovulation on the metformin and it gave me nasty GI side effects, so my doc said I probably didn't need it and could stop taking it.

Well, I now wonder if this difference had any effect on the development of Brynn's cord. Maybe higher insulin levels or borderline high blood sugars? She wasn't sold on this idea, but said I could take metformin in the next pregnancy if it would make me feel better.

I also asked about Femara. This drug is used to induce ovulation but is KNOWN to cause birth defects if taken WHILE pregnant (it is given prior to pregnancy) and the FDA won't even approve it for this purpose because of this. It is actually a breast cancer drug that lowers estrogen but all reproductive endocrinologists use it now and most OB's are moving in that direction. It's half life clears it completely out of your system 10 days after taking it, so if taken cycle days 3-7, it should be gone by cycle day 17 and I did not ovulate until cycle day 35 so there shouldn't have been any affect on the baby, but I'm just suspicious of it now. I took Clomid and metformin with Corynn and she is perfect, so I'm just wondering if I should do the same thing next time as well as the GD diet from day one.

I have a friend who has trouble getting pregnant and she has been pregnant three times. Two times she used femara and miscarried both times. The third baby she got with no meds and carried that baby to term. Could be just a coincidence, but it makes me wonder.

My doc said she would do Clomid for the next baby if it would make me feel better but that she delivers healthy babies on Femara all the time and would prefer it because it has a lower risk of twins. I will have to think about this and do some more research before I make my decision.

My doctor wanted to emphasize that there is nothing I did or didn't do that caused this and there is no one thing I can change to make sure it doesn't happen again. She said

"I would love to be able to give you that answer and reassurance, but I truly think your baby just did too many somersaults and there is nothing that could've changed that. You are the perfect patient. Very careful, very conscientious. I have patients addicted to drugs that deliver perfect babies. This was just a rare unfortunate accident."

This is tough for me because I wish there were an answer. I wish there was something I could change or do differently. I took prenatal vitamins nine months before getting pregnant and religiously every day. I drink nothing but milk and water in the first trimester. No caffeine. No cold deli meat. No medicine, not even tylenol until 10 weeks. I ate extra spinach, lentils and oranges during 5-6 weeks because they have extra folic acid. I do everything PERFECT. This RARE accident should not have happened to my baby.

Without me even having to ask, my doctor said that she knows I will have very high anxiety with the next pregnancy and it is going to be a LONG nine months and said we will do very close monitoring. She said I will have an early ultrasound examining the make up and position of the cord. Then I will have weekly biophysical ultrasounds starting at 24 weeks and if at any time the cord looks to be in a dangerous position, I would then have the option to be placed on hospital continuous monitoring or deliver if I am far enough along that we think it would be safe. She will also induce me at 38 weeks just to cut two weeks off the time that the baby could get tangled in it's cord. This will be wonderful! I am going to be a nervous wreck and the thing I love most about my doctor is that she knows me well and gives me what I want!

So, overall I was a little disappointed in the lack of hard answers I got in my appt today.

Thinking that something was or might have been wrong with Brynn was really helping me, but my doctor kind of shot down my rationale and left me again wondering why this happened :-/

The thought that she and her cord were perfect and she would've been a normal baby makes me feel uneasy again.

But I am satisfied in her confidence that this is unlikely to happen again, and that she will monitor me closely to make me feel better.

Alternate names

I am a planner. Big time. Everything always goes according to my plan, and I make sure of it. The death of Brynn was not part of my plan! We had our names picked out for a long time. We both agreed from before we got married that we wanted two kids. No more, no less. Early on, we picked out two girl names and two boy names. They matched, they had ties, they were PERFECT. First came Corynn, my all time favorite girl name and her middle name Erika after her daddy Erik. Then, we had a second girl, we would use Brynn. It rhymed and we loved it and her middle name would be Erin because Corynn's middle name was only one letter different from daddy's name, so Brynn's had to be as well. The names were perfectly created to go with my perfectly created life and family.

As I said in my original post about the day Brynn was born, we struggled with the idea of using this name. I had never prepared another name. I never thought of an alternate in the case that she didn't make it. She was Brynn. I had nothing else to call her in my mind. We came up with another name at the last minute, but it was wrong and fake, so in the end we said goodbye to our matching girl names and gave her the name she was going to have.

Being a control freak and planner, this has been difficult for me. Now what will I use for a girl name if we have another? I had never thought of any others. I didn't like anything else that rhymed with Corynn, and what about the middle name? I had run out of options for one letter alterations of Erik. Erika and Erin were all I had.

Now it was all messed up. I am glad I gave Brynn her name. I feel very good about that. But it did leave me feeling a little lost.

So over the last two weeks, I have spent a lot of time looking for names. Some might think this is weird, but for me it has helped me move on and think about the future. It's good therapy for a planner like myself.

I have come up with names for babies that make it/ live and babies who don't make it and become little angels.

There is always a chance I could have twins because I will be taking mild fertility meds to make me ovulate, so I have two names for each gender and each outcome. I had to give up on my rhyming names idea. I tried to find others, but nothing fit. They will just have to have completely different names (as most siblings do) and I will just have to be asymmetrical for once ;-)

I decided to look for names with meaning. In the past, I have never picked names by meaning. I picked them solely on whether or not I liked the sound of them. Brynn's names mean "a small hill from ireland" and Corynn's names mean "maiden ever powerful". Again, they were not picked for their meanings, but my future babies will be. My boy names for surviving boys have been picked and set for a long time, so they aren't chosen for meaning, but Angel boys, Angel girls and surviving girls all have meaningful names.

(I did have them listed below, but decided to remove them because I don't want judgement or opinions of how "weird" it is that I thought about alternate names or how/what I choose to name my angel babies if I'm unfortunate to have another, so I won't tell anyone except my closest family and friends what the name is going to be until the baby is born.This way no one will know if I gave the baby the "original" name or the "alternate" name. I'm amazed how judgmental people can be over someone else's grieving process when they've never experienced it themselves.)

My tragedy

I always thought my life was too perfect. Up to this point, I had never experienced any real true pain. No one REALLY close to me has ever died, I got straight A's, got in to the school I wanted, got the perfect job I wanted right out of school, met the love of my life and only guy I ever had to date (because he was perfect) at a young age and got married. He got a good job right out of school as well. Neither of us were affected by the recession as our jobs remained very secure. We bought our house just before the housing crash, so we were able to get our loan without a major down payment and the house is a good size to have kids in and it's in a great school district. I struggled for a few months to conceive C, but was able to get pregnant relatively easy compared to some and she was born healthy. I got into the daycare at work pretty quickly. For those who don't know, this is great for nurses because it's the only place that works with your ever changing schedule, allows for 12 hour days and you can pay by the day instead of the week. I have a wonderful loving and supportive family. I never had any serious health conditions. Nothing was bad in my life. Sure, I had the day to day little struggles, but overall things were pretty much perfect.

In the last couple of years, I had actually been thinking that I was due for a tragedy. I thought, nobody's life can be this good... eventually something would be coming for me. Some horrible thing was going to happen.

Then, after only three months of trying, I was pregnant again!!! I made it through the first trimester and everything was looking good. I remember thinking, "is God really going to bless me this much? I get to have TWO healthy kids? And a great husband? And a great job? Is my life really going to be this perfect?"

Intuition is a funny thing. When I got pregnant in July, I just had a strong strong feeling that that was going to be THE month. I was GOING to get pregnant. I just knew it. And I was right. And then I had my worries, but KNEW I was not going to miscarry in the first trimester. I was pretty sure things were going to be ok. But then, as I approached the twelve week mark, I started to worry. I had a strange feeling that something was going to happen in the early second trimester. I had heard other women on baby center say things like "I just knew something was wrong" or "I had a strong feeling this baby wouldn't make it" and they would be right, their baby didn't make it. I had this feeling too, but thought that as long as I didn't say it out loud, then it wouldn't be real.

I would have started my maternity leave just before Easter next year, but I decided to go ahead and request PTO on Easter. I shouldn't have needed to because I would've been off anyway, but I remember telling my mom that I asked off just in case something happened to this baby and I wasn't on maternity leave, because then I would be mad if I were working Easter. She thought I was crazy, but I said "you never know, what if something happens to the baby in November or December."

I also asked my sister who will be graduating in May what her exact graduation day was so I could be sure I was off. Again, I should have been on maternity leave at that time, so why was I even worrying about this?

I had a strong feeling that something was going to happen in the teens. Sometime between 15-19 weeks to be exact. I just had a feeling. That's why I said to E that day "if something happens to this baby, I'm not sure I would want to try for another." Something kept telling me that something was going to happen, but I was trying to ignore and explain it away as paranoia. Although, I was paranoid when I was pregnant with C, but despite that, I was still fairly confident that everything would be ok. This time was different and my feelings were right. I didn't know how or when this "something" would happen, so I was still very shocked when it did because I never wanted my intuition to be correct. I hoped I was wrong.

I only hope that I have now paid my dues, I've had my tragedy. My life is no longer picture perfect. I have felt true pain and sadness and felt the unfairness of life. I hope that is IT for awhile. I hope God will give me a break and shine the happiness of a new healthy baby on me fairly soon.

I have been thinking a lot that it could have been worse. I am trying to be grateful that my tragedy was not as bad as it could've been. Things that would be worse: Something happening to C or E. My mom being gone. Getting diagnosed with a terminal illness. Carrying a baby to term and THEN losing it. I'm glad B went as early as she did before I got anymore attached. Something going wrong and having to have a hysterectomy and not having the hope of having another baby. It could definitely be a lot worse, and reminding myself of this helps me get through my tragedy.

Too much

I've been doing pretty good the last few days. It's wednesday and I hadn't really cried since church on Sunday. Until tonight. Right now. I've just been trying to move on and was doing pretty well with things. Talking about it, getting it out. But I've had a lot of happy healthy pregnancies around me the last two days. Yesterday a friend brought me food which was super nice and appreciated, but she is largely pregnant and having a C section on Friday. Then I got together to have a play date with another friend who is also pregnant well into her second trimester. Then tonight I see on FB that one of my friends is on her way to the hospital to be induced and another's water just broke. And another friend found out the gender of her baby today and she is due two weeks after I was. I am very happy for all of these girls, but so much happy healthy pregnancy and birth all at once is very overwhelming. I just think where I would be right now. I should be 17 wks and 2 days pregnant and happily talking to Brynn now knowing she is a girl. I should be unpacking all the baby girl clothes from the basement and picking out purple paint for her room that was supposed to be decorated in a fairy theme. I should be imagining what it will be like to have two girls and finding matching outfits for C and B. I should be reading about my friends in labor and anxiously anticipating April when it would be my turn. But all of those dreams are shattered. I heard on the radio today that the Duggars are expecting their 20th child in APRIL of all months. I can't help but be a little resentful about this. Why do they get so many healthy babies? TWENTY? I mean, is that really fair? She's like 45 years old. I'm 28 and it's a giant hassle for me to get pregnant and then my baby freaking dies. I just want what so many have right now. I know there are many women who lose babies, and I'm lucky to have even one, but it's so hard when I was so close to having another. I'm trying really hard not to hate being around or hearing about pregnant people because I don't want to be bitter, but after so much of it, I just eventually break down and get soooo depressed again. Going back to work is going to be such a struggle.... pregnancy and babies everywhere you turn. Sigh

Hoping for a RAINBOW

So, I'm trying to move forward and the best way for me to do this is to start focusing on trying for another baby. My doctor wants me to wait three months to try, but I begged her to let me try sooner and told her I wouldn't feel whole again until I had another baby. She said I absolutely HAD to wait one month and that if I happened to get pregnant on my own then we would just deal with it, but that I can't do any fertility meds until three months. She said my endometrium needs time to build back up to support a pregnancy or I could risk early miscarriage. I'm torn because I really don't want a miscarriage right after losing Brynn, but I also feel like if I ovulate on my own, then my body is ready to handle another pregnancy because I RARELY ovulate anyway, so if I do, I'm gonna have trouble resisting.

For those who don't know, a "rainbow baby" is a term used for a baby after a miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn loss. It's the "rainbow after the storm". It's a common babycenter term.

But, I am terrified of this happening again. I've been reading a lot about cord accidents lately and they are fairly common. 1/1000 babies dies from their cord and 3/1000 babies obtains neurological injury from the cord. They are more common with a posterior placenta, which is exactly what Brynn had. I had actually wondered this myself because both C and Brynn were always laying down against the back wall of my uterus and facing up (until C engaged and went head down). C's placenta was anterior so her cord fell nicely onto her belly, but Brynn was always laying on her placenta, so the cord had to reach around from behind her, making it really easy to get tangled.

Something I always think about is that Brynn was perfectly formed. The first trimester screening put her in the clear of any genetic abnormalities and all her organs were normal. I worry that my next baby will not be normal. I've now made two normal babies and I feel like with each additional pregnancy, my chances of having an abnormal child go up. I pray for one more healthy, normal, living child. I've always said that if I could have two healthy children, I would stop there and not push my luck with more. Now I feel like I'll technically be having a third and this makes me nervous.

I was looking back at Brynn's 12 week ultrasound and I can already see that her cord was tangled around her neck. But, I'm not sure if I would've wanted to know about it then. I guess it could've prepared me for the possibility of death, but then again that would have just been extra worry that I could do nothing about.

I think that I do want to have frequent ultrasounds with cord flow and position checks with my next pregnancy, especially after 28 weeks when we could deliver the baby if it looked like the cord posed more risk than prematurity would.

I just pray that this doesn't happen again. Surely that won't happen two times, right?!

God and guilt

I have moments where I think this is my fault or I somehow caused this. Some reasons seem logical and possible and others probably are not as possible, but still haunt me.

A few weeks ago, I was having a horrible day with C. She was whiny and fussy and clingy and the house was a mess and I couldn't get anything done and she wouldn't take a nap etc.. I had a little mommy break down and cried to E that sometimes I didn't think I was cut out for this mom thing because on days like these, I so desperately wanted a break. I expressed that I was nervous about my ability to handle two and even said the words (here comes the guilt) "if something happens to this baby, I'm not sure I would want to try for another". I feel like those words cursed me. I remember I wondered before saying them out loud if I would be "asking for it" in a way and maybe I shouldn't say it. But I was so frustrated and just wanted to vent to E. I never meant that I wanted anything to happen to my baby and I feel like God heard me and took my baby to teach me a lesson. By the next morning, I was totally over the mommy frustration and regretted ever saying that.

Then on Saturday before Halloween, we were visiting with E's parents and we had just gotten C to bed and were kicking back to watch a movie and I made the comment "I'm sure not looking forward to getting up at night with a baby again." I feel horrible for saying that now and can't help but think that God again wanted to teach me a lesson to be grateful for even the screaming in the middle of the night moments.

And on Sunday night before my ultrasound I asked God to please make it visible/ make the baby cooperate and show us if it was a boy or girl. I expressed to him that I knew this was not the most important thing, but that we were so excited to find out. I feel like I shouldn't have asked for this and now God is teaching me a lesson about what's really important.

I rarely drink caffeine in my pregnancies and not at all in the first trimester while things are forming. But on Sunday, there was Dr Pepper available at E's parents house and I had been eyeballing it all weekend. I decided that because I was 16 weeks and I know women who drink lots of caffeine throughout pregnancy and end up ok, that it wouldn't be a big deal if I had a half a can of Dr Pepper. I wonder if that caffeine that she wasn't used to made her move like crazy and tangle herself in her cord. I will never drink caffeine in pregnancy again.

And finally, I wonder about the stomach virus I had. I wonder if the crazy amount of whole body retching and contracting that I did got her tangled in her cord. Not that I could've had any control over this one, but I just wonder if it played a role.

Yesterday we went to church and it was hard. The songs and sermon were about how great God is and how he never leaves our sides and loves us so much. I struggled with this because I feel a bit like God took my baby. I know I shouldn't blame him for this, but then should I not give him credit for giving me the baby in the first place? Everyone says to thank him for giving me a baby and to ask him for another. So does he control the giving of babies but doesn't control the taking of them? This is something I struggle with.

I do realize that God has watched over me and given me so much. I have one living healthy GIRL that I wanted soooo much. I am blessed that he gave me a girl before losing another girl. If I had had a boy first and then lost a girl, that would have hurt so much more! I also feel that he was watching over me that day. It was lucky that E and my mom happened to be with me that day during the ultrasound. If it had been just a normal doctor appointment, I would've been by myself when I found out.

It is also lucky that we found out the DAY she died. This way there were no shocking surprises of me just starting to cramp or bleed in the middle of work or anywhere else or waiting weeks before I found out at my next dr appt. This also was probably better for my health so I didn't get any kind of infection or harm to my uterus that would prevent me from having more kids in the future.

I'm glad that the labor and delivery went smooth with no problems and FAST. They said it would take 2-3 days and my mom said she prayed over and over that it would go quick so my agony could end, and it did! I delivered two hours after my first cramp.

Also, my epidural worked good so that when not all of my placenta came out, I was able to tolerate manual removal and scraping of my uterus without having to go to the O.R. for a D&C.

And they had told me that there was a risk of uterine puncture when needing to scrape the uterus, but I was blessed to have a very gentle doctor on call that night and nothing was damaged!

And we are blessed to have a clear answer of what caused the death. I would hate to be left with an unknown cause.

And it couldn't have been a better day to go to the hospital to get IV fluids, zofran and IV antibiotics. Before I left for the hospital, I could hardly stand up because I was so weak and dehydrated from puking. The fluids and meds I think helped me heal from the virus rapidly.

I'm grateful that the nurses and doctors were so caring and supportive and treated my baby like a person and allowed me to deliver and hold her and name her and that they took care of all of the funeral home arrangements and let me decide on cremation vs burial. I hear other miscarriage stories of women who just went to sleep, had a D&C, woke up and their baby was gone... never to know if it was a boy or girl or name it or really have closure.

Many things went well for me that day and I feel I need to also give God credit for those things. The funny thing is, I don't want anyone else pointing these things out. I can think of them on my own, but going to church and having it shoved down my throat was irritating. When you're sad and someone is trying to MAKE you think of the positives, it feels like they are discounting my grief and not letting me feel it or be willing to acknowledge it. I don't think I will go back to church for a while. Too much happiness right now. I am trying to build a personal relationship with God through all of this and don't want other people telling me how to do this. It's a work in progress.

I don't know why Brynn is gone, if for any reason at all. I do know that I have a whole new appreciation for C and for any future baby I may have. The little things just don't bother me as much and I will be more than happy to wake up every two hours at night if it means my baby is alive and well. I just pray that God will quickly give me another pregnancy and watch over me and the baby all the way through birth and give me one more healthy baby.

four days later

I thought I would write some thoughts about my grief. I have been posting some small thoughts on facebook, but I think I will stop doing that because eventually I think people start to get tired about hearing how sad you are. Although it is what's "on my mind" pretty much all the time, I know other people don't necessarily want to be brought down by my sadness. The last post I said was "I think I'm going to be ok" and I think I'll leave it at that so everyone can be satisfied. Everyone really seemed to like that.

Today was the first day I was able to get out and about and not just lay on the couch and cry continuously. I put on a happy face all day. I went shopping with my mom for an october birthstone ring to remember Brynn with. One of the clerks was pushing and asking about what the occasion for the ring was and said "oh you just had a baby?!" I pretty much wanted to fall apart, but simply teared up and got out of there and managed to choke back my pain.

Not only was I trying to convince everyone else that I was happy, but I'm also trying to convince myself. I hate being sad and depressed all the time. I want to move on and be happy.

All day I tried not to talk about anything that would make me sad. I talked about Brynn in a very positive way and tried to stay hopeful talking about having another baby in the future.

But by the end of the day, while eating out with my family, I became terribly exhausted and fought back tears the whole night. I didn't eat a thing. My stomach again was hungry, but my mouth was not. I couldn't hide it any longer.

I got in the car and fell apart. The truth is, I'm not over it. I'm still sad and I still miss her. I don't want to be sad, but I am.

I will never know if she had brown or blue eyes or what personality traits she had or whose smile she had. I will never know my own baby girl. She was taken from me too soon.

I also mourn the loss of my pregnancy. Pregnancy is not the easiest thing for me to achieve, and I was almost half way done. Now I feel like I'm starting at the beginning and this time I will do nothing but worry about that damn cord the ENTIRE pregnancy. Or what if I can't get pregnant again or something is wrong with the baby. Corynn and Brynn were perfect with no abnormalities. How many times can I get that lucky. The next one might have some horrible genetic defect.

But despite that, I want to be pregnant NOW! I so desperately need another baby.

Also, I HATE the word miscarriage. If anyone calls it that I want to hurt them. A miscarriage is in the very early stages of pregnancy before the cells even remotely resemble a human baby and you don't have to deliver the baby to get it out.

She was a baby. A person that I gave birth to and has a name and a birthday and deserves some recognition, not just some expelled tissue that you throw in the trash. I asked for "now I lay me down to sleep" photography to take pictures because they are so good at taking pictures of dead babies, but I was denied because they only do babies 23 weeks and older. Why?! If I'm willing to pay you and want you to take pictures of my baby, then you should take pictures of her!

Now all I have are snapshots that are too scary to show people. I needed well lit, posed, black and white photos that could be touched to not be so graphic. Now I have no pictures of my baby girl to show off and it makes me sad. It's like they won't recognize her as a person and it hurts me greatly. I hate them for that.

My boobs hurt today. I think my milk may be coming in, which I also hate.

I've decided I won't be celebrating holidays with anyone except the close people I see on a regular basis. I don't want to see any extended family that I talk to maybe a couple times a year.

I went to the support group last night and it was pretty helpful. It was good to see faces and hear stories of other people who knew EXACTLY how I was feeling: "No, this is not the same as the death of your grandfather, so quit trying to compare it to this." But probably the most helpful thing was that we were the only couple who already had one living child. This was a reminder that I should be grateful and feel lucky to at least have that.

That's what I've mostly been trying to remind myself today, and it keeps me focused for a while but eventually if I'm left with enough time to think, I think about Brynn and I cry.

I feel like my story is someone else's, that it can't possibly be MY life. I keep going back to the moment of the ultrasound where he turned off the screen. It is a moment I never expected for myself and I can't get it out of my head. It doesn't seem real. I remember last weekend and it seems so long ago, like a whole different world. A world where I was happy and excited, I was pregnant, I was the mother of two children, I had no pain. There are pictures of me from that weekend and I have a belly with Brynn inside. I didn't even know she was a girl at that time. I thought I was out of the woods, out of the danger zone and into my lovely second trimester. It is hard to see myself like that, so in love with life. I wish I could still feel like that.

Worst day of my life

Monday morning on Halloween I was scheduled for an elective gender scan at 16 weeks. We had planned a big reveal party that night.

Everyone was going to get a bag of candy and THINK that one person had a boy or girl card in the bottom of their bag. BUT then the card was simply going to say "you have to look in the pumpkin.." Then we had carved a bunch of those mini pumpkins and they would have to open each of them until they found the "answer" but then again there was going to be just a black balloon in one of the pumpkins. Then they would have to pop each of the many black balloons until one of them had either pink or blue confetti inside.

We had planned caramel apples, pumpkin cookies, soup.... the works.

I was going to be a pumpkin patch with a pumpkin on my belly, C was going to be a pumpkin and E was going to be a pumpkin farmer.

I woke up at 4am with the stomach flu. I was disappointed because I knew I would have to cancel the party, but I was still determined to make it to my US anyway. I threw up five times before going to my appt. (E had this stomach flu five days earlier).

My US was at 9:30. My mom, E and C came. When we arrived, I told the tech that we were mainly there to see the gender and that any other cute pics would have to wait until we knew. I didn't care if we had to spend the whole 20 min looking for gender.

The tech put the wand on my belly and went straight for the legs. They were crossed. So he pushed on my belly a bit to get the baby to move. No movement at all. He then went to the heart. I didn't see the flicker, but hoped it was just a bad angle or something. He moved angles a bit and then shut of the machine and told me to go to the ER. He could not find a HB. My mom jumped up and told him to check again. Still nothing.

I burst into tears and ran to my doctors office. They did antoher US and confirmed my baby had died.

This was the worst moment of my life. They measured the baby and it was measuring right at 16 weeks, so they said this had JUST happened. I had just heard the HB with my doppler on saturday night. I listen every night before bed, but had skipped sunday night because I was having the US the next morning, so I didn't feel it was necessary. At first I thought that this stomach virus must have been the cause, but we later learned otherwise.

I came home around noon to grab some things for myself and for C, and I threw up two more times.

I headed to L&D and they induced labor. My cervix was obviously high thick and closed and they told me that with this early gestation it often takes 2-3 days. I got one cytotec pill at 4pm. I started having real menstrual like cramps every minute at around 8pm and felt pressure at about 9pm. The nurse checked me and I was 4.5cm with a bulging bag. She said that this early, you don't have to dilate to a 10 to deliver such a small baby. She said once the OB broke my water, the baby would come out. I got an epidural, not because of the contractions (they were pretty mild) but they said that often this early the placenta does not want to detatch and they may have to manually remove it and that THIS is really painful. Getting the epidural did not hurt at all.

The doc came in a little after ten, broke my water and the baby fell out. I never had to push. She simply said "ok, your baby is out". They immediately saw the cause of death. Her cord was so tightly wrapped around her neck about four times that the cord and her neck were completely white and her head was dangling. My mom said it looked like she had no neck and her head was hanging on by a thread. After the Doc unwrapped the cord, all the fluid from her swollen head sunk back down to her neck and her neck turned swollen and purple. They told me she was a girl and let me hold her. She was born Oct 31 at 10:35pm, weighed 4 oz and was 8 inches long. Her skin was very translucent and gelatinous. She was otherwise perfectly formed. I got to hold her for awhile and had her in my room until about 5am the next morning. We have pictures, but I think they are too scary to show people. Because her skin was not formed, she just kept oozing and sticking to the blankets.

She had her daddy's toes just like C does. Very long and the second toe was longer than the first.

We did have some trouble getting all of the placenta out, so I was glad for the epidural.

At first I didn't want to use the name we had picked for a girl and gave her a different name, but as time went on I just felt like the original name was supposed to be HER name. It's what I always thought of her as if I had known she had been a girl. The new name felt fake and I knew I would never be able to use our original girl name again anyway because I would always think of it as hers, so I changed it an gave her the name she was meant to have. Brynn Erin, my sweet angel baby girl. I'm so sorry you got tangled in your cord.

I miss her so greatly. This is the worst pain I have ever felt and don't think I will ever get over it. There are reminders of her absence everywhere: my flat stomach, the absence of a bassinet in my hospital room, the fact that I'm bleeding, the fact that I don't have to watch my GD diet anymore, our new bedroom arrangement we had done just for her, the extra long table and bench my husband had made so that TWO kids could color together, the swingset grandpa made with TWO swings on it, not having to get up to pee at night anymore, the maternity jeans I had worn to the hospital that were to big to put back on, babycenter emails and pregnancy updates, the epidural bruise on my back... I could go on and on and each one of them makes me cry. Leaving the hospital without my baby was so incredibly, excruciatingly painful, while I'm looking at another mom load her car with her baby and balloons. I broke down on the sidewalk.

I miss her so so much and keep thinking this must be a horrible dream that I need to wake up from. I want my baby back. C will never meet her sister. They could have been best friends. I just feel so empty and alone. This wasn't supposed to happen. I can't stop crying. My eyes are swollen and surrounded with petichiae. She is still supposed to be with me. I can't eat or sleep. I'm hungry but can hardly chew or swallow and for some reason I'm never tired. I just lay awake and cry. I took a sleeping pill last night to help.

I'm supposed to be pregnant through the holidays. I don't even want to celebrate the holidays this year. I don't want to see anybody except for my mom. I don't want to hear that it's going to be alright and I especially don't want to hear that this is gods plan or there is a reason for everything. There is no reason. This was a horrible accident and I don't believe God would ever want this for me or Brynn.

She was supposed to be my Easter baby. I'm supposed to be struggling to breastfeed, waking up sleep deprived at night, dealing with a fussy baby, limping around from stitches and hemorrhoids. I just gave birth but I'm not doing any of the things a new mom should be doing. I would give anything for a screaming baby right now. I will never complain about that stuff again. I would gladly go back to my diabetic diet for the rest of my life if it meant I could have my baby back.

I dread going back to work with my many pregnant friends. So many were due around the same time as me. I so do not want to be that person who can't be happy for anyone else because I lost mine, but right now, the thought of looking at them or talking to them will just make me cry even more. I want what they have. What I did have two days ago.

When I was in labor, I just kept thinking "what if they were wrong, what if she's still alive, maybe we should check again."

Today we have to go pick out an Urn for her remains. It makes me sick. She's not supposed to be in a morgue, she's supposed to be inside of me. It's all just gone so so wrong.

I want her back, I want her back, I want her back. This is not "what i dreamed of"