CRASHING DOWN (Part 5 of 6)

Christmas was on a Saturday this year. That is not relevant, but it gives you a timeline. I felt absolutely horrendous that day. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. At the risk of seeming antisocial to Erik’s extended family, I did in fact lie down a few times just to feel “right” again, but I fought the sleep. The next day we went shopping for a good portion of the day, enjoying the hunt for our annual after-Christmas bargains. Monday we went to Tulsa to see my grandparents and cousins. It was a great day and I remember being so excited because Tuesday was the 8 week ultrasound day! It was a milestone in my mind because we had never made it that far. With this pregnancy I had actually started filling out a pregnancy journal and calendar. As much as I hated to admit it, I was allowing myself to get excited about a pregnancy. After the first miscarriage I had not allowed myself to search for baby bedding on the internet, paint the nursery in my head, or even let my mind drift to a future that included us with a child. This time, I was starting to go there. Dangerous territory indeed…

On Tuesday Erik had to work so my mom agreed to come with me to the ultrasound. Looking back, God had a hand in that because I usually just went alone. We waited forever to get into the room with the “good” ultrasound machine and while we were waiting we overheard/saw snippets of a woman passing out from a blood draw. Mom and I were observing the somewhat humorous spectacle and talking about shopping or something equally mundane. Dr. GB finally came in to do the ultrasound and I immediately knew that something wasn’t right. I didn’t see the familiar little flutter on the screen indicating a heartbeat. My heart started pounding and I felt sick to my stomach. When he called out the measurements, the baby had barely grown from the previous week. After he was done, he confirmed what I had already figured out. The baby was gone. He guessed that it had probably stopped growing on Christmas Day. The day that I had been waiting on for 8 weeks had turned ugly and dark. No matter how you steel yourself against the pain, it still takes your breath away. In that moment, I saw the ending. I’d been there before, 3 times. I already knew about the pain, the grief, the emotional toll I was positive it would take on me. What I wasn’t sure about was if this news would be what finally broke me, shattering me into a million pieces, unable to be put back together again.