My body has lied to me.

It spent five weeks crafting the perfect cover up for loss. I was fourteen weeks pregnant with a baby frozen in time at nine weeks and one day. 

I have had a missed miscarriage.

My body couldn’t handle the grief that comes with a precious baby dying, so it acting like all adults do with sad stories-it kept going like nothing was wrong.

Friday night on February 28th I woke suddenly with a sensation of mild cramping and in my hazy, sleepy mind I thought, this is wrong. The pressure in my lower abdomen passed as fast as it had arrived and I pulled Aspen closer to me as I drifted back to sleep.

Saturday night, March 1st, I went to the bathroom at work and noticed delicate pink spots after wiping one time. I sat at the nurses station looking up possible explanations to light spotting and mild cramping in the second trimester of pregnancy. I gave myself excuses and tried to brush the swell of tears away, but I knew. I knew.

Sunday the 2nd of March I went to work that night, cramps returning, the stark red on white paper more evidence of wrongness. I left work early, the same excuses circling in my thoughts. Walking into the emergency room, I knew.

I stood at the window checking into the ER for the first time in my life with just myself, feeling ashamed when I said to the person behind the invisible plexiglass wall, “I think I am having a miscarriage.” Feeing ashamed because there were others sitting in the lobby and I didn’t want them to hear. Ashamed because I was wasting my time when everything was fine. Ashamed I left the other nurse to cover for my patients at work. Ashamed I was there by myself, because how could I ask Brycen to face this here in this place. Ashamed, because even though nothing I had done was the cause, how could I not feel partially responsible for the passing of her life because she was supposed to be growing inside of me?

I was in the lobby for two hours before I had a room. Two hours to sit in a tumult of emotions. I was mostly just tired. I knew.

In the room, I lay in the bed silently, thoughts spiraling. I made conversation and the occasional witty remark to each medical professional who visited my room because I am like that. When I’m internally struggling I outwardly spill humor. None of this is funny.

They don’t let you look at the ultrasound when it’s for emergency purposes. For all the reasons in the world that make sense for that fact, I still wanted to plead with her. Please, let me see my baby.

They wheeled me there and back from the room in the ER to the ultrasound room like I was incapable of walking. That was fine until I was wheeled into the lobby, past all the other strangers I had spent several hours with. I felt that everyone probably wondered what was wrong with me? I mean, they had seen me walk back just fine some time ago. I averted my gaze, ashamed.

While she pressed several buttons and made clicking noises with the machine, I looked up to see a ceiling tile decorated and lit up with a blue sky punctuated by fluffy white clouds. I saw the face of a woman at peace in the clouds. She moved the probe over my stomach, the warm gel providing a strange sense of comfort. When she got closer to my belly button I felt a flicker of hope. I rationalized that the higher up she went, the further along the pregnancy, which was a good sign that I had been progressing. All the while I was feeing the cramps grow stronger as she worked, a herald to the truth I had already known.

Less than an hour after the ultrasound I am back in that room, waiting patiently. I felt a trickle of fluid come from out of me. I know.

I heard a woman sobbing in a room adjacent saying, “why me? Why is this happening to me?” I really wanted to get up and leave the room to hug her, but I didn’t. For a moment I wanted to forget this feeling and be a comfort to someone else. This woman was not there when I looked for her when I was leaving. Maybe she hadn’t even been a real woman, maybe I was just hearing the part of myself drowning in grief that begged for an answer. 

When the nurse came in to help me into a pad and those cloth panties from after labor, I knew. When the doctor needed to see me urgently before the blood results or ultrasound report came back, I knew. I could have rejected the cervical check because I knew, but I didn’t. 

The speculum and its cold shock to my system a perfect description of the way I felt inside. I was once again staring up at the ceiling and its artwork, willing myself to bear it all. I knew.

I had known, so why hadn’t my body?

He offered a D & C, I refused. He offered a visit from an OBGYN, I refused.

I left on Monday, March 3rd with the confirmation that I had known of my baby’s demise. 

That drive home I held back tears, I swallowed them back. I wanted to be at home with my family when I shed them. 

It was dark outside when I crawled into bed with the news heavy amongst us. While Aspen nursed, Brycen held me. The tears I had choked back would not come. They still haven’t fully come yet. It was surreal and bitter. I have been carrying a tiny figurine of Jesus with me in my pocket whenever I go to work, something a patient had given me. I thought of it then. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

I spent the day between sleep and wakefulness, the pain dull and the bleeding soaking through me, a heating pad steady underneath two thick towels. We collected all the pieces of her that we could. We needed something to bury.

I wished my cousin happy birthday and thought how sad it was that they would technically share the same birthday and never get to know one another.

I was able to hold her little body in the palm of my hand. She was so still, so peaceful, hardly bigger than a nickel. She belonged in another place. We could clearly see her little hands and feet. Hands that will never hold mine and feet that I’ll never watch learn to walk. 

I stopped bleeding after a week. My heart may never stop.

Whenever we are asked “how can I help,” we never quite know what to say. I have little words to accurately describe what I need. I need my baby.

The hardest part is being asked if watching Aspen for some time while Brycen and I have a moment will help, but I can’t say that me saying no is me thinking, I don’t want to lose her too. As if her leaving my sight meant she was gone forever.

Maybe this is a poor reflection of me, but from this tragedy I know better how to cope with the frustrations of motherhood. I realize that the daily difficulties of chasing a baby who doesn’t settle for long, who is always exploring, is everything I could ever need. The moments are still hard, still enough to make me want to take a vacation from it all, but I cherish each challenge much more patiently and joyfully now. Being a mother is hard, but it’s beautiful too.

To answer my kind, compassionate, giving, loving, and supportive community, I don’t need anything more than you have already given me by being a part of my life and by being all of the adjectives listed above. 

Please understand, I write this with a grateful heart. Even as a person experiencing this kind of unspeakable grief, I don’t know how to help anyone in the same position. I love you and thank you. 

We named her Laurelin. We buried her together, quietly. I believe she’s in heaven with her sister and her cousins. She’s being held by family and by the Heavenly Father. How lucky she is.

I thank God I got to know her as He knitted her together within me for that brief amount of time. I thank God I got to listen to her heart beating just once. 

To you Laurelin,

I think of you daily. I will live at peace knowing you will never know a life without Jesus. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.

Love,

Mama