Liam Randall

Liam's speech has BLOWN UP the last few weeks. On Sunday at the March for Babies (❤❤❤) it was very windy and he says, "Mommy! The wind blow away me!" And he walked backwards, pretending to be blown away. And I seriously cried. (I do that a lot, like literally every time he says a full sentence...) He tells me "sweet dreams!" and that we are best friends. He sings Old MacDonald with me and tells me how he feels (happy, sad, mad).

Every time he gets a little bigger I say "oh this is my favorite stage!" And I'm just sure it can't possibly get any better but it really does. It hasn't stopped getting better since the day I found out I was pregnant. Hate on me all you want, but I had the most fantastic pregnancy ever and I was truly sad when it was over. I had the most easy-going infant that put himself to sleep at 2 weeks old and has only spit up a handful of times his entire life. And NOW, I have a best friend. I have my little buddy that wants to sit on my lap and sing songs and is honest when I ask him if he ate that sticker I gave him for going pee on the potty. :) I have the child I have always dreamed of in every way possible. He spoils me like nobody's business and I lose my breath every time I look at the blonde-haired little man running around, smiling, in his flannel Thomas jammies. He is my heart and soul. My entire world in one feisty, brilliant, miraculous little package. I truly love him more than words can say but I will spend the rest of my life trying to show him how much. ❤

Time...

It occurred to me today that at this time last week I was so excited for Thursday to get here. I was ready to hear my baby's heartbeat and see the growth. I was anticipating good news. I can't believe that was a week ago. It seems like a lot longer...is that weird?

I also realized that when May rolls around, I will probably be struggling with the fact that my baby would have been born in that month. I keep thinking of this baby as a girl...I don't know if its because we were hoping for a girl a little bit or what, but whatever the reason is, I always picture a little girl when I think of what my child would have looked like.

Michael has still been so amazing and even though I still cry sporadically, he never makes me feel silly about it. My mom seems to think that because the baby is gone and the surgery is over, it's a non-issue now. My dad and stepmom said they were sorry and they haven't talked about it since but I know they are both very disappointed that things turned out this way. I know that there is a big difference between a miscarriage and losing a child that has had a chance to grow outside your body but I don't know the difference and I hope I never do. I just know that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and most people either look at me with such massive pity or they just try not to look at me at all. Either way, its just making me sick. I feel sick when I tell people and sick when I think about it and sick when I realized I haven't thought about it for an hour. I feel guilty for feeling like I am happy for a minute and guilty for being a sad Mommy to my boys this week.

I just still can't believe this is part of my story. I lost a child. I am a mommy to three children and I only have two. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? And of course there are the angry whys of it all. Did I do something so terrible at some point in my life and god is punishing me? Is there some lesson I'm supposed to learn from this!? Is it because I kept running after I found out I was pregnant? (I researched this and was told that its fine) but maybe my body just couldn't handle it. When I left the hospital after my surgery I was very groggy but I remember a nurse talking to me about it and asking me if I "fell or something"...and I just can't fathom how my body just couldn't protect and nourish my child. What in the hell happened???

I think the stress has made me physically sick this week and that's not making things any easier, not that I expected any of this to be easy, I guess. I don't expect this to get any easier to think about with time but I hope that eventually I'm able to deal with my feelings better...

Thank you again, a million times, to all the wonderful people that have supported me and listened to me rant and think out loud. Thank you for your thoughts and your prayers and your hope.. <3

My Newest Angel

It doesn't seem like the best idea to start my blog with a post about the worst day of my life, but it is what it is.

Starting at the beginning of this awful story, we found out on September 8 that we were pregnant. On September 18 I started having very heavy bleeding. We got into the doctor two days later and the ultrasound showed the gestational sac, which was good news. I went in for blood test, after blood test, after blood test, after blood test and they showed that my pregnancy hormones and progesterone levels weren't going up like they should have been. I was placed on a progesterone supplement and they stopped any other blood tests because they said that they weren't really giving us any answers about what was wrong or what could be done to help the situation. We started doing ultrasounds every week and at 2nd ultrasound they had trouble finding the yolk in the gestational sac. This was scary but they also said that it could have been because I was so early in my pregnancy (about 5 weeks at this point). At the next ultrasound I got the surprise of my life. They showed me, and let me listen to, my baby's heartbeat! They said that it had probably just started beating that morning. There was something so special about hearing that. I was seeing my baby's heartbeat on the day that it started. I had a baby that was living and growing inside of me and I could not have been more excited and hopeful.

Yesterday I went back for my weekly ultrasound. I was six weeks pregnant and I was crossing my fingers for a heart rate over 100 bpm and a lot of growth for my baby. At this point I was so hopeful that I think I just had pushed any thoughts of something negative out of my mind. Hope is such a scary thing... I was having my ultrasound and about 30 seconds in the woman said, "well, we saw a heartbeat last week... but there isn't one this week. I'm so sorry..." And she patted my leg. At first I told myself that surely she was just saying that she couldn't find it, not that one didn't exist anymore. I asked her if she was saying that she meant there was no heartbeat anymore. She responded, "yes, I'm very sorry." She was so nice and so sympathetic. After I went into the bathroom and cried to the point of no breath left and got dressed she came back into the room and gave me a hug. In retrospect I feel like a mess, but I sobbed into her scrubs. She walked me into an exam room where I waited for my doctor to come in.

When he got in there he gave me a big hug and said, "this sucks", because it really, truly did. I couldn't even speak without crying. I was a big snotty, teary mess and he just continued to talk to me like I was a normal person. He looked so sad for me and he was so kind and took the time to explain to me all of my options. I chose a D&C because I didn't think I could walk around knowing that my baby was no longer living but was still inside me.

The D&C took place this morning. It was so hard to get ready today knowing that I was going to have my baby taken from me and I would never see it grow to be all things that I have been imagining. It would never share a room with its siblings. It would never play with them. I would never get to hold it. I would never get to nurse it. I would never get to look into its eyes, telling it how much I loved it or play with its tiny fingers and toes.

My heart is broken into a million little pieces right now. It helps to hold my baby boy and tell him how much he means to me, but I am still so broken-hearted for the baby that I will never get to hold.

At some point the church will contact me and they will have a ceremony with several families to bury their miscarriage tissue, along with ours, in the cemetery. I will go to this and I'm sure I will cry just like I am crying as I type this.

I am so grateful for all of my twitter friends who have been sending me supportive messages throughout this pregnancy, and now over the past couple of days throughout this horrible, indescribable time in my life. Michael has been so supportive through all of this. I know that he has lost a child too but he understands that this is taking a much larger toll on my heart than it is on him. He is so amazing...

I will always have an angel looking over me and I will always have my baby in my heart but I am struggling so hard right now to accept that I will never have my baby in my arms...