In the beginning . . .

Feb 7th
Today was the day of my "big" u/s. I have a friend that's a nurse for a hosptial, so she arranged for me to come in because we all couldn't wait to know what the baby was. I was so nervous before I left. I got in the shower and prayed that God knew what was best and I trusted Him. I thought I was just scared to find out if it was a girl. I even got out the doppler and checked for the hb before I left. I picked one up, it was a little slower than usual, but I didn't think anything about it.
Another friend of mine met us up there. After a few minutes of the u/s I noticed that I didn’t see a hb and the baby wasn’t moving - I asked half kidding “Is it even alive?” She just kind of smiled and kept going, that’s when I knew. She finally said the baby had no hb and had swelling of the head and abdomen. My heart was pounding, but I wasn’t really surprised. I have had a bad feeling this whole time - that’s why I wasn’t able to talk about it or tell people or get excited. I haven’t bought 1 thing for this baby, I started to a couple of times but stopped myself for some reason. I mean I had the stuff in my hand and put it down before I checked out.
I just said “It’s ok, I knew it” I felt worse for my friends and the tech really. I didn’t even cry. I had to go pick up Ranger and then his teacher called - they all wanted to know what I was having and she couldn’t wait. I felt bad, but I had to tell her. There are so many people that are excited about this baby! Mark picked up Danner and met us at home. I stopped and bought the boys a movie and 2 video games so they would have something to keep them entertained. I didn’t know what to do. Mark was so good and took the boys for awhile so I could be alone. I don’t really remember what I did - I know I spent some time posting on BBC trying to figure out what was happening. I can look back now on all the things that weren’t right, I hadn’t felt the baby really move, my belly wasn’t growing like it should be, my nails and hair weren’t growing, and about the time the baby died is when my fatigue went away and I was really nesting. In the last couple of weeks, I had cleaned out the garage, the boys closets and starting scrubbing the tile in our bathroom. I just shook it all off as 2nd trimester energy. When the boys got home, I realized Ranger was running fever. I spent the rest of the night holding him. After he went to bed, we just sat in here in shock. Mark and I both searched the internet trying to figure out what was going to happen next and how bad it would be. Mark is worried for me that it’s going to be really bad. I am scared about being induced into labor and how painful it will be. I never want to go through this again. I guess it could be worse, we could have been farther along or could have been stillborn at full term or could have been a severely disabled baby. I didn’t sleep much that night and Ranger ended up in our bed with a raging fever.

Feb 8
Mark got up and went to work. He needed to go and I needed him to go. I don’t really remember much about that day, but my parents got here about 11:30. I think I was on autopilot b/c I got up and dressed and picked up the house and started laundry. Ranger stayed home sick.
When we got to the ob, we had to wait in there with the pg people and a family with a new baby . Dr C came in to watch the u/s and confirmed that the baby was gone and was measuring about 15 weeks (I should have been 18)! He thinks it slowly stopped growing and has been gone a week. He was so great and spent a lot of time to us explaining that we did nothing to cause this and telling us what the process would be like and explained to us some of the feelings we might have. He scheduled us to come in at 8 tomorrow night for an induction - I just don’t know if I can carry a dead baby in me that long. Mark said I’m like the penguin on March of the Penguins that kept messing with its dead baby thinking it would get up. I want it out and I want this baby bump to go away. It kills me every time I look in the mirror. We're still stunned. We left and didn’t want to go home so we went to Weatherford to sign papers on Tony’s truck and then shopping at Central Market. It was so hard - we saw babies, kids and pg people there and it took everything I had not to cry through the whole store. I was fine as long as I didn’t look at Mark or touch him. He gave me a big hug when we got to the truck and I let it go. He knew I needed it. We ended up going out to eat - I didn’t think I could, but neither one of us wanted to go home. I had a drink with my dinner, I was scared I was going to be a crying drunk, but surprisingly, it really helped me to calm down. I think we enjoyed our dinner under the circumstances. I couldn’t eat much, but we had a good time I think I am doing pretty good that this isn’t going to be too bad . . . I do feel like a total jackass for telling people I didn’t want either one when they asked if I wanted a boy or a girl. I feel bad for not being excited but I know it was my body protecting me. I wish I would have savored every minute though.
Ranger slept with us again and ran 104 fever. Why can’t God let me grieve in peace? Isn’t what I’m going through enough to handle?