The Heartloss of a Babylost Mama.

Today is a day I woke up and I still can't believe it.  Good days and bad days.  Ups and downs.  They say this is normal.

This is something that I never thought I would have to experience, let alone then try to put in to words for others to understand or make sense of.  And, since I don't have a censor button on this blog, I'm going to give it to you as raw as possible.

At about 3pm on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 a lovely ultrasound nurse took me into a small and smelly room to locate my baby's heartbeat.  Instead, she called the doctor in, who bluntly opened my chest cavity with a rusty axe.  As she did this, she looked at me with puppy dog eyes and told me he was dead.  Although my belly was just beginning to grow quite large, and the thought is to be gentle with a lady in my condition, no one was going to treat me with smiles anymore.  And since I didn't know his gender, it didn't really matter that the doctor slipped.  Yep, she said HE was dead.   

So, that same lovely nurse reached in and took my heart out.  First, she gave it to the doctor, who smashed it between the creamy manilla folder before she left the room.  The doctor took it out to the waiting room, so all the other mothers-to-be could dance around it in their fashionable maternity clothes, and laugh, and perhaps kick it around a bit with their pointy boots.  The nurse brought it back in the room just in time to tie a silk blue ribbon on it, and hand to Frank, who quickly placed it in his pocket for protection and warmth.

My heart hasn't yet been put back in my chest yet, and I don't really know if it ever will be.  For right now, it seems in better hands with Frank.  Sometimes the size and weight of my heart causes it to fall out of his pocket.  At times he might have to use that silk blue ribbon to drag it around.  I know he tries not to let it get dirty by getting rocks and dirt stuck in it.  It is a big responsibility for him, but it has become bruised and weak.  I know it is not his fault.  He is trying to help me heal it the best he can, so someday he may give it back.  Every night, we take my heart out of his pocket and we try to bring it back to health. Every night, Frank hopes that this is the night he can give it back to me.   Hopefully one day soon, I'll be able to put it back in my chest where it belongs.

There are always set backs, and they are always when you think you are making a bit of progress. Like with the realization there won't be another due date any time soon. I got the prize of two pink lines, but not the prize of a living child.  It hurts.  Especially when you do everything right for the last 19 months.

But if the universe smiles upon us this month or next, and the fertility gods or THE God decide to work in my favor, then we'll have to renegotiate who is in charge of my heart.  Speaking of God, where is he?  Has anyone seen him?  Where the hell has he been for the last year and a half?  He must be on vacation.

I wish that Q was the last baby to die this way.  I can't imagine going through this again, and again, and again.  I absolutely hate that there are women that are delivering dead children right now.  Imagine all the stars that need to be aligned for a LIVING, BREATHING, FUNCTIONING, HEALTHY child to be brought into this world.  It is a miracle that I took for granted.  I assumed that since I got those two pink lines, that meant that I would become a mother.  What I wouldn't give to have that innocence back.  And, there are more of us out there, they just don't know it yet.  Those women that are walking around, as blissful as can be, about to hear their doctor say that they can't find a heartbeat.  I just hope they have someone to take care of their heart for them for a little while.

To have empty arms and an empty chest cavity would be too much to bear alone.