Always in our Hearts

For years we have taken to this blog to share all of the happy, sad, and day to day things in our lives.  We have shared the kids births, first steps, and first days of school.  We have shared so many random details of our life on here.  This has been my hardest post to write.  But this blog also acts as a scrapbook of my families memories..and it's only fitting that I put this post in with the others.

Lots of friends have questions and it's just so hard to keep answering them, so I thought I would just keep you updated here.  We want you to know and be a part of this grief with us, it's just hard to keep calling and explaining over and over.  We love you all so much and are so blessed to have so many people who care and love our family.

As most of you know we were expecting a new baby on April 20th.  On Monday I went in for my OB checkup just thinking it would be like any other exam where I would be in and out in no time.  I had brought Noah with me and everything.  I went through all the normal intake procedures like weight and blood pressure.  I was even informed by my nurse that they wanted to give me an early glucose test.  I drank the glucose stuff, got my flu shot. Very routine.  My midwife came to see me and we talked for awhile before she brought over the doppler to listen for the heartbeat.  She tried for awhile and had no luck finding it.  She told me not to panic yet. Said sometimes small babies are hard to find at first.  She said we would just get the ultrasound technician so we could see what was going on.  The ultrasound tech rolled in the ultrasound machine.  She's the same ultrasound technician that has taken care of Ella and Noah's pregnancies.  I think she even joked with me about "causing trouble in here" or something like that.  When she got started and the baby appeared on the screen, my heart sank instantly because I noticed first that the baby was still so small and second that there was no heart beat.  The ultrasound tech just looked at me and shook her head no. Randy came up to the office right away to be with me and Noah.  Our midwife explained that the ultrasound showed that the baby had stopped developing in the 9th week.  I should have been just days shy of completing my 12th week.  My body had continued to support the pregnancy despite the baby no longer being alive.  She decided that since the baby was so small, a medicine induced miscarriage was the best option to avoid surgery.  That was the hardest part for us.  We went home that afternoon with me feeling completely fine.  Feeling completely pregnant really.  It was sort of a daze, but we began the process that afternoon.  It took four hours to finally kick in so most of it was completed through the night.  It was by far the most horrible thing I have been through physically so far in my life.  By morning I had lost so much blood, I could barely stand. I had some complications and ended up having to go to the Doctor that morning to complete the process there.  From that point on things have slowly returned to "normal" physically which has been just as heartbreaking to me.  It was an empty feeling I hadn't anticipated.  We will never know why God decided to take this baby, but we do trust that His plans are better then our plans so we are just hanging on to that for now.  We have loved this baby and prayed for this baby since before we even conceived it.  The kids prayed every night that God would make our new baby big and strong so it could come out.  It didn't take long for all of us to fall in love with the idea of having this baby join our family.  It was a very short time, but I know the memory of this baby will never leave our hearts.   Ella and Noah are coping great.  Thankfully even Ella didn't quite understand everything.  We have kept it as light hearted as possible for her.  I don't want her to hurt the way we are.  We just told her that our baby wasn't growing as strong as it needed to and that mommy's body was so smart it knew that.  We told her God wanted us to have a strong, healthy, baby so we will have to wait awhile.  That was good for her.  She hasn't really said anything about it since then.  Randy has returned back to work which has been hard for him and for me.  It's good because it has forced me back into some normal routines like taking Ella to school, but it's been hard because it helps having him here.  As for me, I am just taking it one day at a time.  Sometimes one hour at a time.  I still have a hard time letting go.  My body feels like a constant reminder of what was taken from me.  That's hard.  But I am thankful for all the other blessings I'm surrounded by.  I'm soaking up my time with Ella and Noah and am reminded of how precious life is.

Here is the only picture we have of our sweet baby at 8 weeks.