'20'

Happy November everyone! I'm glad it's here. It's relatively empty compared to October, thank goodness. I ripped the October page off tonight and smiled at all the white space. Gosh I love white space. That is, until I saw the number '20', circled in red at the bottom of November 10th. That people.... was a reminder. A now sickening and saddening reminder that I would have been 20 weeks pregnant on that day. A half-way milestone to what would have been our third child.

I think most of you know that on September 11th we went in for a routine ultrasound at 11-1/2 weeks. A welcome plateau to a very hard pregnancy. I had been sick. Like SOOO sick, at one point I was pretty sure I was dying... seriously, not to sound too dramatic or anything. I remember sitting there, excited, but so very nervous before going in. We watched another couple go in before us and exit with these images. You could not wipe the grin off that guy's face. 'First timers', we thought, and smiled at thought of how much they were going to encounter to get to the point we were at.

I still felt nervous though. After you have experienced one miscarriage (we lost a baby before Hazelle), the first trimester is never the same. You always have it in your head that its a crap shoot, 50/50, nothing is for certain. I definently had it on my mind that this baby might not be alive. But I had been sick and that made me feel better, mentally at least, that my body was doing it's job and I had a little kid trying to get big enough to kick my bladder constantly. I could go on, but the gist is when the ultrasound tech saw the baby, it wasn't moving, there was no blood flow, and it was only measuring 8-1/2 weeks. She got all her images she needed before telling us. I knew already though.

We were ushered back to room immediately, a standard protocol so women don't have to go out in the waiting room and hold it in until they are in private. My ob/gyn smiled at me on the way back, not having seen the results yet. I was glad though. I wasn't looking forward to the sad head nod I knew was coming and all the 'Next time...''s we'd talk about. We didn't cry, either one of us. It was more shock, a familiar, sickening shock.

I had a D&C a few days later and have been trying to get back to normal ever since. I feel pretty good now, but every once in awhile, something will hit, like tonight and that stupid red number '20' circled on my calendar, as to what I'm missing. The first time I miscarried 4-1/2 years ago, I had marked every week on my calendar in red ink. I spent over an hour after that miscarriage taking whiteout to the remaining 30 numbered weeks. For the next 6 months, all the stupid whited-out pages in that calendar stuck together. Lesson learned. Never mark dates again... at least all of them. '20' is an all-important half-way milestone though, one of only a few to get inked. Unfortunately this '20' no longer serves as a reminder our baby's due date is half way here, but as a reminder our baby will never be.