Remembering What Might Have Been

I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to write this post and I ultimately decided that it would be cathartic, so here it is.

Today is a sad day for me. I had a hard time getting out of bed. I sabotaged my diet by getting French toast for breakfast. I am currently holed up in my office with the door closed. Today, I am grieving what might have been. Today is the day that I should have become a Mom.

We had been trying for 14 months and had two rounds of IUI when we found out we were pregnant on December 1, 2010. We were ecstatic; we were going to be parents. August 9, 2011 was my due date. It took everything we had not to share our news with the world, but we knew that all too often, things go wrong.

I was happy to go to the doctor's office every two days to have blood drawn. I was happy when I went for my first ultrasound on December 15 at six weeks and we could see the tiny spot that would grow to be our child. We didn't see a heartbeat, but it was still early and I was only a little worried.

Jim went with me for the second ultrasound on December 23. I was 7 weeks along and we were leaving town that afternoon to go home for Christmas. I've never been so glad to have him that day. Deep down, I already knew that the news wouldn't be good. I wasn't exhausted by 2:00 any more. I wasn't queasy if I didn't eat every two hours any more. As soon as I saw the doctor's face, I just started to cry. There was no change from the week before and no heartbeat. We had lost our baby.

I cried the whole day. I called my best friend from the airport and just sobbed. I called my sister and sobbed. Worst of all, instead of going home for Christmas and telling my very sick Mom that she was going to be a grandmother, I had to tell her that I might have to spend Christmas at the hospital when I finally started to miscarry. But my stupid body couldn't even do that right and there was no sign that I was going to miscarry naturally. When we got home from Georgia, on January 3, 2011, I had to have a D&C.

As of today, we have been trying for 22 months, had seven IUI procedures and one loss. We are no closer to growing our family than we were when we started, but we haven't given up yet. We still have hope, but today I am grieving the child that we will never know.