A strange day for me

Today would have been our first baby's 4th birthday. 

I can't really comprehend it.  It seems so long ago.  It's still hard for me to talk about it.

Hubby and I weren't planning on having kids at that point.  But one day I realized that I was a few weeks late.  I was so caught up in my teaching job that I wasn't paying attention to myself.  And sure enough, I found out that we were pregnant.

I cried.  I didn't think Hubby would be excited, since we hadn't planned on this and things were stressful enough with his dad going through chemo.  But he gave me a huge hug and said he was thrilled.

Everything was fine until the 12th week.  I figured that I was nearly out of the first trimester, so I began telling my students.  Literally two days later, I began to see that something wasn't quite right.  I called the doc and he brushed me off.  I waited.  A few days after that, things took a turn for the worse, in a very scary way.  I called the doc again, and he said it was normal and that I was overreacting.  I went to school, but ended up in the vice principal's office during lunch, sobbing.  She told me to go home, which I did.  When Hubby arrived home, I told him to take me to the local ER.  We spent the night there and they ran a lot of tests.  I knew something was wrong because they wouldn't talk to me about it.  Finally, at 4am on April 27, 2006, they said the words I had been dreading.

There's no heartbeat.  I'm sorry.

I don't remember much after that.  I was admitted to the naval hospital where they did a D&C.  They gave me a lot of vicodin.  Then I went back to work and had to tell my students.  That was just as hard as hearing that the baby had died.  They were middle schoolers and didn't understand why it had happened.  I had no answers because I myself didn't know why. 

There were lots of things wrong with this pregnancy.  I drank for the first six weeks because I didn't know I was preggers.  I was on 800 mg of ibuprophen three times a day, which is dangerous for babies.  I was on the pill.  A week before the loss, the school tore down my classroom and I had to move two pianos by myself.  I had an undiagnosed thyroid problem, which causes neurological problems in babies.  And most of all, I didn't have a doctor that took me seriously.  I think that bothered me the most.

The naval hospital is now defunct, in case you were wondering.  And personally, I learned from this experience to speak up when I don't think something is being done right.  Maybe it made me more of a bitch, but at least I didn't have to go through this again.

I always think of that baby on November 10th.  I put the blame partly on myself for being so out-of-touch with my body, but I also put a lot of blame on the fact that the naval hospital completely failed me & the baby.  Yeah, I'm bitter.  I guess people are supposed to get over that as part of the greiving process, but I don't think I ever will.

Happy Almost Birthday, little baby.