This part was very very emotionally exhausting. I really would have thought that labor and delivery would have been the hardest part, but it was the appointment and ultrasound that still set me to trembling if I think about it too much. Reliving that part of the day was extremely difficult – but I didn’t want to forget.

March 6th should have been any normal appointment day… except that it felt different. I woke up that morning to red spotting and, while I told myself it was just more of my mucous plug coming out, I was worried. I can’t tell you exactly what I was feeling, and I sure didn’t know at the time, but I felt a very real sense of anxiety. I left for my midwife appointment nearly half an hour early – the only time I have ever been early for my appointment.

On my way through the hospital to the Midwife office I passed triage and the elevators up to the labor and delivery rooms. I smiled to myself, thinking about how, in a few weeks, I would be there, giving birth.

My weight and blood pressure checked out just fine. I sat and waited in an exam room for the midwife – one I had not met before – came in. I told her about the spotting and she said it sounded like my mucous plug. “Do you have your bag packed?” she asked. “You might want to do that. It sounds like things are progressing.”

She asked me if I’d been feeling regular movement. “Well… yes… but it’s changed,” I said. Not much kicks. Not much movement. I told her about the day, the week before, when I hadn’t felt anything all day, so I drank some juice and layed down and he woke up and started kicking away at me. And the next day at work he was very active, moving around constantly. I had been reassured. But since then? Well I couldn’t say, really. No flurry of activity. When was the last time I felt him move for sure? I don’t know, I don’t know.

Up onto the exam table I got, like I did every appointment, and she measured my belly. 34cm. Last appointment I was 32cm, so I had grown appropriately. I was pleased.

She felt my belly to figure out how he was laying – and I told her how I thought he had his back to the front – and then she took out the doppler and put it on my belly. There was no immediate heartbeat like other appointments. Around and around she searched. Both sides. She felt my belly again and tried some more. I was calm, for some reason. I had the utmost faith in her, and in my baby. She was very good – she didn’t let on that there was something wrong. “Looks like you’re getting an ultrasound today,” she said. I figured he was just playing games, hiding. I didn’t think too hard about how a baby would hide at 36 weeks; she didn’t sound worried, so I figured there was nothing to be concerned about. We booked my 37 week appointment and I was told to take a seat and they would call me straight in for an ultrasound. I thought that it was good they could get me in right away; last time I needed an ultrasound they couldn’t get me in until the afternoon.

I sat in the waiting room for a while, waiting for my ultrasound. I chatted with another woman in the waiting room. My first baby, I told her. It’s a boy – my husband is so excited about that. I beamed proudly. I patted my belly. I didn’t know.

I waited a while. I saw a couple of ultrasound techs come over and pick up what I figure must be my sheet from the pile. There appeared to be confusion. People were talking about the file, gesturing to it. It was put back in the pile and I waited longer. I figured that there was some confusion because it wasn’t a scheduled ultrasound. Finally someone called my name.

I followed her back and jumped up on the table, same as always. Lifted my shirt and she tucked some towels in to spare my clothes from the gel. She started scanning over my belly. His head was definitely down still. “Just taking some measurements,” she said. She took measurements of his head circumference. Then more measurements… of things I didn’t even recognize. She was scanning through quickly, I couldn’t even tell what she was looking at. I remember thinking, “Why is she measuring things that don’t matter? Just show me his heartbeat. I just want to see his heartbeat.” My heart thudded louder in my chest with every second that went by in silence. I saw no movement on the screen. A button was clicked and I saw a line come up – the line that was always a wave pattern, showing the rhythm of the baby’s heart so they could measure it. Except this time it was flat. There was no glowing moement on the screen to show bloodflow, just a little dot of color.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to get a doctor in to take another look, okay?”

The weight of it all crashed down on me. I started hyperventilating, my hands clasped over my mouth.

A doctor came in. He picked up the ultrasound wand and did the same thing. There was still only a flat line.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. I was locked in a nightmare. “My husband,” I cried. “My husband!” I asked them if I could call him – they said they’d have to use their phone line, not my cellphone. My hands shook as I reached for my purse, for the emergency numbers I carried around with me. They dialed and handed me the phone. “Den?” I cried. He asked what was wrong. “It’s not okay,” I said. “It’s not okay. There’s no heartbeat. I need you here.” I told him what office to find me in. He said he’d be right there.

The next half an hour, waiting for him to arrive in a small conference room, was the worst hell I’ve ever been in. I was in shock. I’d stare blankly at the Midwife, who stayed with me the entire time. I’d answer questions. I’d sit and stare at the wall. I wondered when I’d wake up… surely this had to be a nightmare. This couldn’t really be happening. And then I would put my head down on my arms and cry like my heart was being ripped out of my body. So much pain… so much grief. My little boy inside me was dead. We would never get to raise him. We would never get to know him. Everything… all our dreams… all our hopes… gone in an instant. My world was suddenly without meaning.

It seemed to take forever for Den to get there. He rushed in with red-rimmed eyes and we clung to each other as we cried. We wept together, together in our sorrow. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I said to him. “Don’t, don’t,” he said. He tried telling me it wasn’t my fault, but all I could think was of how our baby was dead, how I had somehow failed him – failed us.

The midwives came to talk to us about options. I could be admitted to the hospital right now and the induction started. I could go home, gather some things, then come back to the hospital to be induced. Or we could go home and wait for labor to start. I definitely wanted to be induced – the idea of still walking around pregnant while my baby was dead was horrifying to me. But I liked the idea of going home and being able to post and let people know, before being admitted to the hospital. Den disagreed – he didn’t want us going home, he wanted the induction right away. I think a large part of his preference was based out of sparing me having to walk into our house full of baby things, of having to stretch this out any longer. I didn’t take much convincing to agree to an immediate induction.

While a labor room was prepared for us we made phone calls from that little conference room. I called Kel. Den called his brother. I couldn’t get ahold of my parents. It was so hard to tell people – just saying it outloud made us fall completely apart. We sat in silence. We wept.

It was around noon when the midwife told us the room was ready. She walked us down the hallway and to the elevators – the elevators we had passed on my hospital tour, elevators I had fondly thought about many times. I cried as we rode them up. This was not the way this was supposed to go. Walking into that labor and delivery room was horribly hard. I was not there for a joyous birth experience like I had imagined many times over – I was there to give birth to a dead baby.

Part 2
Part 3