My Child Did Exist

You never know how much you love the tiny person growing within your own body until you hear the words: "I'm sorry, but it looks as if you are going to have a miscarriage." Those are the words I was told in a cold, heartless tone on Friday, November 13th, 2015. Ironic, right? Friday the thirteenth finally did bring hell to my life. I always have people messaging me whenever I share miscarriage posts online, talking about my angel baby. The only reason they message me is because they don't believe me that I lost a baby...

"Well, you didn't post a pregnancy announcement or ultrasound or anything to 'prove it,' so that means it must not be true."

Seeing is believing, nowadays.

I found out that I was pregnant on October 12th, 2015, three days before my birthday! My husband and I had started trying for our "ours" baby in the middle of August after purchasing our first home together. Quicker than I could have ever imagined, we had conceived around the end of September. We, of course, were very excited. He had two boys, I had one boy, and we just felt our family was incomplete and that one more baby, hopefully a girl, would complete us. We had made the plans to get our announcement photos done on the 19th of November, planning to use those photos as Christmas gifts for the family to announce to everyone that we were adding two more little feet into our family. I started dreaming up names and nursery plans...my husband kept asking to just relax and wait until we knew the gender to get all crazed about it. I feel like maybe my being so crazy about it was my own sign that this baby needed a name before we knew the gender...like somehow I knew I was going to lose him before I actually did. No one knew I was expecting except for my husband and older sister.

On November 7th, I started having light spotting. Figured that's all it was, just implantation or old blood; nothing serious. Little did I know that, three days prior, on November 4th, my six week, five-day-old baby had lost their heartbeat...my symptoms tapered off, my spotting continued... then the gut feeling came that I truly knew, without wanting to admit, that my baby was gone. I went into the doctor's office on what would have been my nine week dating ultrasound—baby was six weeks, five days, and no heartbeat...the words I was told?

"There is no heartbeat so I'm afraid that this is, in fact, a miscarriage. It is too early to tell the cause because, at this point, it is typically just a genetics failure and there wasn't enough there to let the baby continue."

That's all I got. No ultrasound photos to keep as a physical memory, just medical confirmation, a prescription, and a follow-up appointment.

That was the day I lost myself. I told my sister what had come of the appointment before I went home. When I got home, I didn't even have to tell my husband. I walked in the house, dropped my purse, walked into the kitchen, and just dropped straight to the floor and the tears began to flow...he didn't say a word, he just started to run me a bath and get me something to eat. I wasn't hungry, but he knew I hadn't eaten most of the day. He helped me into the bath, went and picked up the medication I was prescribed to help my body carry out the miscarriage that had been happening for over a week now.

Those were the most painful, heartbreaking two days of my life. Not only was I emotionally broken, but I was in so much physical pain I felt like I was going to die. I can hands down say that the pain of a miscarriage is ten times worse than that of childbirth.

On that second day, I saw my baby...my body had finally finished what it had to do, and my baby had been taken from my body. I was always so sure that this baby was going to be our fourth boy, and my doctor told me many people are able to cope better once they name the lost child...the name my husband and I had chosen was Nolan James...Nolan was just a name found that we both liked and agreed on, and James was after his grandfather.

On November 18th, 2015, Nolan James entered and left this world. My child did exist. I still feel the pain of my child never entering this world. I still have dreams of him. I still wonder what he would have looked like; would he look like me, just like my first son? Or would he look like my husband, like his two boys? I wonder if he is the one watching out for me, his siblings, and his daddy, making sure that we aren't given more than we can handle in this life.

My child did exist. That fact that I did not post my ultrasounds or pregnancy tests online does not make him any less of a loss than if I had done these things.

To any parents dealing with the loss of their child, whether early miscarriage, stillbirth, illness, tragedy, etc...please, do not allow anyone to make you feel as if they are any less of a real person. Only you can ever know just how powerful the love of a parent/mother going through a loss is. Let yourself grieve however you need to. Take all the time you need. Do what makes you feel better through time, and always remember that your child may be gone, physically, but they are always with you in your heart and walking this world with you each and every day.