In case anyone reading has not heard, last week, Monday, April 2nd, my wife and I found out that our baby’s heart had stopped beating. This was especially shocking because we had been to the doctor at 10 weeks and heard the heartbeat loud and clear, something that is not always common that early in pregnancy.
The whole ordeal was very heartbreaking. At first, one thing that made it especially hard was seeing the baby on the ultrasound; we could see the feet, hands, spine, brain…everything was there and normal-just no heartbeat. The technician took fetal measurements, and everything was consistent with a 14-week gestational age. The whole process of delivering the baby was also extremely emotionally (and physically, for Kristin) taxing. I won’t get in to the particulars, but from the time she received the medication to the time “Rumpkin” (long, story…that’s what we had been calling him) was delivered, was about 14 hours.
ALL of the people at the hospital, especially the nurses, were some of the most fantastic people I have ever met. They not only provided exceptional physical care, but went above and beyond expectations trying to meet our emotional needs as well. They did a fantastic job taking care of us during an awful situation.
We are also very grateful for all of the help, support and words of kindness from all of our friends and family. Our friends out here have really floored both of us; we’ve only known many of these people for 6 months or so and we’ve had meals cooked/bought for us, gotten rides when we’ve needed them…it’s been nice to have people physically present to comfort and console us.
Both Kristin and I feel un-naturally aged from this experience-it has felt like a little piece of us has been taken away and we’ll never get it back. We also have dealt with, especially me, bouts of frustration and anger. Just before the miscarriage, we heard a story about a friend’s friend who didn’t know she was pregnant for 5 months, during which time she smoked and drank heavily. Thank goodness, her baby was fine. The thing that is frustrating is that we “did everything right,” and still lost our baby.
I am very glad that we chose to see the baby after it was born; it was a very cool to see this little person that we created. Something that I will never forget are the baby’s feet: you see, some people’s 2nd toe is longer than their big toe (Kristin’s feet are like this), for others, the 2nd toe is even with their big toe-this is true for me. Although Rumpkin’s feet were only about the size of a pebble, you could tell that his 2nd toe was even with his big toe…he had my feet! Kristin also says the baby had my hands, too. Holding him brought a sense of closure to the whole thing. (Oh, we refer to the baby as a “him” because, although you can’t tell conclusively at 14 weeks, the nurses and we thought he was a boy).
So, why the Dr. Seuss quote? Well, the whole quote goes: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” This is one of my favorite Seuss quotes (from, I believe, “Horton Hears a Who!”). I saw this quote on a book on grieving handed to us by a nurse. They were the first words I saw, and I immediately started crying because there was something about that statement that really rang true in my mind; this little person had a big impact on our lives as well as those around us.
Thanks again to everyone for helping us through this.
-N
