My Inspiration...my Rose

I mentioned in my first blog that my daughter Rosie (and a little encouragement from a friend from way back) inspired me to start writing again. I used to write all the time. I wrote a journal while in basic training, letters to my husband while he was deployed, and even started a novel of the way Foster and I met, fell in love, and survived a year apart. However, I stopped. Don't ask me why. I guess I felt that since everything was going perfect in my life, I had no reason to escape into my thoughts. I was newly married to my soul mate, making our new house my home, and we were expecting our first child. I wish I had kept up with that journal during the good time, because now I am kicking myself for not recording every detail of my pregnancy.

On April 20th 2010, my perfect life came crashing down. The most vivid parts of my pregnancy are now the last 24 hours of it.

Monday morning I woke up not feeling well. I talked to my Aunt on the phone that morning complaining that I felt weird but really could not put my finger on why I was feeling like that. I did my fetal kick count, and made myself some breakfast. I started some loads of baby clothes, because I had just celebrated my baby shower with friends and family the Saturday prior. I still did not feel right, so I called off of work, and decided to lay down for a nap. At 2pm I woke up with the overwhelming feeling something was wrong. I called Foster to see if he would be home early, but he said he had a lot of work to do, so it would be the usual time. To this day I wonder if I had just gone to the hospital myself, if I could have prevented what happened. Around 5 pm I noticed I had only felt one movement since 2, a slight movement of Rosie's head next to my ribs (she was breach). However, I had not felt any kicks, rolls, or her little hands in my ribs that I had gotten so used to over the past few weeks. I called my friend. She happens to be a nurse, and also pregnant. She had a fetal heart monitor at her house, and only lives 4 miles away. She told me to come over and we would find the heartbeat. Around 9 o'clock, after searching for the heartbeat with no success, Foster and I headed to the hospital.

Our drive to the hospital was pretty lighthearted. We talked about the possibility that we may become parents that night, but neither one of us brought up the conversation we did not want to talk about. We checked in, and got to the Labor and Delivery Triage room. The nurse brought in the fetal heart monitor. When she found a heartbeat, it was 125 beats per minute. I let out a sigh of relief. Until I realized my heartbeat was abnormally fast. Sure enough, when the nurse compared the monitor to my pulse, they were one in the same. Then everything started moving in slow motion. The Ultrasound tech came in, started searching, stood up and said "i need someone else to look at this.

Now, when a US tech says that you KNOW there is something wrong. They do this for a living, so they are probably better qualified than most doctors to let a patient know how the baby is. However, after closer examination by the doctor, there was no heartbeat. I heard someone scream, a low, hurting scream, almost animal like. I realized it was me. My husband was squeezing me so tight and sobbing into my shoulder. We had lost our baby. The nurses exited the room, and allowed us to process this news as a couple, a set of grieving parents. "What was it?" I demanded of my husband. I had decided at the beginning of the pregnancy that I wanted the sex to be a surprise on that wonderful day I gave birth. However, Foster had decided he wanted to know. So for the last part of the pregnancy, he had kept this big secret, and now I needed to know more than anything what the name of the child within me was.

"It's a girl." He told me after much hesitation. I started sobbing. My poor Rosie. She had been picked way before her time.