| I found out on Feb 1, 2001 that I was pregnant. This was a surprise but I was happy. I went to have my blood drawn for the blood test confirmation within a few days of my positive home test. Tony and I went to the OB Orientation class on Feb. 21st, the day before he left for Turkey. Little did we both know, that something horrible had/was occurring as we sat in that class. I was 8 weeks 4 days along the day we went to the class. By the time I was 10 weeks along, I was buying maternity jeans (I refused to just buy a bigger size because I didn't want to have them in the house after I gave birth. I figured this way I would have more of an incentive to lose my pregnancy weight afterwards.....I'd need clothes to wear! LOL). I found some really cute maternity tops at Wal-Mart that were on sale. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have much morning sickness. I felt queasy for a few weeks but that was it. While I was happy about my pregnancy, I had a growing fear that something was going to go wrong. I just KNEW that I was going to lose my baby. I felt fear everytime I went to the bathroom. I was so sure I would be bleeding. I was releaved when I would see that I WASN'T bleeding. I had only mild cramps that didn't last long and everything I read and everyone I talked to assured me that they were normal and due to my uterus stretching. A week before my first OB appointment, I woke up crying from a dream in which I went to the appointment and the doctor said there was no heartbeat and that my baby had died weeks before. By this point I couldn't lay on my stomach if I had wanted to because my breasts were too sore. On March 20, 2001 I went for my first OB exam. I brought with me a tape recorder so that I could record the heartbeat and play it for my husband over the phone the next time I talked to him. I was 12 weeks 3 days along. The OB used the doppler but couldn't find the heartbeat. He said he wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay (the doppler he was using died twice while he was trying to find the heartbeat). I said okay, all this time recording with my tape recorder. I realized that my fear was coming true. The OB asked someone to bring the ultrasound machine to the exam room and while he was waiting for it, he finished with the exam. When the ultrasound machine was brought into the room, he decided to do an abdominal scan first. He said my uterus was measuring at 11 weeks but that didn't concern him. He turned on the monitor and I saw my little baby on the screen. He kept moving the wand around and pressing harder and harder trying to get a better view of the baby. He said that he wanted to do a vaginal ultrasound because the abdominal wasn't giving him the type of view he wanted or needed. After the vaginal ultrasound, he helped me to sit up, gave me a hug and said he was sorry but he didn't see a heartbeat at all. This was all done between 11:30AM and 12:30PM. He said that he wanted me to come back and go to radiology for an ultrasound with their machines at 4PM. My cervix was completely closed which means that my body was still in the process of not recognizing that my baby was dead. I left the hospital and went straight to my husband's shop to find out how to get ahold of him in Turkey. One of the guys there called the Chief and I explained what was going on to him. The Chief managed to get ahold of Tony's 1st Sgt in Turkey who woke Tony up and told him to call his wife right away that it was about the baby. I spoke to the Chief at 1PM and was talking to Tony by 2:30PM (and people say the military doesn't get things done!). I hadn't cried in all the time until I told Tony what had happened. We both started crying on the phone. I went back to the hospital at 4PM and went to radiology. Radiology started with an abdominal ultrasound and was able to show me a wonderful picture of my baby. S/he looked so perfect. The radiologist said the baby measured at 8 weeks 4 days and he could not detect a heartbeat. He said that he wanted to do a vaginal ultrasound before having the tech come in who was the person to "confirm" the results. The radiologist was so sweet. He tried to lighten the mood for me by showing me how my bladder was working! LOL That WAS something interesting to see! He was very sympathetic and told me that if I wanted, he would write down my name and phone number and as soon as they got a printer, he would print out a copy of my ultrasound pictures and call me to give them to me. I appriciated this gesture as it was one of the few things I knew I would have to remember my baby by. A week later, at 13 weeks 2 days, I finally miscarried my precious baby. At 4AM on March 26, 2001 I felt a slight "gush" of fluid and something "solid" pass from me. I went into the bathroom and there was my baby. S/he looked perfect to me. I called a friend and he agreed to go with me later that morning so that I could make sure everything had passed from me. Everything had passed. I thought I had dealt with my grief over this loss but now that Tony is home, I'm realizing that I had only tried to "hide" from it. We are both "facing" it head on now. I have chosen to get a ring with a Sapphire in it to memorialize the two babies I have lost (the first was two days after finding out I was pregnant). I have also chosen to try to find out if any tests were done on my baby (I was asked to bring the baby, as well as anything else I passed, in with me when I saw the doctor) and to find out the sex of my baby. Well, I found out that no tests were done on my baby so I was unable to find out the sex. Although I was going to use the name Amelia Mercedes if I was told the baby was a girl and Blaise Andrew if I was told the baby was a boy, I am going to name this baby Aubrey Lee and my first angel baby Baylee Taylor because those are fairly unisex names. I did receive 11 ultrasound pictures, all taken from the two radiology ultrasounds. I will post them on a separate page once I am able to get them scanned. The following pages have poems/songs/mementos to remember Aubrey and Baylee by. |
