My uterus measures smaller than dates by two weeks. No one seems to care. It was always on date until now. With my son, my uterus was on date until the third trimester, when it dropped off and leveled out at two weeks behind. Two weeks behind is not considered clinically concerning. I feel like giving birth to a dead child should earn you a slightly more liberal view of what is and is not clinically concerning. I wish I could get someone besides me to worry about this baby's growth. Oliver may have had a cord accident, but he was also too small. 5 lbs 12 oz is not a reasonable size for a full term baby who is 21 inches long. 21 inches is a long baby. If he'd weighed between 7 and 8 pounds, he'd still have been very thin. Less than 6 is not a healthy size for a baby that long. The only person who's ever acknowledged it as an issue is an OB who thought him being thin and weak was a factor in his death. But my uterus was never more than 2 weeks behind then either. So at what point will anyone be worried? When this baby dies too?

Last night at work, I got my water down from the shelf where it's stored and started to take a drink. I try so hard to be conscientious about fluid intake. I passed out at the grocery store once during this pregnancy already, and the only thing anyone attributed it to that seemed plausible to me was dehydration. So I drink a lot of water.
As I drank my water, a woman approached me and said "You're killing your baby." And I stared at her and thought surely I had imagined it. But she said it again. She said "You're killing your baby, whenever you reach for something you're wrapping its cord around its neck and killing it. My sister killed her baby that way and you will too." My first thought was to crawl under the desk and cry, and refuse to come out until someone came and rescued me from this nightmare that is my journey to motherhood. Refuse to come out until someone agreed that this is enough, that this is enough pain, and agreed to just hand me my child alive and breathing.
I stared at the woman, and then I walked away. She was a patient. Her bed was in the hallway, in the center of the department. No matter where I went or what work I tried to do, she was there. And whenever she could catch my eye, she would start again "Don't forget. . ." and I would walk faster.

I dreamed my daughter's death last night. It was the first time. I have had nightmares ever since Oliver died, and throughout this pregnancy they have been of losing another baby. But I have never dreamed of losing my daughter specifically. In this dream, I knew her name, I knew her due date, knew exactly how long I'd been carrying her. I knew her as an individual, so when I started bleeding I knew it was her dying. In my dream I called my husband and he couldn't come home from work to take me to the hospital. I called my mother, and she told me it was my fault, and I should have expected it. So I lay alone in my bed bleeding my daughter's life away.

Gratitude

I'm obviously a virgin (occasional) blogger. I keep this site mostly as a diary, because I had created it to write about Oliver when I was pregnant with him and after he died I didn't know what else to do with it. It never occurred to me anyone else would read my words or care enough to write back.

I was too upset to go to my own family for comfort tonight, but finding that strangers have been reaching out to me all along gives me strength. I don't know why. Thank you.

It's funny, I only feel inclined to write on the very worst days. I feel like only rock bottom drives me here. I suppose that's not really funny at all.

It's been a month now since I've had any evidence that this baby is alive. 11 weeks on Thursday, so no movement (or stillness) yet to encourage me (or terrify me). I've survived the four weeks since the last sono mostly numb, mentally preparing myself for the worst and all the while berating myself for not giving this baby the faith it so deserves from me. If I could just make it to tomorrow morning, atleast I would know one way or the other.

But now I won't. They lost my appointment. So sorry, transitioning to electronic medical records you know. But don't worry, we can get you in with Dr. X (not my doctor) on Friday. FRIDAY?!! That's an eternity from now. It might as well be next year. I will never make it. I've cried and cried tonight, considering all the possibilities. I could check myself into the emergency room, say I have abdominal pain. They have to check the baby. I don't dare check into my own ER, they don't know I'm pregnant and besides, I'd have to face them all at work tomorrow. I'm not behaving very professionally.
So another ER then. ER staff hate it when asymptomatic pregnant women check in just to get sono'd. It's wasteful. I'd wait in the bathroom so as not to take up a room, and pay for the whole thing out of pocket, just to know this baby is alive.

I'm glad no one is here to comfort me. Especially no one I love - my pain is too deep to be comforted tonight, and I'm afraid I would lash out at the wonderful people in my life who least deserve it. I know my husband would kindly say "it must be okay honey, you're still vomiting. That means healthy, high hormone levels." And he would be right and still I would yell "Shall I count for you how many times I vomited after Oliver was dead?! Have you forgotten?" which would be cruel, because of course he has not.

I don't yell at my husband, and I don't check into emergency rooms for no reason. Atleast I don't think I do. I hardly know myself anymore.

I feel like I'm drowning. I don't think I am strong enough to survive this pregnancy. I wish Oliver was here with us, where he belongs, and that we weren't even thinking about having another baby yet because he's keeping us so busy.
But he's not. And so I am six weeks pregnant again. Or not - the sonogram was not terribly promising.
I am so afraid. I feel like I could sit on the couch and cry for days, in a way I haven't cried since the first month after Oliver was born. I'm so afraid I am going to run Richard off, acting like such a nut. He says it's okay, but I know watching me this way, needing so much, must wear him down. How can you keep loving a person who has nothing to offer you but her own fears?
He said the kindest thing a couple of weeks ago, he said "Sarah, you're so strong. It makes me proud to be married to you." It made me feel all the more ashamed now of how weak I truly am. I feel skeptical of this baby, and I am ashamed of feeling that way. I feel like we will go in for the sono on Thursday and they will confirm what must be true: this is not a real baby. It will never come home with you. And I will say goodbye again, except this time to a baby I could never really believe in in the first place.
I keep trying to find perspective. I don't handle early pregnancy hormones well - they make me emotionally labile I know. I cried a lot more often than usual during the first trimester of my pregnancy with Oliver, and then there was no reason to. I guess it's to be expected that I would be a wreck now. But knowing that doesn't get rid of that weak feeling I carry around - like I'm constantly on the verge of melting into a puddle on the floor where I belong.

Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.
-- from Amy Bloom, "Away"