The Evening My Blissful Ignorance Was Shattered...

Guilt.  That is what I felt.  And an overwhelming grief that I didn't even know was possible to feel until then.  I wasn't numb.  That was for sure.  

I walked out of that ER and drove to my home knowing that my precious Peanut was gone.  There was nothing I do could do to bring that sweet baby back.  He had been gone now for what looked like at least a month.  I was about 13 weeks pregnant, but he only measured around 6-7 weeks.  No heartbeat.  No hope.  Just stillness.  Painful, heartbreaking stillness.

The guilt first consumed me that evening.  How could I not know that my baby had died?  He was a part of me.  I had been walking around carrying my floating, lifeless Peanut for nearly 5 weeks.  And I didn't know.  How couldn't I know??  I am his mother.  I should have known.  
Then came the self-inflicted questions.... What did I do wrong?  Was it something I didn't do?  Did I do something that caused irreversible harm to my tiny baby before I even knew he existed?  

Then came the grief almost immediately after.  Like a wave that mingled and twisted with the guilt I was feeling.  Warm, hard tears spilled from my eyes.  And then the heavy, heavy sobbing.  My hand slipped to my belly, just that week showing some roundness and giving a clue to the rest of the world of the tiny little life that I thought I was growing inside of me.  I had to cradle that sweet little soul the only way that I could.  I rubbed my belly.  I cried.  I cradled the roundness because I knew in that moment that the soft belly I had come to adore wouldn't be there much more longer.  My baby would leave me completely, and I would be left with the emptiness.  The ache.  The grief.  The longing.  The pain.

I pulled out the box that I had started collecting baby things in.  I grabbed the tiny sleeper I had bought for him to wear that first couple of months that he would be a part of this world and hugged it tightly to my chest.  It hit me like a mack truck.  He would never wear that sleeper.  I would never cuddle and snuggle my baby.  I would never see his sweet smile.  At least not here in this life.  

The pain was.... is real.  The grief even over 2 1/2 years later still finds me now and again.  Like a wave that slowly rolls in and then crashes down all over and around me...

October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month. I am the one in four who has suffered a loss.