Day 7 - It's Over

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Today I realized that it's most likely all over.  I hate having to admit that, it hurts.  I feel like I've been cheated out of my opportunity to hold and mourn the loss of my baby.  I feel like a terrible mother than couldn't even find her 3-4" baby among soft, squishy blood clots, and flushed her poor sweet baby without any recognition at all.  Ben had bought some white satin material from a fabric store to line the wooden box we planned to bury the baby in.  He has been pretty sad about things, too.  Now it seems even he isn't going to get the experience and moments that he needed for healing.  I feel we've both been deprived of the MOMENTS that our emotions and our souls were in such need of, all because I couldn't recognize my baby.  I searched though.  I really did.  I am sobbing silently as I type, as though I'm pleading with my baby to understand.  I really wanted those MOMENTS to hold my child, to find out a gender, to tell him or her that I loved him/her. 

In my mind, I envision what those moments would have been like.  A tiny pale purple body that fits in my hand.  Petting his/her head with my finger, stroking its back or tummy, telling him/her how much I wanted it and loved it.  Mothers create a bond with their babies much sooner than fathers do.  Almost immediately, we begin rubbing our bellies and professing our love to the child.  We hold our bellies at night and tell our babies to grow healthy and strong as we sleep. I envision taking a couple pictures with our wedding rings coupled with the baby to show size, or maybe the baby inside my hand inside Ben's hand.  I imagine gently laying her (I still think it was a girl) inside the box lined with the beautiful satin fabric for a last picture, then laying the extra fabric around her, enveloping her in the soft satin, putting the lid on, writing her name, date, and gestation on the box, and standing outside to bury her.  I imagine a beautiful scrapbook to remember my baby with.  Instead, it won't be quite so beautiful because my baby is gone without me ever getting to hold him/her.  I can't tell you how sad I am.  I have no words for it.  Perhaps in a less ceremonious way, I'll merely bury the placenta instead, just in a garden area where it can nourish the life of something else.

However, here are some images of my beautiful baby, gone way too soon.  We named him/her TAYLOR HARVEY, a name that will be perfectly appropriate for either gender as we meet him/her after the resurrection and raise our child in righteousness in the Millennium.  I hope Taylor will forgive us for the manner of birth and burial.  I wanted so much more for my baby, it just didn't happen as I planned.  Nothing about this was ever as I planned.  Taylor, you will always be loved and missed.  We'll see you, hold you, love you, and cuddle you before long....

15 November 2011

Taylor's heart was fluttering so quickly here.

It's a very low-intensity ultrasound, so you can't see it very well,
but at the top is Taylor's hand with fingers outstretched.

This was just hours before Taylor's birth.