4am

It's 4am.  I woke up half an hour ago.  I can't stop crying.  Not even TV is numbing me this time.  How did this happen twice in a year?  In the time it should have taken me to carry and deliver one healthy baby, I've lost TWO in the second trimester.  But why?  How?  I'm still nauseous half the time.  It's a rare day when I'm not.  That's supposed to be one of those comforting symptoms of a healthy pregnancy and it now means nothing to me.  I can hardly breathe.  It feels like my chest is trying to collapse.  I don't know what to think.  I don't know what to do.  All I can do is cry.  Loud.  I tried to eat, tried to pray before eating and it turned into this huge snot covered ball of mess.  I answered the door, saw face, and lost it again.  Tried to sleep and all I can think of is that I now have two angels waiting in heaven.  And it's not fair.  Twice in a year?  Twice in six months?  It's been a solid 12 minutes of huffing and puffing crying and I can't stop.  My husband said the most crass thing a few weeks ago.  I didn't want to attend a baby blessing on Taylor's due date and he said "I thought being pregnant again was supposed to fix things."  I wanted to scream!  One baby does not replace another.  But now I see that I thought the same thing.  This baby was supposed to be born just after Christmas, a few days apart from Kiersten's birthday, just like how my boys' birthdays are just a few days apart.  And it was supposed to make things better.  Instead, I am absolutely shattered.  I'm shaking.  My eyes burn from crying so much.  My "rainbow baby" is another angel, another butterfly that has flown away.  I can't do this a third time in a row.  Technically, this is my THIRD loss already.  We kinda feel like our loss between Keith and Mitchell didn't yet have a spirit attached to it, and that Mitchell would have been that baby, so that one doesn't hurt.  I have that child, just in a different body.  But Taylor and now Isabelle.

Yes, we chose the name Isabelle.  We know that this baby IS a girl.  I say IS because she's still inside of me.  Today I should be 19 weeks.  I went in for that happy gender revealing ultrasound.  The first thing she did was look at the cervix and then went to the baby.  As she did, I said "and there is a heartbeat and everything?"  She said, "why would you ask that?" in a nervous, curious tone.  I said, "because with my last baby, there wasn't."  She said, "I'm sorry, I don't think there is."  Last time, I was alone.  This time, I had the entire family with me.  I had been telling the boys all morning that we were going to go find out if mommy's new baby was a boy or a girl.  Instead, we had to tell them that the new baby died, too.  I had her look for a gender and she was pretty certain it's a girl.  She said that Isabelle died at about 16 weeks, 3 weeks ago.  She said that, just like with Taylor, Isabelle has a perfectly formed and developed body.  There was no obvious reason for either of them to have died.  No cord accident.  No placenta accident.  She even showed me that the placenta was still perfectly attached, though it was in front (something she pointed out before I asked about the heartbeat which had given me a slight hope, since that would account for why I had not been feeling movement).  But no.  Hope apparently doesn't live in my house.  Or at least not inside me.

With Taylor, she passed at 13 weeks, I found out at 13 weeks 4 days, and I was able to induce at home with Cytotec and deliver at 14 weeks.

With Isabelle, she passed at 16 weeks, I found out at 19 weeks, and I am too far along to induce at home this time.  Currently, my scheduled hospital induction isn't until August 21st (Keith's first day of First Grade) when she will have been dead for nearly 6 weeks.  I'm trying to find a random doctor that can get me in sooner.  I can't wait that long.  I can't be my baby's walking tomb that long.  Plus her body will deteriorate the longer she's inside.  I want to be able to see her and hold her.  Call me crazy, but I want pictures of her.  None of the ultrasound pictures are very pretty.  Some are downright scary looking, especially knowing it's not a healthy, developing baby but a baby that has been dead for 3 weeks.  The skeletal images just make me feel more like a walking tomb.

Insurance only covers genetic testing on ME to see if something is keeping me from having full term happy babies.  It doesn't cover any testing on the baby.

I hope to be able to bury Isabelle.  Anyone know of nearby cemeteries?  Do any of them have a section for children?  I want a tombstone with both my babies' names on it.  Taylor & Isabelle Harvey.  I suppose I put their "birth" dates instead of their death dates.  Taylor died 16 Jan 2012, and was born 23 Jan 2012.  Isabelle died (are you freakin' kidding me?) on Friday, 13 July 2012, awaiting her birth date.

It seems my body feels about my babies the same as I do.  It loves them and wants to keep them.  How odd that after 3 weeks, I still have no signs of miscarriage.  None.  At all.  My body is holding onto her tight.

This isn't fair.  This isn't right.  I should, however, qualify that I am not hateful about anyone else being pregnant.  I may get jealous or sad, but I don't begrudge anyone a happy and healthy pregnancy.  Please don't feel like you can't share your happy news with me.  Heck, before I went in for my ultrasound, I got a text that a very dear friend of mine had just given birth to a beautiful baby, her #4 just as Taylor and then Isabelle should have been for me.  We were due together, then I lost Taylor.  But I am so happy that she has her sweet boy.  Another friend and I were supposed to be 10 weeks apart.  I've always wanted to be pregnant with her.  She and I are pretty close and she's been trying for SO long.  I was so excited to hear we were finally both pregnant!  Now it's just her.  But I'm still happy for her.  I'm just sad, again, for me.

Okay, so here are the best of the images of Isabelle that I currently have.  Hopefully (can I still even use that word?), I'll get some better ones after she's born that I can look at to remember her with.  These ones just don't do her justice (can I use THAT word?).  Call it creepy if you want, but I want pictures of my baby.  If I had seen Taylor's body, I would have wanted pictures of hers, too.  They are my children.  I love them.  I want pictures to remember them by, that I can share with others, rather than no one remembering them, and there being no proof of their existence.  I want them to have a tombstone for the same reason.  So there is proof of them.  Full term or not, they are my babies.  And they are gone.  And I want other people to know them, to remember them, and to know how much I love them.  Here's Isabelle:

15 weeks, happy and healthy

19 weeks, stopped growing 3 weeks ago

Crossed legs, female

Taylor Harvey - lost at 13 weeks, born at 14 weeks
Isabelle Harvey - lost at 16 weeks, awaiting birth
I love you both.  Take care of each other.



By the way, finally tally was 14 to 6 in favor of Girl.  You guys guessed right!