The Noob: First trimester screening

Just a quick post to say we had our Nuchal Translucency scan yesterday and all is well. Baby was bumping and twitching and moving all around in there, and we got to see him/her open and close his/her mouth.

It took a lot of effort on everyone's part to get him/her into the right angle so the tech could get the necessary measurements. She did finally get them, but unfortunately we didn't get any good pics (hence no upload here), and most of what we saw on the screen was a blur of various baby parts wooshing across the screen as she dug and poked and dug and dug, trying to get the right shot.  No idea what it is yet.

I have traveled through time to post from the future, so I can tell you that the results are....completely normal. No markers for any issues. Excellent news!

As happy as that is, I can't help but remember that I "should" have a three and a half week old (or so) right now. Am I still sad? Yeah, I'm still sad. Happy and sad.

"People view the death of a baby as just a sad thing that happened. These babies that die are not sad  things that happen. They are people, much loved and wanted children. They are brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, grandsons and granddaughters."  --Carly Marie Dudley, of Project Heal.

Today is a "Day of Hope," apparently, a day to remember and heal. People make prayer flags and hang them, and sometimes send in photos of them. I'm not participating, because I didn't know about it until today, but I saw this quote posted elsewhere and loved it.

Due Date

Today is my first baby's due date. I made it through the day okay, just welled up a few times. it is hard, and it sucks, even knowing I have a rainbow on the way.

We weren't sure what to do. I knew I had to do something, but finances are an issue, so planting a tree, getting a tattoo, etc. was out of the question. We decided we'd just release balloons here at our house.  My husband stopped on his way home from work and bought two balloons ( I requested the pink one), and we wrote messages on them. 

On mine, I wrote her name and the date of the miscarriage, and underneath that I wrote, "Mommy loves you." On the other side, I wrote "we miss you," and I covered a lot of the free space with hearts and Xs & Os. My husband took the blue one and wrote, "We miss you, XOXO" on the top. "It's on the top, so she can see it," he said (i.e., if she were looking "down" from heaven, she would see the words on the top.) We are not religious, but that was so sweet, I thought.

We took them outside to the area of our yard we thought would give them their best chance at not getting hung up in our many trees.  We held hands and thought about our baby for a few minutes, then we filled our balloons with love (that sounds so stupid, but I promise it made sense at the time-- just focused hard on thoughts of love for our lost baby, while focusing energy on the balloons). I hugged and kissed mine a few times, and that was that. (The hugs and kisses are for the baby, you see, to catch them off the balloon.)

We let them go and watched them for awhile.

(It's hard to see, but you can just see a dark speck toward the top of the red box (the blue one) and a light speck toward the bottom (the pink one). I cried, and we talked about how maybe my late father-in-law was pointing out the balloons to our Daphne. We watched them until we couldn't see them anymore. And that was it. It felt good. I feel like it was the right thing to do.

Are you still sad?

The other day I talked to someone dear to me who knows about the new baby.  (We have told a few people about this new pregnancy, but have not yet made any formal, public announcements.) She asked me that question: "Are you still sad about the other baby?"
Now, normally, this would infuriate me, but I know she doesn't know any better. She has no idea what she's saying. "Are you still sad about the other baby?"

Let me just clear this up for the universe at large, right now.

YES. I will never, ever not be sad about it. Not ever.

That first pregnancy seems to have been nothing but a blip to most people (even to our own families, I think, especially now that I've been colonized by a new womb tenant). The first pregnancy everyone will forget (has probably already forgotten) was not just a first pregnancy; it was our first baby, and her death was a life changing, soul destroying, foundation shaking, heart rending experience. It has had a permanent impact on our lives, and it has forever changed who I am.

To [general] you, our first pregnancy may have been a blip, forgotten, a sad memory, a nothing; to me, she was my first child, who I already loved. My first child, who I was already taking care of. A million Christmases, birthdays, Thanksgivings, Halloweens, first days of school, had already flashed through our minds.  First car, Prom, teenage rebellion, first boy/girlfriend, first bike, books to read with her, sending her out to pick up sticks in the yard before Daddy mowed-- all this and more (so very, very much more) had already been through our minds more than once.

That was my baby, my child, not something that can be replaced like a burnt out light bulb. How ridiculous would it be if I asked my friend, "Are you still sad that your grandpa died?"

Yes, I am still sad. I will always be sad. I am overjoyed about the new pregnancy, but it does not in any way replace the one I lost. Not now, not ever.