To our little one, Love Momma and Dadda.
We were so excited when we found out that we were pregnant with you after taking a home test on September 20, 2010! What joy at adding a new member to our family with your new little life! That joy and excitement was a special secret between your dadda and I, and our midwife Kathrine as we called her right away to make a 10 week appointment. Kathrine is a special person to our family as she has cared for us and has helped deliver your other siblings!
I started feeling nauseous a week after we found out about you, and that feeling is always feels like a mixed blessing to me - it stinks feeling sick, but what a great reason to feel that awful. I worked on making sure that I ate healthy, and anytime any plans and talk for future events came up with anyone, I was planning in my head how they would work with being either pregnant with you or you being a new little baby. There was Uncle L and Auntie J's wedding in February...I was a bridesmaid and would be 6 months pregnant with you and would have to wear a maternity bridesmaid dress! And then there was the K family reunion in June...you would be so tiny, would we even go? Your dadda and I talked about how you would come at the end of G's school year and that he would have hopefully a month off like he did when C was born and how wonderful that would be to have that time all together as a family.
We visited your Aahma and Boppa Roskamp when I was about 8 weeks pregnant with you. I was worried about feeling icky and having to hide that from everyone, but I stopped feeling nauseous around this time so was happy I didn't have to worry about that. Your Uncle Marcus and Auntie Amy were also going to be there and Auntie Amy was 4 months pregnant with your cousin who would only be 3 months older than you. I wanted to tell them about you so bad! You dadda and I decided that if there was a good opportunity that we would tell them, but there really wasn't, so we just looked forward to sharing the news with them in a few weeks.
I ended up having an appointment with Kathrine on October 27, 2010, when I was at 9 weeks rather than 10 weeks, as there was something going on with the midwives during that 10 week time...can't really remember what. I was originally going to go by myself, but being that the appointment had to change, Dadda had to work so your brothers came along with me (you sister was at school). They were pretty oblivious during the appointment so I didn't have to worry too much about them realizing what was going on. We saw Ondrea, one of the other midwives, and had a normal and good first appointment - filling out the regular forms, talking about being pregnant, answering any questions, and then of course a physical exam and checking to see if we could hear your heartbeat. Which we couldn't. I didn't worry too much, though, and neither did Ondrea, as 9 weeks is pretty early to hear the heartbeat. Kathrine came in to say hi at the end of the appointment, and the 3 of us talked about whether we needed an early ultrasound of you or not. I had them with your brothers as we needed to get due dates correct in case they were born premature like your older sister was, but since they both went full term and I was definitely sure about the timing of your pregnancy, we decided not to have one. And I was just fine with that since the ultrasound place is about 45 minutes away from our home and then we didn't have to worry about timing and figuring out how to do that. So we made an appointment for November 18, 2010, when I would be 12 weeks pregnant. I hugged Kathrine and Ondrea and thought happy thoughts about the care we would get from them during your pregnancy!
Now that we had a doctor's appointment, we could tell everyone about you, right? Well, your dadda and I went back and forth on this. We hadn't heard your heartbeat yet, so there was just a part of us that wanted to wait until we heard that sound before we told the world about you. But on the other hand, everything had gone so well with your siblings' pregnancies that we were sure that yours would be the same so we could definitely tell everyone we were pregnant. In the end, we decided to wait. Our next appointment was only 3 weeks away so we could contain our happiness about you for a little bit longer. Besides, that appointment was right before Thanksgiving, so we started planning on telling our families and friends on Thanksgiving about you by saying that we had an extra special reason to be thankful this year!
It was getting harder for me to keep you a secret though, just because I was so excited! But the fun thought of sharing about you at Thanksgiving got me though, as well as one other friend of mine finding out about you by accident. We were at our friend Amy's house after school the day of your first appointment. All the kids were off playing and Amy and I were chatting about various things. Your older brother came to me crying about a bonk or something, and to distract him, Amy asked him what we had done that day. He told her that we had gone to see Miss Kathrine and that momma had to get a poke. Well Amy knows Kathrine as she is her midwife as well, and Amy is also a nurse so she put two and twenty together and after he ran off she asked if we were expecting - well YES!!!! It was so nice to talk about you and Amy was so excited for us! I told her to keep it under her hat though, as we hadn't heard your heartbeat yet and were going to wait until after our 12 week appointment to share the news about you. She completely understood and started joking with me that I just needed to come and visit her at work next week and she could sneak the doptone away for a few minutes so that we could hear your heartbeat. She even checked with her PA sister to see if she had a doptone at home! I love your dadda, but it was sure fun to share about you with another mom.
The reality of being pregnant with you was really starting to hit your dadda and I and we would spend a lot of evenings talking about you and how life was going to change when you were born being that we would have 4 kids then! And how blessed were! And how scary that was too! Where were you going to sleep? How were we going to arrange things with your siblings and bedrooms if you were a girl? And even more if you were a boy? Was all our baby stuff still good and safe enough? Would we have to buy anything more? How were we going to travel places? How would going to the grocery store work? How would we work things with a new baby? Oh, and we soooo started looking at names! That was the hardest decision for us for all of your siblings...we went to the hospital with all of them without a final name chosen. Your dadda said that it was never to early to start, so we pulled out our book and pulled up a couple websites and started going through names. Would you be a boy? Would you be a girl? These were such good talks and just made us feel more connected to you and excited to meet you and about your place in our family. This time really was special to your dadda and I...sharing this happy secret of you. But we were looking forward to Thanksgiving and telling everyone about you too.
Although at times it seemed like it would never come, before we knew it, November 18 came and it was time for your appointment! This was going to be super special because Dadda had the day off so he was going to come with as well as your sister and brothers. We had originally decided to tell everyone at Thanksgiving, but the more we thought about it, it was going to be a busy holiday for everyone so we changed our minds and decided to tell your siblings on the way to the midwives' office and everyone else after your appointment. I had lists all ready of who we were going to call and who we were going to email that night! On the way to the appointment, we decided to see if your sister could guess our news about you. We asked her where we were going..."Miss Kathrine's "...and what does Miss Kathrine do?..."take care of momma "...and what else does she do?..."catch babies "...so do you know why we are going to see her?..."ARE WE HAVING A BABY?!!!!! " She was so excited to find out about you and so were your brothers! Your smallest brother didn't really get it, but he had fun being excited with the other two.
We got to see Jessie today. I did ask if Kathrine could stop in so that your dadda and the kids could say hi to her. The appointment was going just fine with the normal talk and questions about how I was feeling and what was going on, which everything had been normal and I had been feeling great. Kathrine came in then, and after talking with her a bit, it was time to get on the table for my physical exam and checking to see if we could hear your heartbeat. The physical exam was fine, but Jessie couldn't find your heartbeat. This made me a little nervous, but Kathrine assured us that it was still early. But she got on the phone to make an ultrasound appointment for you anyway, just to check things out and make sure everything was ok. The ultrasound office (in a separate building ~10 miles away) was able to get us in right away so we said our goodbyes, loaded everyone up, and headed over.
The ultrasound rooms are always pretty small, so rather than cramming all of us in there, your dadda waited in the waiting room with your sister and brothers, and was going to bring everyone in after they had all the official measuring and checking done so that everyone could see the ultrasound of you at the end. I was still a little nervous, but was sure that once we got the ultrasound of you that everything was going to be fine.
It wasn't.
There was no heartbeat.
You were already gone.
This was such an incredible shock to me and I wept. The tech still had to take all sorts of measurements and I kept waiting for her to say that she had made a mistake and all of a sudden find your heartbeat. She was very nice, but didn't say too much other than she was going to call in the radiologist to go over everything. I asked her to get your dadda too, I knew I couldn't handle hearing any more without him. Dadda and your sister and brothers came in the room right away and your dadda could tell something was wrong right away when he looked at my face. The tears were flowing and your sister could also tell something was wrong, but we had to wait to answer her questions as the radiologist came in then.
He was also very nice, but had awful news for us. Something happened to you and you died right around 8 weeks gestation. He assured us over and over that there was nothing that we did that caused this. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with me, it just happens sometimes. He asked if we had any more questions (which of course we couldn't think of at the time), and told us he would call Kathrine to get a hold of us as far as what would happen next, and that we could take as long as we needed in the room. The technician gave us a few pictures of you that she printed out, and then they both left.
Dadda explained to your sister and brothers what had happened and we all clung to each other and cried and cried. Your sister was so so sad, we all were. Your brothers were still pretty little and didn't really understand, but they cried with us. We then prayed. Even though we didn't understand why God let this happen, we knew that we had to go to Him, and that you were with Him in heaven already.
Kathrine called us back right away and was so sad too. She had to tell us about what was going to physically happen next though. I was going to miscarry. We could choose to let my body do it naturally, which she said would take about a week or so, or we could choose to go into the hospital and have it done surgically, with a procedure called a D&C. We decided to let my body do it naturally as we couldn't bear to think of having it done surgically. Kathrine told us to keep her informed about how everything was going, and also about when the miscarriage happened. Then there was nothing else to do but go home.
Your sister and brothers had random questions for us now and then, but played really nicely the rest of the day and your dadda and I were able to hold each other and try to process what had happened. It was so hard to imagine that you were really gone, because I didn't feel any different than I did when I woke up that morning and thought everything was fine with you. Sometime that afternoon I ran across the list I made for who we were going to call and tell about us being pregnant with you. I lost it. How would we even begin to call everyone and tell them what had happened? I didn't think I could handle it. And your dadda said we didn't have to right then. We could take our time. The more we thought about it we didn't know how we were going to tell people that you had died, but that I hadn't had the miscarriage yet, so we would have to call again after the miscarriage happened? If the miscarriage was supposed to happen within a week, we would wait until after that happened and then tell everyone. But some of the truth was is that I didn't want to tell people either...it would hurt too much and make losing you more and more of a reality.
So once again we were keeping you a secret, only this time it was a so much worse. It wasn't a happy secret. You were gone. How could you be gone? How could this happen to us? I have known many people that have had miscarriages, including a dear friend and many church friends too, and I have always felt so bad when I heard about their miscarriages, and thought I was being so empathetic, but I had no idea what they were going through. No idea until now. The pain of losing a child at any stage or age is so much worse than I could have ever imagined, and I was overwhelmed with it every day.
You would think that we would have been mad at God. You, this little child who we wanted so much, were gone. How could God do this? But our faith and trust in God was really the only thing that got us through. It didn't help the hurt at all, but knowing that God is in control of everything and that this had to happen for a reason at least gave us some peace. We know that our lives, no matter how long or short, have purpose. God’s plan is way bigger than what we can comprehend. So all we could do is trust and hope, and rest in His almighty hands. Because goodness knows we couldn't handle going through this on our own.
And God gave us the strength to make it through one step at a time. It was not an easy process though. The actual miscarriage wasn't fully complete for almost 2 months. One friend told us that we love our kids so incredibly hard and that we just loved you too much to let you go right away. Oh and we did love you so much! My body didn't miscarry naturally like we hoped, so after almost 3 weeks we had to go in to the hospital for a D&C. That process was awful too, not so much physically, but mentally. But we thought at least there would be closure. There were some complications afterwards, so it wasn't as quick as we were hoping. It was hard to have the ordeal be so drawn out, but we were able to process each part fully before having to deal with the next and I think that is the way God knew we could handle it.
Kind of the same way we handled telling others about losing you. We couldn't bear telling everyone right away so we only told your Uncle Jeff and Auntie Christy, as well as our friend Amy, because we didn't know if we would need help when I miscarried naturally. Then we told your Uncle Marcus and Auntie Amy because they visited us for Thanksgiving the week after and we didn't know if it would happen while they were there. Each time we told someone it hurt so incredibly much, but we know that each person that we told loved us and prayed for us which helped. Then, when things weren't happening physically a week or so later, we told a few others at church. I was having such a hard time emotionally, and your dadda is so wise. He said I needed to talk to other ladies that had had miscarriages, so I turned to two church friends. I have a very close friend, Melissa, that had recently gone through 2 miscarriages, but I couldn't bring myself to talk with her yet because it hurt too much. Talking with others who have gone through this horrible ordeal was therapeutic, as well as my appointment with Kathrine to decide on getting a D&C. Kathrine spent over an hour talking with me and I couldn't have felt more cared for after that appointment. We told most everyone else in our extended family and church family when we scheduled the D&C. It was so hard, but after we did, there was more peace and we could feel the prayers holding us up through everything. And everyone was so sad to hear about losing you, especially your grandparents. Pastor Sawtelle came to visit us after the D&C, and we had a good talk with him. He listened to your dadda and I talk a lot, and he also shared Psalm 34 with us, a scripture message that really hit home for us about the Lord's care for all His children. Cards, and hugs and meals and talks and help from all the people who love us, and love you, really helped us in the months following.
Time heals, but it does not forget. And it still hurts today, baby, so much. So we wanted to share your story because we love you. And your story is a part of our family's story, and also a part of His story. We know you are in a better place, and we can't wait to meet you and hold you one day. We still miss you, but we know God is holding you and us in His hands.
All our love,
Momma and Dadda
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| roses your dadda bought you today... |
