The T Plot. Feb - Apr, 2009.

The basic story, to get you caught up...

We found out that I was pregnant in late February, and because of E and J, went to the OB the next day. Baby ("T") was due in early November. I started taking progesterone the night of that appointment. Otherwise, everything was fine.

We were both excited. I was nervous. We both really thought T was more likely to live than not. We had thought that we lost E and J because of the Lyme - and I'm pretty healthy now.

I was nauseated, but could atleast snack. Too fatigued to stay awake all day though. Everything smelled nasty, and I couldn't get enough Panera. And I thoroughly enjoyed the "I know somethin' you don't know" feeling when out of the house. :)

We had the first ultrasound scheduled for 7 weeks, 2 days. Knowing it would be pretty tell-tale, I kept saying "I just want it over."

Twelve hours before this ultrasound was to take place, we were in the ER. D watched the u/s screen at about 1 in the morning, then told me with bright eyes what he'd seen; body, head, and a little arm. But he didn't see a heartbeat.

We kept the appointment the next morning just to make sure. No heartbeat.

And then came a couple weeks of about 50 people asking and pleading with God to "wake him up."

Over those weeks, I went from knowing that he could and would, to knowing he could and wondering if he would, to knowing he could and realizing he probably wouldn't, to wondering if he *really* could (truth be told), to just saying, "Get me through this."

But let it be known: I don't regret fighting the battle.

A week after the ER, we had another ultrasound. The sac had grown, but Baby couldn't be seen. Five days later, just for the sake of my emotions, the OB did another one. Baby was "a grain of rice." That's what we have a picture of.

Staring at our "grain of rice," I was willing to schedule a D&C. We greatly preferred that I miscarry at home, and thought I would. But by the D&C date, I was 10 1/2 weeks - only 2 short of when I went into labor with J. Honestly, if you don't have a baby to protect, full-blown labor is a pain worth avoiding.

Miscarrying can happen really fast, so I stayed home from church the Sunday before the D&C. And on Thursday, April 9th, we headed for Labor and Delivery.

Having the D&C is a story unto itself. I'll skip it. But I kinda freaked (I'm sure that's unusual), and though we got home in the early afternoon, I didn't feel like we were home until the next morning.

Before we left, when I was still unable to put much of it into memory, D took care of funeral home arrangements, I tried to bite a beeping wire that was attached to my chest, and the chaplin called Baby "sweetpea" - which made me wish we'd used a more clever nickname than "Baby."

We were given a folder with stuff about grief in it. Most of it had to do with loosing a third-trimester baby though. I can't relate to being able to hold my baby, ya know? But how I long to.

The funeral home picked up the remains from the hospital. Exactly a week later, we went to the funeral home, filled out the death certificate, saw the remains, and left a little blanky to be cremated with him. We'll pick up the urn tomorrow - 16 days after the D&C.

Hardly the end of the story. But we can call that the end of the plot.