I skipped my OB appointment yesterday. It was my second one, the second of several monthly check-ups I’ll have to drag myself to, yet I didn’t.
I didn’t even call.
See, tomorrow marks 14 weeks. When we went to that awful anatomy scan back in March, I was supposed to be 19 weeks, we were supposed to be finally discovering our baby’s gender. We found out she was dead instead. Her growth had stopped somewhere between 14-15 weeks, but when her heart stopped beating, we’ll never know.
It hurts my soul to think about her tucked inside the refuge of my womb, her heart slowly dying. All I can take comfort in is the sweet fact that my movement, my walking, my voice, it lulled her to heaven.
I ignored my appointment because I didn’t want to hear silence when the doctor put the doppler on my belly. Even though I’m pretty sure all is well, that fear is so present, so latent, it’s impossible to ignore. It covers everything in this pregnancy, every last nook and cranny of this sweet being’s precious life. I am wrapped up in fear, and in turn, so is this baby.
I’ll always be afraid now. Pregnancy is never going to be the same. I wish I could go back, to a time when pregnancy meant nothing but joy and a healthy dose of caution. There’s nothing healthy about being paralyzed by terror, by being so scared of something that it makes you do stupid things like miss an appointment that will help ensure this baby is okay. That’s the thing about grief: it knows no logic. All it knows is pain and sadness and confusion and fear. My grief doesn’t care that going to these appointments is important; it only cares about reminding me of the hell we’re still emerging from. Of reminding me that our baby died inside me, hounding me with nightmares of our precious girl trying to claw her way out of my somehow-defective womb (even though everything was perfect with both my anatomy and the baby’s). Grief knows no logic, no rationale.
I guess God was smiling down on me because today, standing in the kitchen tasked with the mundane practice of making breakfast, I felt it.
I felt a miracle, a living baby move. I stopped in my tracks and there’s no doubt that I felt a roll, a twist, a baby turning over from within.
So at almost 14 weeks, where last time our baby was slowly losing life, this new sweet being is gaining strength. Growing. A beating heart is alive within.
Maybe I’ll call my OB today, reschedule that appointment. This baby deserves that. And so do I.
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