Hard.

I wanted to document this journey that we were so unexpectedly led on. Thursday, December 13th at 6:45 pm I was about to take a bath and all of a sudden a felt a huge burst only to look down and see an abnormal amount of water standing on the floor. I knew because of the same thing happening with Laine at 34 weeks that my water had definitely broken. Jackson happened to be working until 8 that night, so it was just Laine and me. He said to go ahead and call an ambulance to get me to the hospital fast. Laine's babysitter, Tristen so graciously came over to pick Laine up so the paramedics could take me to the hospital. The whole way there I was sure that I was going to wake up and this would all just be a bad dream. I've learned now, that it's no bad dream at all...it's real. Really real. Once in the ER the ER doctor called the on-call doctor at my OB's office and she went ahead and had me admitted to L&D. Once we got up there the nurse checked my fluid to confirm that it was amniotic fluid, which it was and we went ahead and formed a plan. The doctor said that there was a good chance of me producing an infection of the cervix, so they immediately put me on penicillan to help prevent that. They checked the baby's heartbeat and it was still strong at this point. At the time I hadn't been releasing much more fluid, so they said that was good thing. My vitals were fine and I hadn't developed a fever so they were happy about that. The high risk OB who they wanted me to see to check for the level of amniotic fluid left didn't come in until Friday morning, so that night was more of a waiting game. Jackson went home to get some rest, my mom stayed with me in the hospital, and my mother-in-law picked Laine up from her babysitter and took her back to their house in Weatherford. I knew she was in good hands but my heart was breaking for her because I knew she needed her mommy. I didn't sleep very well Thursday night, so the nurse gave me an Ambien that helped me sleep until around 4:30 am. Friday morning I could hardly wait to see the high-risk OB so we could go ahead and start to form a plan. Of course the nurses said he's normally in the building no later than 8, but because it was a Friday he didn't show up until around 10:30. By then, I had started to release more fluid, so the nurse scooted me to the front of the line and I got to see the dr. first. He did a sono and confirmed that I had little to no fluid left in the sack. This meant that the baby was not able to go along with lung development since the fluid is what aides in that. That was very sad and unfortunate news to hear. Once we were back in the room my actual dr came in to see me and told me that basically at this point we needed to wait until my body started the process of delivery. I was in shock and couldn't believe what was going to be happening in the near future. Another reason they said that they knew the baby wouldn't survive was the fact that it had a heartbeat faster than 160. This meant the baby was under some sort of distress and we could possibly also be dealing with an infection of my uterus. The reason they believe that I my water may have broken was due to a possible infection of my uterus that went undetected during my pregnancy. Obviously this was all overwhelming and hard to deal with. Eventually I began running a fever too and they knew they needed to start to speed up the process to make sure I didn't begin to go septic and risk my health. I pleaded with the nurses to make sure I didn't get sick because I had a beautiful, amazing daughter who needed me well. I think they saw the desperation on my face, so they did a few things to speed up the delivery. Once I knew there was no chance of survival for our baby I knew the most important thing was me going home healthy so I could continue raising my pride and joy, Laine. My fever began to rise more, so they stopped the current antibiotic I was on and started me on two more different kinds. I had all sorts of blood tests ran to ensure my kidneys could withstand the potency of the medicine, and they all came back fine. At this point I wasn't in any sort of physical pain, so I didn't ask for any pain meds. Around 5:30 yesterday afternoon, I started to feel some discomfort so I asked for medicine. My wonderful nurse, Cindy who is also a NP at my OB's office was my day nurse and she was amazing. She has been working with pregnant women for 16 years so we knew I was in good hands with her. She doped me up, literally and I felt so much more relaxed. I dozed on and off until around 9 last night and then the contractions started coming. The first dose of pain meds wore off and my night nurse who was also amazing gave me a pain pill, but it did NOTHING. I didn't want an epidural because my body was so exhausted I didn't want to put myself through that, so she gave me a smaller dose of the meds that made me loopy. I wanted to feel groggy, but not completely out of it. Around 11:45 I felt what the nurses and doctor were telling me I'd feel for a few hours. The worst feeling in the world only because I knew once it was over it was really over. I had lost my baby. I lost something I was so excited to have and it hurt. I didn't cry then though because I couldn't. I was numb. I think this next part is something everyone deals with differently..seeing your deceased baby. I decided that I was going to look because I didn't want to regret not, but I also didn't want to hold it. I couldn't. I do know the gender, but until Jackson is ready to see (we have pictures that the nurses put in a memorial box) I'm not going to say. He didn't want to be in the room during the delivery and I'm ok with that. He is dealing with this pain differently than me, yet at the same time we are also dealing with it in a similar way. What I do know is that we are both in pain, we both are sad and we will both grieve over the loss of our second child. Whether or not this baby is our baby on Earth is not important. We lost the second child we created together and because of that we will always share the same pain. Currently I am dealing with the pain by crying and letting my emotions out, but I'm not a big crier. I tend to hold things in and not show my pain, but this is different, this is bigger than me and I am not to prideful to let people know that it hurts, because it does. Will we be ok? Absolutely. Will we try for another baby? YES!! As soon as I'm able to start trying again, we are. We want another baby, we want a sister or brother for Laine, and we want to make our family whole. But, until then we will cry, wonder why us, and grieve. The one word I can describe this unexpected journey is Hard.