Grace Genevieve

November 11, 2018: I was two days late for my like-clockwork period. I had one test- a ClearBlue Digital- remaining from my last pregnancy last December, so I decided to use it. At the time, my husband was in the shower, and as much as I would 100% love a positive, I had no feeling that I was pregnant, and unlike the previous two times, we hadn't been trying for a baby. Because of our previous losses, the majority of my internal voice was screaming for the test to be negative, because I was already so scared of what might happen. After about two minutes, the result popped up: Pregnant. I burst into tears. My husband, who was obviously ecstatic, comforted me until I stopped panicking, about a half hour later.

By that point, I was ecstatic that we were having a little miracle and prayed that it would be our rainbow baby. My first instinct was not to tell a soul that we were expecting again, because I still feared that the past would repeat itself. After talking, Joe (husband) and I decided that we would wait until Christmas to tell our immediate family, but would each tell one person that day. I texted one of my best friends and Joe told an old man/former commander at our local VFW, where we went later that day to celebrate Veteran's Day.

11/21/18: We went for my first ultrasound at what should have been 6 weeks pregnant. The doctor saw a gestational sac and what looked to be the formation of the yolk sac (white dot in the top right corner), but there was no fetal pole yet. She said I easily could be a few days behind and the baby just hadn't appeared at that point. She was not concerned.

12/13/2018: Our insurance for December changed, so I saw a new OB and went to an all new place for an ultrasound. I should have been somewhere around 9 weeks at this appointment, but the baby was measuring around 6 weeks. It was tiny, but we could see the strong flicker of the heartbeat. The OB told me she'd call if she was concerned with the ultrasound. She didn't, so we thought maybe, despite our fears, we just had a tiny baby. 12/23/18: I started having a small amount of brown discharge. Again, I wasn't alarmed, as I'd been told that this and even spotting was normal as the uterus stretched to make more room for baby.

12/25/18: We originally were going to tell our parents and siblings about the baby on Christmas. However, after receiving the news that the baby was only 8 weeks at this point, we decided against it. That night, when it was just Joe's parents and us sitting around the table talking, we told them our news. Despite all the heartache in the past, they were thrilled to find out that they'd be grandparents. A half hour later, as we were getting ready for bed, I noticed that bright red blood had taken the place of the brown discharge. My heart sank.

12/27/18: The bleeding continued consistently, though not heavily, like I thought it would be if I was having a miscarriage. Joe told me that if the bleeding hadn't stopped by that evening, we'd go to the ER. That night, the bleeding was still happening, so off we went. After 3.5 hours of waiting, blood tests, an ultrasound, and more waiting, I was diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage. The baby was still inside me, but all cardiac activity had stopped. Also, my HCG level (pregnancy hormone), which should have been 25,7000 on the low end to 288,000 was only measuring 14,000. The radiologist suspected a molar pregnancy, so the on-call OB at the local womens and babies hospital was notified. She wanted to see me asap, so after waiting another hour, we were discharged to another hospital.

12/28/18: At around 3 a.m., the OB explained that she'd like to admit me to the hospital for a D&E first thing. She said that if it wasn't a suspected molar pregnancy, she would be okay with me going home and "waiting it out", but since it could be dangerous (implications of a molar pregnancy plus loss of blood), she wanted me to remain at the hospital. Joe left shortly after to go let the dog out and get some things from home. Around 7, I got moved to a room. I took a shower and took a short nap. I think I fell asleep around 8:45 and was up around 10:30. The chaplain came in and spoke to us for awhile. It was refreshing to speak to a non-clinical person and someone who wasn't focused on getting Joe or me to think a certain way. At probably 1, I got wheeled into surgery. Afterward, the nurse who took me to recovery, heard a baby cry (it was the same recovery room used for moms who had c-sections) and told me she'd get me out of there as soon as she could. The compassion showed to me in the hospital was amazing! Finally, around 5:30, I was discharged from the hospital. I was excited to get home, but was incredibly sad because going home meant leaving our baby. On 1/1/19, Joe named her. He chose her gender, since she wasn't old enough to have developed one. He picked the name Grace. Originally, that name was on my favorites list, but he didn't like it because it was too "little girl-y" and did not transition to adulthood well. But, since, our baby would never be an adult, a good "big girl" name wasn't necessary. Once he picked a first name, Joe asked me to pick a middle name. The name Genevieve stuck out to me, and Joe said the combination of the names was pretty, so we went with that.

And so, our newest angel is Grace Genevieve (10/24/18-12/27/18). Her funeral- another SHARE burial- is this coming Tuesday. I am incredibly nervous, but hopeful that it will bring us some type of closure.