Expectation

It gets increasingly harder for me to talk to women who haven't ever experienced a loss.  I hate that "If I take care of myself everything will obviously be okay," attitude.  First off because it makes me feel that they think that I didn't take care of myself, and therefore Cora's death was my fault.  But secondly because that expectation that everything will just be okay is something I've never experienced.  Like I said in my last post, I always expected to lose my first pregnancy.  I was always very surprised that there was a baby there, and that she was healthy.  At my first ultrasound I expected them to tell me that there wasn't a baby there, that while my body thought I was pregnant, there wasn't anything there (later I'd learn this was called a blighted ovum).  At my big diagnostic ultrasound I expected them to tell me she didn't have any kidneys.  Or that there was something wrong with her heart.

It wasn't until the last few days Cora was alive that I started to believe I might actually get a baby out of the whole process.  That Sunday, the last day she was alive, I woke up and she had obviously dropped.  I could fit my hand flat between my breasts and my belly.  I could breathe.  Matt commented.  Everyone at church commented.  But I wasn't having any contractions to speak of.  I had to work that evening, and decided that maybe several hours on my feet would help things along.

The last real movement I remember feeling was nearly 11:00pm.  We would be closing in an hour, we were already preparing.  I was vacuuming the floor, and she stretched.  It was so hard that I felt like my skin was splitting.  It hurt.  I said "Baby girl, please don't hurt mommy like that!"

After the fact, I can't help but wonder, is that when she died?

When I think about it logically, I don't necessarily think so.  Cord constriction wouldn't be a violent end, like drowning or strangling.  It'd just be a slow drop in blood pressure...like falling asleep.  I hope.

Anyway, that night I truly expected to go into labor.  I truly expected to have contractions wake me up at 4 am.  But I slept like a rock until 11am.  I guess not having a baby waking me up by kicking my ribs would do that.  And then all my expectations ended.  For several hours I hoped I was freaking out.  But each moment that passed without movement, that hope waned.  And then that fateful ultrasound that obliterated all hope at all.

I spent one day really expecting everything to be okay.  Although, not really, because even then I was expecting to need an emergency csection.  I don't know why, but I always expected disaster.  But never in the form it actually took.