answers

I certainly do not have all the answers. I do have the answers to some things though. Here are some things I know: losing a child is the most difficult thing I've ever been through. God has walked through this with us and continues to do so. God is the same as He was on December 2, 2007. God loves me (and you). God is still about what He is always about, redeeming me and the rest of His Creation.

I've gotten some really interesting questions from people via email and in person in the past few days and so I thought maybe now would be a good time for me to post "the story". I hesitated to do that early on because I do not want these past few months to become just a story to me. It is my life; it has been part of my life; I want to allow God to show me how to keep it as part "of me" and not just something that happened "to me". Some of you know it well, you walked with us and continue to walk with us through it, some of you may know bits and pieces and some of you may be learning this for the first time. Please feel free to ask questions whether you are learning this for the first time, or reliving it through this blog. It is good for me to talk about it, it may make me cry, but that is okay too.

That being said, I think I'll do this in parts because who really has time to read my rambling story in one sitting? So, here's the beginning of the story of Joshua:

Part I

I left work on December 3, 2007 to go to my ultrasound and Jeff was meeting me at the doctor's office. I got there a little early, signed in, and sat down. Jeff came in about five minutes later and before long the ultrasound tech called us back. Honestly, I was somewhat nervous; I wanted everything to be okay, but I think consciously the only real worry I would have been able to articulate was whether we would find out whether we were having a girl or a boy. The ultrasound started, she asked how I had been feeling and whether I had felt the baby move lately. I told her that in the past two days I hadn't felt the baby move much, but I wasn't overly concerned because I was just over 20 weeks and sometimes those movements come and go (or so I thought). She didn't say anything for a few moments and I was a little nervous about her silence. The next thing that happened will stick in my mind and heart forever. She grabbed my hand and said, "Ashley, I can't get a heartbeat." I just started crying, Jeff started crying, and I felt like there was no way this could really be happening to me.

Dr. Moore came in a few minutes later and he and the tech looked at the pictures on the screen for a while and talked to each other about what they saw in words I didn't understand, words that seemed like they couldn't be about me or my baby. We have the best doctor in the world and Dr. Moore just hugged us both and told us that they weren't sure what happened, but his heart had probably stopped beating recently, probably just a day or two ago. He told us to go home and just be together. It would be too much for us to talk about all of the "what nexts" right now. I'm sure the people sitting in that waiting room wondered what in the world had just happened to us, a pregnant woman crying uncontrollably and her husband red-eyed and somber walking into a waiting room full of happy-faced pregnant women. We went home and the calls and visits started - the barrage of love over the telephone and in person, in gifts of flowers and food started within just a couple of hours.

Dr. Moore called an hour or so later and talked to Jeff and then to me. He told me that we'd have to schedule for me to go the hospital to deliver the baby. What? Excuse me? I have to go to the same place where I had Caroline and go through labor? Yes, that is exactly what had to happen. So, we scheduled to go in at 3:00AM on December 5. To say I was dreading what this meant, how this would play out, would be a tremendous understatement. I was terrified. I found out that delivering a still born baby can take anywhere from two to forty-eight hours. The prospect of that was more than I could bear. The next day is a blur, probably because I was filled with the questions and concerns about what December 5th would hold.

The words "stillborn" and "stillbirth" became normal parts of speech for me that day. Before then, I don't know if I had ever even said those words before. In my mind, those words described something that happened in my grandparents' generation, not me, not in 2007. How sadly wrong I was though. Stillbirth does happen today - it is actually more common than SIDS. One out of every 100 to 200 pregnant women will experience stillbirth (the fluctuation is because each state has a different definition of when "miscarriage" ends and "stillbirth" begins - I'm not sure how much that distinction really matters).
I am now one of those every "100 or 200".

See part 2 here.

And part 3 here.