This is the week I have been painstakingly waiting for, to tell you that we were expecting a sweet little addition to our family.  Instead, it’s the week I’m telling you about how my heart was broken when we lost our baby.  I have so many thoughts on so many levels about this whole process and I need to get them out somewhere.  I am so completely vulnerable and naturally want to keep myself guarded, but I feel the urge to write.  And like most hard things I’ve written here on this blog, it’s helped heal my heart in ways I would never have known.  So here’s my story….

I went to Vegas for WPPI at 12 weeks along.  Just starting to feel a bit better after 8 long weeks of brutal morning sickness.  My belly was getting more difficult to hide by the week, and since I was so close to the end of the 1st trimester, I had stopped covering it so much and even dared tell a table of colleagues and friends as we were out to dinner.  For weeks I had been so excited about this news and I couldn’t keep the secret in any longer.  I was staying with a dear friend of mine who was also pregnant, just entering into her 3rd trimester, so naturally, we got along fabulously eating all the goodness Las Vegas had to offer.

On our last day of WPPI, just after our morning class, I started spotting.  I text my midwife who immediately text me back assuring me that it was probably nothing, but to let her know if anything changes or the bleeding picked up.  My sweet friend assured me that we could leave, but I thought I would be okay since we only had lunch and another class before we were planning on heading home.  I didn’t want her trip to get cut short only to find out it was nothing.

By lunch time, I was bleeding.

I walked out with a pit in my stomach to my dear friend and asked her if we could head home early.  I wasn’t feeling super panicked yet, but I suddenly got immensely homesick.  Cher asked me if I was okay and I quickly replied I was fine.  I didn’t realize how I felt until I called Brady and a lump formed in my throat and I didn’t know what I was going to say when he picked up.  I made it through our call and stayed relatively calm the whole way home.

As soon as we got there, I headed to my midwife’s house.  We hadn’t heard the heartbeat at 10 weeks but weren’t too concerned considering it’s only a 50/50 chance at that week and since I had been sick, we knew my hormone levels were raising.  I laid down to let her hear around in my growing belly.  I can’t explain what happened in that room, but I felt an immense peace wash over me.  I couldn’t hear anything, not a heart beat, not a word, not a breath.  I felt almost like I left my body for a moment and my head was completely calm and clear.  I asked Brady to take the girls out when we were through, they didn’t know what was going on but they were getting a little rambunctious and I needed peace as I listened to the words my sweet midwife was about to say.  As soon as they left, she began to prepare me for the “chance” that this was a miscarriage.  I still felt completely calm.. eerily calm, as we finished our talk.  The only words I could think to mutter to her were, “I feel like I knew this was coming.” and she just sweetly nodded back at me.

On the quiet car ride to my mom’s house for dinner, my brain felt completely and utterly scrambled.  I was trying to make sense of the last several hours but as hard as I tried, my brain could not wrap around the reality of what was happening.  Janae had left us with a, “It could be random spotting and that your baby is just really well hidden…” but I just knew.  I can’t explain it.. I just knew. 

We got to my moms and she could immediately tell something was wrong.  I felt exhausted.  As I opened my mouth to explain, the hot tears cut me off dead in my tracks.  Again I felt home sick.  I wanted to get out of there, I wanted to go into my own bed, I wanted to be able to comprehend what I was going through but I still just couldn’t.  I made it through dinner okay, telling everyone it could be this or it could be that.  I tried to be strong so I wouldn’t upset my girls or my step dad who kept looking at me with concern all over his face.  I felt numb to the world.

I text messaged Haley, the one person I knew I could be completely honest with, “couldn’t get a heartbeat.  we wont know until tomorrow’s u/s but it could be the start of a miscarriage.”

I went to lay by my husband on the couch, not even knowing how my feet were holding me up at this point.  As soon as I reached him, I could no longer hold in my sobs.

I asked for a blessing and he and my step dad gladly obliged.  I couldn’t stop crying, I kept trying but I could not stop.  So unlike me.

During my blessing, my knowing heart was reassured.  I felt the love of my Heavenly Father and I felt that he was with me in my suffering, that he would continue to stand by me, but no matter how much I wanted it, I was not having this baby.  I was given a feeling of peace and that got me through getting back home and getting the girls to bed.

I fell asleep snuggled up close to my little Stella.  An hour later, Brady came to get me so I could sleep in our bed.  I woke up hoping I had dreamed it all, but all too soon I realized it wasn’t a dream.  I went into the bathroom and there was more blood.  Like a knife to my heart.

I curled up in bed next to my husband and he asked me if I was okay.  I nodded, but I had no energy to even think about the question, much less answer it.  He grabbed my hand and said, “I’m here.  I’m right here with you.” and at this moment, I was so grateful I married Brady Leon Miller.  I was so grateful he was the one laying with me in this bed tonight.  I was so grateful that if I had to be with only one person in this time, it was him.

I rolled over and hoped sleep would resume.  This is always the time of night that I silently pray, that I unload.  But tonight, it just seemed too painful.  Like trying to hold it together, and then you hear your mom’s voice.  I just felt like I couldn’t pray tonight.  “I don’t even want to talk to you,” I thought.  But I knew that being angry with the Lord was a place I did not want to be.  I knew that He was the only one who could help me.  I began to pray, and I am truthful when I tell you I had never felt more pain in my life than I did right at that very minute.  I told Him I knew I wasn’t getting this baby, but I wanted it so much.  I told Him I trusted Him, but it was hurting me and I didn’t know how I could possibly endure this pain.  I began to weep like I’ve never wept.  Brady put his arm around me and I cried, and cried, and cried.  I cried into the morning hours, drifting off to unconsciousness for only a minute or two before the pain of my broken heart awoke me again and I cried some more.  I just didn’t want to do it.  All night, I kept repeating to myself, I just don’t want to do this.  I don’t want to do this.  I knew I had to call the doctor in the morning and face it all, and for the life of me, I just didn’t want to. 

At some point in the morning, as the sun started to light up my bedroom window, sleep found me.