My little girl

Six years ago this month I should have welcomed my first born into the world. I should have been making a birth plan and finalizing a nursery. I should have had my world changed forever. Well, at least the last part did happen, but not in the way I expected. Rewind about 8 months or so prior to that,  May 2012. On an ordinary spring day I took the advice of my now ex-husband and took a pregnancy test. I was shocked to see the "pregnant" result not even two minutes after taking it.

To this day I still almost question whether or not it was immaculate conception. I was stuck in a dead, loveless, toxic marriage. Deep down, we despised each other. The deer in headlights look on my ex-husband's face when I handed him the positive test was one of the last reactions I wanted to see. I think a little part of me died when I saw the brief look of what I can only imagine was disgust on his face. Later I found out he would consider getting a paternity test. But I suppose that's beside the point.

I felt no joy from my ex-husband almost my entire pregnancy. We didn't plan any of the fun, sweet maternity experiences. There were no maternity pictures, no big pregnancy announcements, very little talk of names, and very little talk of my baby in general.

The majority of my pregnancy was spent staring into a toilet bowl multiple times a day, barely being able to eat anything at all, and feeling very alone. I missed quite a bit of work from the extreme morning sickness. Speaking of, who are we kidding with the 'morning' part of morning sickness? It should be called something else. For me it was morning, noon and night sickness.

At one point I was so dehydrated from being so sick all the time I had a short stint in the hospital. My OB was extremely worried but of course, my then husband barely seemed to bat an eye. In fact, when I called him to tell him I was being admitted to the hospital, he yelled at me over the phone. I couldn't believe it. I was miserable, sick and terrified I was somehow unintentionally hurting my baby and that asshole was yelling at me. 

I'm not sure how much later it was but I ended up seeing a specialist because I was so worried about everything. I got set up with some kind of special ultrasound to check on her as well as getting genetic testing to see the risk of birth defects. We found out we were both extremely low risk of birth defects (a genteric counselor took oral swabs from us both) but then got just about the worst news any expecting mother can hear, "Your baby may not make it." The doc told me I had almost no amniotic fluid and she was measuring 3 weeks behind. I cried the whole way home and the rest of that night. I cried and begged God to make her strong. I begged Him for a miracle. But that miracle never came.

I guess God must've needed her more than He thought I did. It was barely two weeks after seeing the specialist and then one day she was just gone. "I'm so sorry Elizabeth, there's no heartbeat." I felt out of my body hearing that while sitting on the exam table of my OB's office. I was in such a state of shock I couldn't even figure out what exactly my doctor meant. No heartbeat? How? 'No doc, you just can't find it, we're good here.' I had to actually have my doctor explain to my 26 year old, fully-grown, adult self what that meant, in detail. I was that out of it. Then I had to decide what steps to make next. How? How does anyone decide what to do with the body they're carrying inside of their own. I just couldn't fathom that she died. That or I couldn't admit it to myself.

I spent the next 3 days having labor induced, giving birth and laying numbly in a hospital bed. But let me tell you, labor pains are still labor pains, no matter what state your baby is in. At least my ex was there for that.

Fiona Kay Beisel was born still on September 26, 2012 at 9:26 in the morning. She weighed 2.8 ounces or 80 grams and fit in the palm of my hand. She was by far the smallest baby I'd ever seen. Look at the nail on one of your fingers and that's how small one of her hands was.

Labor was so awkward. My doctor told me to push but I had an epidural and besides that, it just felt bizarre. It felt so bizarre that that's not even enough to describe it. But in my head with the last push I was still praying to hear a cry, a scream, a whimper, or anything that would just mean a sign of life. But there was nothing. No crying, no noise, just...silence. Thundering silence. And then, it was just, over. The nurses there were wonderful and helped me to not feel so alone at least for a couple of days. They made little keepsakes I still have. I even got to have Fiona baptized.

Leaving the hospital a couple of days later I just felt robbed. I went in carrying this tiny little being and left with nothing. Nothing except a giant hole in my heart.

In the weeks and months to come the grief of losing my only child hit me like a tidal wave. My ex husband went back to being nearly non-existent in my life and certainly not providing any support. I did what I could to help myself by reading stories other women before me had written about losing their children. I continued therapy. I even attempted group therapy for miscarriage and infant loss (what a disaster that was for many reasons).

A few weeks after, I felt like I was drowning in grief. I had never wanted to die more or since then. It felt like my life was over and there was no hope to ever be happy again. One night I called my ex and told him I was going to end my life. I sat on the floor next to my bed staring at a full bottle of sleeping pills while I talked to him. I begged him to come home from work. I was in agony. But he refused. It shouldn't have come as a surprise with how he acted the majority of my pregnancy but I think if I had to pinpoint a time when I actually started to hate him, that was it. The time I needed him absolutely the most, he actually refused to be there. To this day I have no idea why I didn't just leave him then. But I stayed another 2 years.

Somehow, some way, I got through it. Or, at least I kept going. Six and a half years later, I still think about her all the time. I pray she's with my mom and I feel like she is. I try to imagine what she would look like, how her voice would sound and what her personality would be like. It feels strange to miss someone you haven't actually met, but I do. I miss her all the time. I miss her constantly.

Throughout this journey, lines of communication have opened up to build deeper relationships with people in my life. I never expected to be able to relate to my Grandma because of our differences but having gone through the same thing I think has given us a different understanding of each other and an overall stronger bond. She opened up about losing her first child and how even decades later, she still thinks about her first daughter. She even told me she called my mom her miracle baby because she was next after she'd lost my aunt.

My only hope through this is that more women will open up about their situations. This tragedy is so common and yet a lot of us still feel overwhelmingly alone going through it. We're told things like, "Oh you can have another baby." Or, "Well maybe there was something wrong with your baby and it's better she/he didn't survive than to cause you a burden." People that haven't experienced losing a child in this way are a special kind of stupid making these comments. Those of us who have lost babies will always want our children. No matter what possible "something wrong" Fiona might have had, I would have adapted, obviously.

Despite the pain, anger, lack of support, etc, I do have hopes of getting pregnant again some day. The bonus this time is I actually have a partner now who I have no doubts about his level of excitement will be when our day finally comes.