from the desk of tara hope…

The loss of Minnie Cate came suddenly, with only the whisper of a warning. Matt and I had gone to Barcelona for a European cruise to celebrate our 10 year Anniversary. My birthday happened to be the first day of the trip, and we were celebrating our babymoon, too, and having a little getaway before our family of three became a family of four. The first day we were in Barcelona, we took a nap to deal with the jet lag and as we were laying there, the sunlight with streaming in, I could feel Minnie kicking away. I was about 5 and a half months so Matt hadn’t been able to feel her yet, but this time it was enough that he could feel her, too. We laid there, feeling her kick and talking to her and about having two kids now. It was a really sweet memory, looking back now. The next day we boarded our cruise ship and had a fabulous time. I wasn’t as hungry as a pregnant woman on a cruise ship probably should be, and I noticed I wasn’t feeling her kick much, but Matt said all the right things “she’s still little, we are moving around so much, she’s probably asleep during the day and awake at night”. We were walking a ton in the ports and I was pretty tired at night when we would get back so I just assumed he was right. I was concerned but not  overly so.

We got back Sunday night, the next morning I was subbing some dance classes at NRCA so I got up bright and early and taught classes all day. I felt great. Tuesday, I had a routine ultrasound scheduled to check out some pictures of Minnie’s heart they hadn’t been able to get at her anatomy scan two-three weeks earlier. This same exact thing had happened with Evie so I wasn’t concerned. I told the man doing the ultrasound that I hadn’t felt her move much but I was assuming everything was fine. I kept chatting away like I do when I am nervous or feeling a bit awkward. He wasn’t talking much and after a few seconds (minutes?) of looking at the screen, he looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder and I knew. I immediately knew. He didn’t have to say anything. We had a miscarriage before Evie so I had seen those looks of pity from the ultrasound tech before, and I just knew. He said “I am afraid I have bad news for you today” and I burst into tears. He was so kind and so gentle with me, which was a blessing because the lady ultrasound tech the time before had been abrupt and abrasive and not at all very friendly so I was so thankful for this nice man that day. I cried, he said he needed to get the Doctor, and for me to call my family. I remember calling my Mom but couldn’t get ahold of her so I called Caitlyn to help me find her. I called Nicole to tell her I wouldn’t be meeting her for lunch after my appt. like I thought…and then I knew I had to call Matt. He had flown to California the day before and was in meetings, so I hated to give him this bad news when he was so far away. I texted him to call me, he called and I told him we lost the baby. I told him my Mom was on her way, he didn’t have to come home. I had survived losing a baby before and in my head this was going to be the same process. I told him I was ok ( which I was, at the time. I was in shock and not even crying anymore).

They took me to a private break room or something to talk to the Doctor. She told me I had two choices: to either have a D&C or to go to the Hospital and deliver. I thought this was something I could schedule down the road, but they wanted me to do the procedure there at the Doctor’s office or go to the Hospital when I left. That’s when I started feeling it. I didn’t want to have to make that decision so quickly. I am terrified of needles and procedures but I hate hospitals and I didn’t want to go through labor knowing I wasn’t going to get a baby at the end of it. But, they told me that if I delivered her I could hold her and see her. If we did the procedure, we would only get handprints and footprints. Even though it took me a while to make the final decision, I knew that I didn’t want a D&C.  I told the Dr. “I know this sounds crazy. I know that she’s already gone, but I am scared it will feel too much like an abortion.”  (If you have had one of these procedures done, please know this is not judgement on your decision in any way. I didn’t need one for my first miscarriage, so I was scared of it and this is just my story of how I processed everything).

I called Matt and found out he was getting on a plane headed home. He hadn’t listened to me back when I said he didn’t need to come home. Which was good because when I said that I didn’t know any of this was happening. I thought I would just wait for my body to pass her like it had done with my first loss. But this was such a whirl-wind timeframe they had now given me, I was so relieved to hear he was coming home. He wanted me to have the procedure. He didn’t want me to have to go through the pain of child birth in this situation. But in my heart I was longing to hold her and meet her and I couldn’t do that without delivering her. Ultimately he left the choice up to me.

My mom got there and we sat outside the office in the lobby of the Hospital where I had my appt. We cried and talked through my options when a nice lady stopped by and said she was the Hospital Chaplain and she had seen us crying and could she pray with us. We told her what was going on and she said “I can tell you have already made your decision. I think you need to meet your little girl”. So that was settled and she hugged us and prayed with us and was so kind.

I followed my mom back to my house and on the way I called the Birth Center where I had planned to give birth. One of my favorite midwives, Emily, was on call that day and she talked me through everything the whole ride home. I still was thinking I had some time, maybe we would go to the hospital in a day or two (still in shock, not quite understanding the situation) but she asked when Matt was landing that night, I said 10pm. She firmly but lovingly told me she would meet me at the Labor and Delivery unit of the hospital at 10pm. It was lunchtime at that point, so we had all day to wait.