Warning before you read this; I was due to have my 2nd baby February 5th of 2023. When I was 29 weeks pregnant I noticed that my daughter was not an extremely active baby like she used to be. Sadly, I believed the myth that babies begin running out of room and move less. Please know that that myth is not real, I will always regret not bringing it up to my doctor, even though they told me there was nothing that we could have changed because there was no obvious reason for her passing. There is a picture of her at the bottom and if you don’t want to see it just don’t scroll all the way down, but I will say she is absolutely beautiful.

At 29 weeks and 6 days I went to spend the day with my fiancées family. All day long my sweet nieces rubbed on my belly and kept asking me if my baby was okay. That afternoon I kept trying to feel for movement from her but I didn’t feel anything. It was 5pm when I noticed that I hadn’t felt her move in a while. We had been extremely busy all day so I thought maybe I just didn’t notice, but just in case I drank some orange juice and laid on my side and began paying close attention to feel for movement. After 15 minutes of no kicks, I texted my sister in law (I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself) and told her what was going on. We gave it some more time just in case, but at 6pm I still hadn’t felt anything, so she took me to the hospital.

We joked the whole way to the hospital about how much she hated Dopplers and how she would surely begin kicking like crazy the second they put the monitor on my stomach. I played her music off my phone to see if she would react, I even shined my flashlight on my belly, she still didn’t move.

When I got to labor and delivery I was light hearted, I expected instant comfort from the monitors. I expected to hear her heartbeat and feel her little feet kicking away. That didn’t happen.

The nurse pressed the little blue circular monitor onto my belly and began searching for a heartbeat. She kept hearing little thumps or swooshes and asking me if I felt the baby move, but I didn’t feel anything. It must have just been gas or something. She called a second nurse into the room, and let her give it a try. I searched their faces desperately for some kind of reassurance, but the second nurse simply shook her head at the first. The first nurse picked up a phone and called for a STAT ultrasound, and what felt like 10 seconds later an ultrasound tech pushed her machine up beside my bed. The moment she touched the wand to my stomach, the first thing I saw was my daughter’s beautiful face, and then her heart standing perfectly still.

I looked at the first nurse and asked her if my baby was okay…somewhere in the confusion the second had disappeared and been replaced by someone totally different, and they both began trying to comfort me and told me that they couldn’t find my daughters heartbeat. I already knew that, but hearing them say it sent me into a complete panic attack. I started hyperventilating, crying, and screaming for my fiancée who I had left back at the house with our toddler. 15 minutes later, which felt like hours, my fiancée came into the room sobbing and held me. He told me he loved me and to never blame myself. I’ve been struggling with not blaming myself, but knowing that he doesn’t blame me makes it a bit easier.

Somehow my entire family ended up at my bedside for about 20 minutes before the nurses had to make them leave so my fiancée and I could discuss options with the doctor. Our options were: go home and process, or stay at the hospital and be induced. We chose to be induced because we wanted to see her in the best shape possible and remember her as beautiful as she was.

At 11:30PM we started the first dose of citotec. Contractions were so much worse than natural contractions and they didn’t let up or have breaks in between. The pain level along with knowing that I would be giving birth to my baby who passed away made the entire experience extremely traumatizing. My fiancée tried his best to help me through the process but I was so stuck in my mind and honestly I wasn’t mentally present for most of it. At 1:30AM they checked my dilation and I was 3-4cm dilated, and they gave me a second dose of citotec. At 5:30AM they checked me again and I was 7 and a half cm dilated, and I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist got there fairly quickly but the epidural didn’t even have time to kick in because I laid on my back and no time at all later I called my nurse back into the room because the pain had gotten extreme and I could feel my baby coming out. She didn’t even have to use her fingers to see how close we were to the birth because the amniotic sac was bulging out.

At 6:19AM I experienced the most profound, painful, worst and most traumatic thing that has ever happened in my entire life. My beautiful baby girl was born sleeping. The silence in that delivery room was gut wrenching. The doctor shed a tear as he told me how perfect she was, and he seemed almost angry as he told me that he couldn’t find anything wrong with her cord or placenta. They never did end up finding anything wrong with her at all. She was and will always be the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.

We spent 8 hours with her, kissing her, studying all her little features, crying together, and just wishing things were different. This isn’t how pregnancy is supposed to end. I will always love her and miss her more than anything in the world. I have to stay strong for my son, the light of my world, he has kept me laughing. He heals my heart in so many ways and he’s too young to know what’s going on. All he knows is mommy feels sad right now. And I feel so awful that my sweet baby boy has to see me like this.

I started the birth control patch yesterday but I’m conflicted. My fiancée isn’t ready to try again so we are waiting, I don’t think I am ready either I’m just not sure. I want another baby someday but I could never replace my little girl. Someone please, if you’ve ever been through this please tell me how you survived it. I don’t think I will ever be the same happy person I was before ever again.