when you don't find gold at the end of the rainbow

Finally letting yourself go in your pregnancy after loss is so hard. You walk through murky waters trying to find that crystal clear water and sunshine. It is so hard to be excited knowing how fast it can be taken. I was so cautious at the beginning worried our baby would be taken again. But by 28ish weeks I finally got very excited, very optimistic and said multiple times how “there is no part of me that believes she won’t be here.” How dare I ever have that thought now in hindsight. The morning we lost her I woke up like any other day, met the guys in the garage and walked on my treadmill to get my 40 mins in. That weekend I felt like my body was ready, we were going to go into labor soon. I felt it. I was so ready. She had been moving less for that previous few days but she still was meeting her parameters and I thought she was running out of room and saving her energy for the big day. The 40 mins passed on the treadmill and I went to get ready for an appointment. By that time at 8:30 I thought wow Bostyn still hadn’t moved, she was also up and at em right when I was for the day. I decided to check her heartbeat on our doppler before I left the house..... and I couldn’t find it. I searched and searched, switched batteries and gel and still couldn’t. I started to panic, and that call to my husband is a blur I was screaming. Screaming that I can’t find her. We went to our local hospital and it was confirmed, she was gone. In that tiny little room surrounded by hospital personal I didn’t know I screamed, I screamed and pleaded and begged for her to come back, that she was just okay before I went to bed. Screaming no, that it isn’t true. The nurse put a towel by my face to muffle my screaming while I held my husband and couldn’t control myself. In that moment I felt like I was falling, so helpless, so out of my mind and body. I was falling and there was no bottom, there was no landing. It was darker and darker. We transferred to the hospital we had planned to deliver and my amazing midwife was on hospital call that day and met us there to get our induction started. The physical pain from being emotionally broken was so raw, my skin hurt, my head felt like it was going to explode. The emotions of thinking that it was a dream and it wasn’t our reality we’re coupled with the fact that our baby girl, so fully formed, so full term, so ready to enter the world was gone. Gone was her nursery we worked so hard on, gone was the excitement of the first night home, gone was figuring out how breastfeeding would go, gone would be seeing my husband comfort her so I could shower or get a nap in, everything was gone. When you get to the end of your pregnancy you are so ready, you have your baby stations set up in hour house, you have all the clothes folded and washed, you have had hospital bag and diaper bag packed for weeks, the car seat is properly installed, you got the oil changed and dogs nails clipped. You are so incredibly prepared and ready. We sat there with all of that work, effort, excitement, and thoughts of how much the life we thought we were ready for, and the biggest robbery was just committed. She was gone. All that we knew and thought we prepared for was gone.

Do you remember the moment you found out? Did you have any “gut feelings,” or strange thoughts?