Skip to main content

The Beginning of Loss

Just like all journeys there always has to be a beginning. Ours occurred the morning of May 9th, 2019 when we found out our sweet Kanton Jasper no longer had a heartbeat and was in the arms of Jesus. I was in the 25th week of my pregnancy.

The shock was all consuming. 

I recently told someone that it felt like it took my breath away and I still haven't been able to get it back.

That particular morning we had my monthly check-up scheduled. My doctor had wanted to do an ultrasound as Kanton had not cooperated fully on the previous ultrasound and she also wanted to check for growth. I was then going to see her after the ultrasound but we didn't make it that far.

As soon as the ultrasound started I knew something was wrong. There was no flicker of the heartbeat - the first thing I always looked for.

He wasn't moving.
He was just still.

I swallowed hard. My 4-year-old was sitting on a chair across the room watching something on my phone. The physical pain I felt in my heart in that moment was so profound. My heart was immediately broken for my baby but then there was this heaviness that went along with it as I longed to protect my 4 year old. Then my thoughts went to my other children... how was I going to tell them their baby brother had died? It was literally going to crush them.

Evidently I didn't react appropriately to the news that my son had died.... my silence was too much for the technician to ignore. She said, "You don't seem to be surprised. Did you already know about this?"

I didn't know how to respond to her.

If only she knew all that was going through my mind in that moment. I was literally having a battle between with my own grief and my desire to protect my other child who was in the room. I was swallowing my own grief because I knew if I were to let it out it was going to be something beyond what his little heart could bare.

From there things were kind of a blur. The technician said she was sorry several times. I could feel my husband squeezing my hand. At one point I know he said something to me but I couldn't tell you what it was for sure at this point. The technician left for a moment and then brought back another technician to confirm my nightmare - that there was indeed no heartbeat.

I just laid there in silence trying to force myself believe that this was indeed my new reality.

Then my precious 4 year old said the most heartbreaking words in his tiny little voice, "I am sorry about the baby, Mama."

Here I was desperately trying to find a way to protect him and he was sorry for me.

With that the tears began to stream down my face as I could no longer hold them back and I silently sobbed. I knew that my grief journey was just beginning.

Other posts in this series:

My Grief Journey
The First of the Hard Decisions 
Put One Foot in Front of the Other
Leaving Him Behind

///[Feel free to subscribe to keep up with my latest posts.]\\\






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Grief Journey

Three weeks ago we found out our baby boy was gone. At some point his precious heart stopped beating and I became the mother of a stillborn. This has been a tremendously difficult journey for me. My heart is broken. I simply have no other way to describe it. I miss my sweet Kanton so much and a day has not gone by that I have not cried for him. I don't expect to have a day without tears anytime soon. I have prayed and prayed for God to help me find a way to use this for some sort of good. I am honestly not sure if I have heard an answer to my prayer yet or not but I do feel like God is asking me to share some of my grief journey now - something that honestly terrifies me but I will be obedient nonetheless. I have been writing continually since we found out our baby boy was gone. For as long as I can remember writing has been a tremendous outlet for me and God has used it to help me find healing during some of my toughest battles. I pray it becomes that for me again as I gri...
2 comments
Read more

The Funeral

I absolutely dreaded this day - May 16th, 2019. I just didn't want to do it. Once again, God spoke to my heart and just told me to put one foot in front of the other and He would do the rest. I remember that I put a baseball game on. The Minnesota Twins were playing and I needed to do something - anything - to keep my mind off what was to come. As much as I love the people in my life I knew it was going to be unbelievably difficult to be around them during this time. I knew the rawness of my grief was going to come out. There would be nothing I could do to hide it and I felt so unbelievably vulnerable and completely unable to protect myself from the hurt that I was experiencing. I didn't journal at all that day - I just couldn't. I was in this fog of all consuming grief and there was no processing of emotions to be done that day. The emotions won. They took over. There was nothing rational to be found. So I watched baseball until it was time to go. I did make a sp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seven Years

Today marks 7 years of being “cancer free”. It is hard to describe how I feel about it - I have such mixed emotions to be honest. I posted a lengthy post on my personal Facebook page and I felt it fitting that I share it here as well. 7 years ago today I was declared “cancer free”. The truth is... once you are diagnosed you are never really “cancer free.” It remains apart of your life. If I am being honest I would tell you that I battle fear daily. Most of the time I can keep it in check but I do have my days - especially when I hear of a friend being diagnosed or even worse, when they lose their battle. Those moments are hard. The last 7 years haven’t been easy. I have dealt with extreme fatigue - especially the first 2 years into remission, I struggled daily to get out of bed and with 4 small children that was not a fun place to be. I have dealt with criticism that I “didn’t bounce back” quickly enough. The expectations of others that the day I was done with trea...
Post a Comment
Read more