Dear Baby Peanut ( now in heaven),
I have never, ever felt like this in my entire life. I miss you so much, and I never even got to meet you. I wanted to write this post because this blog was supposed to be my letters for you to read when you grew up, but things have changed. You won't ever get to read these letters with me or Daddy, but hopefully you will be able to read them from heaven. And if you can't, I know you will always know what I felt, somehow.
On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 I got the worst phone call I could ever get. The doctor left me a message saying that he needed to speak with me. Like I said, he told Daddy and I that we shouldn't hear from him again until we saw him at our September 7th appointment. But if we heard from him, then something was wrong. As soon as I heard his voice I knew. When I finally got back in touch with him he confirmed all of my fears, your NT screening showed swelling behind your neck, and that compared with Mom's blood work gave you a 1/19 chances of having Down's Syndrome and a 1 in less than 5 chance of having Trisomy 18 (Edward's Syndrome). Mommy didn't know what all those numbers meant at that exact moment, but she wrote everything down that the doctor said and immediately left work to be with Daddy. When I walked in the door, I tried to tell Daddy what the doctor told me, and we immediately did some research online. Baby, this Trisomy 18 is absolutely horrible. There is all kinds of information out there, but all we needed to know was that the chances of you making it out of me alive were very small, and the chances of your coming home from the hospital with us in March were even smaller. Dad and I tried to stay positive, but it was really hard for me. You are my first baby, and the last thing I wanted to do was lose you. I love you so much, and I couldn't even touch you or feel you yet.
The very next day we had an appointment with a special doctor. We'll call her Doctor Peace. She was really great. She was calming, and informative. She took some more pictures of you and Little Peanut, I couldn't believe it, you were so active! You were doing flips in my belly! When you first came up on the screen you were laying face down, and moving, moving, moving. Then you flipped over, and kept on squirming. It was so amazing to me and it was then that I had a glimmer of hope that the other lady taking your pictures had gotten something wrong. That there was absolutely nothing wrong with you! Of course, they wouldn't tell us what they were looking at until later. After more pictures and more moving around, picture day was over and it was time to hear the news. They moved us into another room with a genetic counselor and she broke my heart into a million, billion pieces. She told us that your pictures showed your little hands clenched into fists, and she said that the swelling on your neck was something called a cystic hygroma. She also said that some of your intestines that should be in your belly at the point, were still on the outside. All of these indicators were signs of this Trisomy 18. They wanted to do an amniocentesis to confirm their thoughts, and then Daddy and I had to decide what to do.
The tests came back 2 days later and what little piece of my heart was left broke into a million, trillion more little pieces. You definitely had this Trisomy 18.
Baby, I need you to know that Daddy and I love you so very much. We were so excited when we found out we were having you, and we were absolutely destroyed when we found out something was wrong. But we had to let you go. The chances of you living in my belly until March were very small. Mommy was very afraid that I was going to start to feel you kick in there and then lose you. If that had happened, I'm not sure I would be able to recover from that. We also knew that even if you did make it until March, the chances of you coming home with us from the hospital were slim to none. Of course, that would kill me, but if we were able to see you, and then we lost you, I know that not only would I not be able to recover, but I know Daddy wouldn't make it.
Sometimes Mommies and Daddies have to make really tough decisions, but as long as they make them together, and they know that they are doing what is best for their families, then they are always the right decisions. I hope you know that Daddy and Mommy made the best decision for you and for us.
On September 11, 2012 you went to live with God and all the good people in Heaven. I truly believe that because you were an absolute blessing to me and Dad. I know there are amazing people up there that you are playing with, right now. I know they are taking really good care of you until Dad and I get there. I say I know all of these things, but honestly it doesn't take the pain of losing you away.
I'm not going to go back and change what I wrote about Daddy earlier on this blog, because what I said was true at the time. But I do feel like I have to write how he has been handling all of this. Dad is an amazingly strong person. He has been so amazing in how he has supported me, and taken care of me. He has been in charge of putting away all your baby stuff. We are keeping it, but just putting it out of sight until we can heal from all this. Every time I would see something, it made me cry so Dad had to put it away. How he did it, I will NEVER know, but the only way I can describe him is amazing. If I can say anything good came out of all this bad, it is that I now know I love your Daddy more than life itself. I will never understand how he is handling the heartbreak of losing you, and the stress of handling your hyper emotional mom right now, but he is and he never once makes anything worse. He is my rock, and my whole world. I just wish you got to meet him. He's going to be an amazing Dad one day, but I have to admit I already think he is an amazing Dad. The decisions that we have had to make already for you were tough, but he did it like a champ.
This has been a very hard post to write, but like I said, I needed to write it to help me find some closure through all of this. I started reading this other lady's blog that was all letters to her angel baby. When I read it I thought, "Oh, that's sad. But a cute idea, in a way." I NEVER thought that I would ever lose you, but here I am, without you. I think I might try to keep this blog up. It might be helpful to share how I feel in the next few months without you inside me (like I planned). Then, one day I'm sure I will want to write about your brother or sister that might come. I might continue to write to you, and then when your brother or sister gets old enough, I might pass these letters to him or her, and finally share how we had you, but lost you.
In all of this, I just need you to know that we love you so very much. We cannot wait until we finally get to meet you in Heaven.
Love always and forever,
Mommy
