It’s been 9 days since my baby died. I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. My little Ryan had been extremely active ever since I first started feeling him move...but there were days when he wouldn't move around 22 or 23 weeks and I was told that was normal. So when I didn't feel him move one day at 26 weeks I was concerned but was told to give it a day. The following day I felt nothing and took myself into Labor and Delivery. Upon getting checked in they found his heartbeat, a strong 120...however I remember the Doctor saying she'd prefer to see more "variation"....I guess it wouldn't have been better if it was moving around more. The doctor had a full ultrasound done and in the 45 minutes the ultrasound tech was doing it he didn't see my baby move once...not a finger or a toe or even the appearance of his chest going up and down - and yet the heart continued to beat. A few hours later though the heartbeat gradually began to go down...115, 110, and eventually they thought that his heartbeat was very close to mine, which was in the low 90's. They immediately took me in for an emergency c-section when it dipped that low. (The baby's father believes they had lost his heartbeat for a while, I don’t know what to believe). The c-section was over within 10-15 minutes and my baby was stillborn. They tried to recessitate him but there was no chance of bringing him back. All my original blood tests came back normal and in the mean time I am waiting on a full panel of test results including placenta and cord testing as well as an autopsy. One thing that I was told was that I have a heart shaped uterus, but according to my doctor it isn't a very bad one and it wouldn't have been the cause of what happened and it shouldn't have any effect on future pregnancies...but it scares me. After the c-section, I was in the hospital for 3 and a half days, during which I got to spend as much time with my son as I wanted. At first I thought this was a crazy idea but those precious moments I got with him in those days are all I will ever get to hold on to. Plus, we got the opportunity to get some pictures which we may never look at or maybe we'll cling to them - who knows? The hospital was great, they helped us get foot prints and even called someone in to make molds of my baby boy’s feet...they also made us a birth certificate, since technically we don’t get one since he never took a breath.

I didn't cry until the night I got home from the hospital. It hit me in a wave...I had just left my baby all alone to be stored in a freezing cold morgue until someone could cut him open to perform an autopsy. It took everything inside of me to not get into the car (which since having had a c-section and being heavily drugged would have been a tremendously bad thing to do) and drive to the hospital to see him again. In the days since then I've been trying to stay as busy as I possibly can (reading books on grieving...creating a website in memorial to my baby boy, etc), which isn't very much seeing as I'm supposed to be resting for the next few weeks. But if I stop for two seconds I have a panic attack. I miss my baby. Tomorrow there will be a memorial.......but tomorrow was supposed to be the day I got my 3D ultrasound pictures. I'm not supposed to be grieving the loss of a son I never got to know. I'm not supposed to be worrying about no one remembering him but me. Or people belittling my loss because I never got to be "attached" to my child. I loved my child from the day I found out I was pregnant. All I ever wanted was for him to be healthy and for some unknown reason this had to happen. I am so angry and sad and I don’t know how to move foreword. I don’t see myself being able to move forward. I know people say it takes time, but I want my baby back...I'll always want my baby back. I just don’t know where to go from here...I feel so alone in my grieving for this baby, like no one else can truly understand because he was inside me and I was the only one who knew him in any way when he was alive..........

Is there anyone at all who has gone through anything even semi-similar...and if so how did you manage? Also I am sure some may think I’m crazy…thinking about this when it hasn’t even been two weeks since I lost my baby………but how long did people way to try again for another baby? I would never dream of trying to replace my Ryan…but trying to get pregnant again and maybe becoming pregnant and getting to become the mother I am supposed to be, that seems to me like the most therapeutic thing I could possibly do...& the possibility of this seems to be the only things that gets me through my days...