Warning: Sad blog ahead

Yesterday was a no-good-very-bad day...to put it mildly. Mark and I were so excited that we had our first OB appointment for our new baby; he didn't go with me to my first appointment with Bailey so this was particularly exciting for him. I knew that my doctor would do a vaginal ultrasound (dear God, my first experience with that is a funny story for another blog) so we could get the best view of the baby. It started out just fine and I made sure to first find out that there was only one baby in there (people think it's funny to tease you about having twins but it really is a little scary). She said that everything looked really normal except that she was having a problem finding the heartbeat. She pointed to where it should be and said "it should be fluttering right here". She took us down the hall to the "good" ultrasound machine and said she just wanted to be sure. With this ultrasound machine, it uses doppler (which I thought was only for the weatherman) to detect bloodflow. We could clearly see the bloodflowing all around the baby, just not in it. When the guy said "Guys, I'm so sorry, there's just no heartbeat." I was devastated. All I could think was "but this was supposed to be a happy day! This is not supposed to be happening." We cried and cried, of course. Then all I could think was "Get me home to Bailey."

We love our son so much and we were *so* excited for this baby. I know that God secretly prepares us sometimes for things that we don't know about or understand and for things we can't get our minds around. This was one of those times. I think that in my heart of hearts, I knew something wasn't right with this pregnancy from the beginning but decided that I was just being paranoid and silly. As my surrogate dad Lou told us yesterday, "Sometimes when a baby gets to a certain developmental state where the genetics won't support life long, nature stops the process... I guess God does.... we will always love this baby, as will you." That touched my heart more than anything.

In God's secret preparation of my heart, I had a conversation the other day with a friend at work about people who go through miscarriages without telling anyone. I said to her: "I can't imagine ever going through the pain and trauma of that without my family and friends to support us." I have the best family and friends out there. Some friends of ours sent us flowerst today and simply said "Thinking of You." The best part, they are Gerber daisies which are the happiest flowers out there. We are happy because we know that our baby is perfect and happy in Heaven with Jesus.