My Angel

Twelve years ago today, my first pregnancy officially ended at three months. I had found out two days earlier that the baby had stopped growing a month before. The baby actually died right around the time I found out I was pregnant. But my body showed no signs of it for a month. That month was the happiest time in my life. We had been trying to get pregnant for three and a half years before we finally succeeded. I spent that month buying baby things way too early. We even painted the crib.

When I started spotting, I knew it was over. But everyone told me it might not mean anything. Spotting can happen during healthy pregnancies. I know this myself because I spotted with three of my four healthy pregnancies. But unfortunately my spotting was the beginning of a miscarriage.

I miscarried at home, after promising the doctor I would go to the hospital if the bleeding came too fast. Thinking back, I can't believe I stayed home with that much going on. I had strong labor pains and bled so much. Finally, after three hours, I wrapped myself in towels and laid down on the floor to sleep. I was so exhausted. I am so lucky that everything went OK! I should have been in the hospital but I had no health insurance and still owed the OB $500 from my prenatal visits.

For a long time, I was so sad, thinking I wasn't meant to have a baby. It was a hard time in my life. I went on to have my four healthy boys, and one more miscarriage, right before Kidney Boy. That one wasn't as brutal, physically or emotionally. I think having Junior and Chicken-hair cushioned the blow. And I was only five and a half weeks so it wasn't much worse than a very bad period.

Now, when I think back to that first miscarriage, the saddest part is remembering how heartbroken I was at the time. As for my Angel (seemed like a fitting name), I know I will see him again someday. He and my other little angel, who I named John Paul, are probably playing together in Heaven.

I used to listen to this song and cry... It was my little song for him, but parts of it are more like what I imagine he'd want to say to me. After a while, I stopped listening to it because I didn't want to cry anymore. And then when Junior was about a year and a half, I decided I wanted it back and started singing it to him and dancing around the living room at bedtime with him, with this on the stereo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LraZEoRnkPc