A Child Lost

So I’m staring at this blank page.

That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling. Just blank inside. January 26th, I went in for my normal 12 week appointment with Dr. Newman. She checked me out, everything looked great, and then she got out the Doppler thing to listen to the heartbeat. It would have been the first time actually hearing it. I had seen it twice on ultrasounds, both at 8 weeks and just 2 weeks before, at 10 weeks.

She pushed it all over the place, but we couldn’t hear anything. She said the placenta was probably just blocking it, so we headed over to the ultrasound room. I got up on the table, and she showed me the picture of our little one. She measured him, measurements looked fine. But she kept moving the probe around, looking for that heartbeat. I could see her getting more and more concerned. After a few minutes, she told me she was going to go get another doctor for another opinion.

“I really hope I’m just missing something, “ she told me.

Dr. Nunes came in and took over. He picked up the probe again and looked for a long time. He turned to Dr. Newman and said something like “yeah, this is where we should see…” and that was it.

There was no heartbeat.

Our little one was gone.

Dr. Newman turned to me, and with real sorrow on her face just said, “I’m so sorry. I was not expecting this at all. It’s probably only been 2 or 3 days.”

I didn’t know what I was feeling. It was shock and disbelief and fear all together.

“It’s nothing you did or could have prevented. There was just some congenital defect that made it so this child couldn’t survive,” she told me, her hand on my shoulder. “I’m truly sorry.”

She left to give me a few moments alone. I sat up, still in shock, and called Ben on his business trip.

I was so grateful he answered.

“There’s no heartbeat.”


And I started to bawl.
All I could hear was “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Then a pause, and “Kirs, I’m so sorry.” I managed to get out some sort of conversation with him before the nurse came to check on me.

Dr. Newman came back in again.

“Why don’t you take a week, and then come back in and we’ll discuss your options here. Give yourself time to digest all this and talk to your husband. Again, I am so sorry.”

And that was it. I walked out of the office, carrying my dead baby inside, and a heart that felt dead too.