Baby Beau - A Story of Love and Loss [Part 1/2]

After an uneventful pregnancy and birth with our first baby, we were looking forward to a similar outcome when we found out we were expecting our second. We had no idea what kind of journey was to come when our second baby was stillborn at 21 weeks. This is our son Beau's story and our experience with infant loss.

About a year after we had our daughter, Harper, we decided to start trying for another baby. It was our plan to have two kids and though we would have been happy no matter what, we were both hoping for a boy the second time around so we could have one of each. It only took one cycle to become pregnant with Beau and when I saw the double lines on the pregnancy test I was so excited. I took four pregnancy tests and gave them to my husband Tyler with his breakfast on Father's Day of 2014. Because we had such an amazing home birth experience with Harper, we started planning for another and were looking forward to another great pregnancy and birth.

From the beginning I had horrible all-day "morning" sickness. It was hard to keep up with a busy toddler and I was resentful for about the first sixteen weeks while I was constantly nauseous. Looking back now, I still feel so guilty about those feelings and about not appreciating every moment of my pregnancy. This baby was SO active in the womb starting around seventeen weeks, and I loved feeling those kicks and rolls again. Around week nineteen we had an anatomy scan which came back normal, and we found out we were expecting a BOY! We were so excited that our baby was healthy and we started thinking of names immediately.

It was December and we headed to our friend's annual Christmas party in Wisconsin. While on the three-hour drive there I realized I hadn't felt Beau move for awhile, but I figured he might be sleeping and that I'd try to feel him when we weren't in a moving vehicle. As soon as we got to their house I tried laying down in various positions on the bed to feel him kick. I still wasn't having any luck so I tried drinking something sugary to see if I could feel anything, but after a few hours of no movement I called my midwife to see if I should be concerned. She told me that because my placenta was anterior (on the front wall of my uterus) it was possible that was masking his movements and that at twenty weeks the baby still has a fair amount of room to 'hide'. I think it was that moment that I knew he was gone, but I refused to let myself believe it was possible. I did my best to enjoy the rest of the weekend with our friends but I spent the majority of it trying to feel Beau move and convincing myself that he was okay.

The next week was the week before Christmas and we had a midwife appointment on Wednesday. I still hadn't felt movement and when our midwife came out to our house for our visit she couldn't find a heartbeat. She said she could hear placenta sounds and that it was still possible that he was hiding near the back of the uterus, but she also offered to call in an ultrasound for us. We took her up on that offer but they couldn't get us an appointment until December 24th which was almost a full week away. The next evening I decided I couldn't take it anymore and we headed into the emergency room to have an ultrasound done after my husband got off work. Our close friends took Harper for us so we could focus on the appointment and because I was over twenty weeks the hospital staff was able to check me in to Labor & Delivery right away.

I still remember the intake staff laughing and saying I was the second person who had come in that night because I couldn't feel my baby move, and I remember thinking that it wasn't a very appropriate thing to laugh about. We went upstairs to L&D and the check-in process took awhile because they couldn't find me in their system. We realized after a few minutes that was because I hadn't been to any clinic for prenatal appointments since I'd been seeing a midwife. Throughout this time I still tried to hold onto hope that Beau was alive and I even thought I may have felt a movement at one point, convincing me that we'd get an ultrasound and we'd all laugh because he'd just been hiding behind his placenta.

We had to wait a little while before we could get into a room, but when we did we were greeted by a very kind nurse. She listened for a heartbeat with the doppler and when she wasn't able to find it she said "I'll go get the doctor, she's better at this than I am anyway!" The doctor came in and listened but couldn't find heart tones either. She called for a portable ultrasound machine and while we waited for it to arrive, she said to us "I'll be honest, I don't expect good news." I had so much hatred for her in that moment. She just seemed so cold and so sure of his demise, and I wasn't ready to hear that yet. I realize now that she was just trying to prepare me for the worst, but to this day I feel so much hurt when I think about that moment. It was the first moment I admitted to myself that he could be gone. I told her that we'd just had an anatomy scan the week before and that everything had looked good, because I still wasn't ready to give up on him. I also told her we'd been planning for a home birth and she made some jokes about how she used to be friends with a bunch of "hippie mamas" before she became a doctor. As you can imagine, I was not very impressed with her unprofessional manner, especially considering the circumstances. I'd just been told the baby in my stomach may no longer be alive and she was acting like it was just another day at the office.

The ultrasound machine arrived and the tech put the wand to my belly. As soon as I saw her face, and saw her slight frown at the doctor I knew, and in that moment my whole world stopped. The doctor said something along the lines of being sorry but our baby was gone. My husband Tyler started crying, and I just sat there in shock. I couldn't cry. I couldn't feel anything. I just wanted the whole situation to go away and not be a reality. All I could think to do was to ask what we needed to do from there.

They told me I could either go home and wait for my body to miscarry or I could be induced. I couldn't bear the thought of waiting to go into labor at home to deliver our stillborn baby. What if Tyler was away for work and couldn't make it back? What if I couldn't find anyone to watch Harper? What if my body didn't go into labor on its own and my baby just slowly decomposed inside me until the placenta separated from my uterus, causing irreparable damage? To me it was an easy choice to do the induction but I didn't want to do it right away. I needed to go home, see my sweet Harper, and process for a bit. We picked Harper up from our friends' house and made plans for my mom to come watch her the next day while we went in to be induced. Tyler happened to be working ten hour days at that time so he was off Friday anyway and was able to come with me. That night I messaged close friends and family to let them know that our baby no longer had a heartbeat and that we'd appreciate their love and prayers. I was overwhelmed with the amazing support we were given during that time and I'm still so grateful to everyone who reached out to us during that time and over the next few days as I was induced and delivered Beau.

The next morning we headed into the hospital for the induction, assuming it would be a one-day event. Little did we know we'd spend the next three days in the hospital to meet our sweet baby boy. I'm going to continue his story tomorrow because even now, over a year after this experience, I'm still so emotionally affected when writing about it and I need to decompress for a bit. Thank you for reading our story and sharing in our baby Beau's life.

You can read part 2 of Beau's story HERE.

Photo courtesy of Peace Love Babies | Twin Cities, St. Cloud birth, newborn, family photography