About this time, ten years ago...

The ten year anniversary of my first child, my daughter, Kaylea, is coming up on March 20th. It's got me thinking, as it does every year, about the events that occurred in the two weeks before I had her.

It was about this time, ten years ago, that I last felt my baby girl move. I went to the hospital because I hadn't felt her move in at least a week. I had a regularly scheduled doctors appointment a week later but I didn't feel I could wait that long. So, my friend Samantha & her boyfriend (at the time) came and got me & we started to the hospital. When we arrived, I was told to go to the labor & delivery floor. So, that's where I went. When I got up to L&D, the nurses were immediately shitty to me. Very short & wouldn't listen to anything I was saying. They stick a Doppler to my stomach, pick up a heartbeat, and tell me my baby is fine. At this time, I was about 25 weeks pregnant. The nurse measured my stomach & told me I was only measuring 20 weeks pregnant. This should've set off an alarm inside her head. Especially when I told her I found out the sex 6 weeks earlier when I was 20 weeks pregnant! Still, an ultrasound was denied! Myself & my friend begged for an ultrasound, to no avail! I was told that Kaylea was laying in the transverse position & that was the explanation for why I was measuring 20 weeks. Which shouldn't have mattered, how she was laying. And the heartbeat they heard was my own heartbeat!

So, I was sent home, my mind racing even more than before I went to the hospital. I was there, begging for help, begging for an ultrasound. For some kind of proof that I was just overreacting. Instead, my feelings & concerns for my daughter's wellbeing was brushed off and chalked up to just 19 year old first time mother, that was just being overprotective & overreacting.

Now, I know in my heart that my baby was gone then. But perhaps, had they listened to me, I may not have nearly died having her.

I wish, so badly, that I could go back to that night. I would do so many things differently. I would not have left that hospital without an ultrasound. I would've fought for my baby girl with all my might. Because, after all, I was a first time mother. They convinced me that I was being irrational & overprotective. And I thought for a second that maybe they were right. But my heart told me differently. And my heart is what I listened to.

For the next week, until my scheduled doctor's appointment, I researched stillbirth. I tried preparing myself for what would come. What I knew in my heart awaited me. I begged God to change his mind & give her back to me. I said to God, "there's still time for you to give her back. I'll never know the difference if you give her life back to her before she's born!"

God may have heard me pleading & begging for my daughter's life, but he did not grant my wish. My tiny daughter's soul left her body & mine sometime during the two weeks before March 20, 2004. And all she left behind was an empty womb, a broken heart & tattered dreams. Dreams that would haunt me for the rest of my living days.

I miss her so much, that sometimes I can hardly breathe. And as soon as the month of March comes, it gets worse. I don't know. Maybe it's so bad now because this year marks an important milestone. Ten years is a long time. So, why does it still seem like it happened yesterday?!

Until next time.....

They say there is a reason
They say that time will heal.
But neither time nor reason
Will change the way I feel.

For no one knows the heartache
That lies behind my smile.
No one knows how many times
I've broken down and cried.

I want to tell you something,
So there isn't any doubt
You're so wonderful to think of
But so hard to be without!