Emma

A Stillborn Angel

At thirty nine weeks and one day into my pregnancy, I woke up in the middle of the night. I was not feeling Emma move. I tried to calm my mind as I did all of the things that usually would get her kicking and wiggling; I laid on my side...nothing, I drank cold water...nothing, I ate something sweet...still nothing. Something was not right. My husband and I loaded up our toddler and headed to the hospital, completely naive to how much our lives were about to change. 

We checked in at the hospital and were taken to a room to have an ultrasound. Everything had to be okay, I had been at my final OB appointment just twelve hours before. After what seemed like forever, we heard the worst sentence of our lives, "I'm so sorry, I can't find her heartbeat."  This can't be right. How can this be? We had a totally healthy, uneventful pregnancy. Just hours before, I had fallen asleep to her kicking. We were planning to meet our sweet girl any day.

The next several hours were a blur as we prepared to meet Emma. I chose to have a c-section because it would be quicker. They had to be wrong and if we could just get her out, she would be okay. This could not be real life, but it was and it is. Upon delivery they determined the cause of her death was a "cord accident." Our world stopped. 

We spent the next two days loving on our baby we would never get to take home. We dressed Emma in her tiny pink outfit, kissed her face no less than a million times, and tried to memorize every little perfect thing about her. We only had days with her and those days would have to last us a lifetime.