30.5 - A Nightmare

My second appointment with the midwives.  The nurse drew some blood and gave me a long stick with a brush to *ahem* insert, for a culture.  She had me pee on a stick - it looked like a pregnancy test, but tested my beta/hcg numbers.  I watched the numbers go up to 1000, then back down to zero, and I knew something was wrong.  She gave me a pregnancy test to pee on, a square with a little circle in the corner that I was supposed to aim for.  I peed on it and waited for the plus sign to come up in the middle - instead I got a weird line that looked like it may have been a plus sign one time, but the horizontal line was broken and misplaced.  I was starting to panic.  I went to the lobby and got my Mom - "Something's wrong, please come sit with me."  The midwife came in with a doppler and put it to my belly and there was silence.  "Are you sure you're pregnant?" she asked doubtfully.  "Yes!  I'm 30 weeks!" The tears started to fall, and suddenly I was having a hard time drawing breath.  As the midwife readied the probe to do a vaginal ultrasound, I looked at my mom and started to cry.  "The baby's dead, Momma.  Oh Fuck.  How could this happen?  She's been moving!  She was fine!"  I was becoming hysterical.  My world, my life, it was in shambles.

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When I woke up, I knew it was just a dream.  Still, it took every ounce of restraint not to panic and become as hysterical as I'd been in my nightmare.  I put my hand to my belly and felt the lump that is my daughter.  I pushed on it, then again on the other side, trying to wake her up, urging her with every ounce of my being to move, just a little kick, sweetheart.  She complied nearly immediately, and relief flooded through me.  I lay there for a moment, trying to slow my racing heart, then got up for another trip to the restroom.  When I made it back to bed, I tried to push the dream out of my mind - "It was just a nightmare, it's not real, she's fine," but I was too shaken to let it go that easily.  I reached over and touched Jimi's shoulder, hoping that he'd already be awake.  He wasn't.  I considered leaving him be, but in the end I couldn't comfort myself.  I spoke softly, "I had a really bad dream."  He was awake immediately, and rolled over to me, asking if I was okay.  I told him that the baby had died in my dream, and he shushed me, told me it was just a dream and it wasn't real and everything is okay.  He pulled me to him as closely as my nest of pillows would allow, and kept his arm around me, kissing my head and whispering sweet words to make the tears go away.  I was asleep again within minutes, onto another dream that was much less emotional and horrid.