Second Trimester Miscarriage – Cora

Delivering death.

Exactly when those feelings sank into my core is when death knocked and was delivered: Monday, September 21, 2015, at 8:12am.

My doctor came to check on me and after her exam, she said: “it’s over.” She asked if I wanted to see the baby. I said no. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle what I’d see. Would the baby look like an alien? Would parts be missing? It terrified me.

So the nurse took our baby away. She took some pictures and came back to tell us baby really looked good but it would be better to see him sooner rather than later because his coloring would continue to change.

Meeting our baby was the best decision we ever made. Turns out our tiny little angel, while purple, was beautiful. I can still see his gaze as I looked at him. It was as if he looked straight into my soul to tell me he was OK. For a moment, to me, he was alive. And he gave me that adorable first look that all mothers know.

We were so immersed in the moment. Hanging onto the seconds as if they were years. Since I had the honor of holding our baby for 17 weeks, my husband held him the whole time while we were together. We said a prayer with him. We told him how loved he was. We told him about his big brother. We cried with him. We hugged him. And that was it.

Our nurse put together a lovely Memory Box and six hours later we were leaving the hospital. It felt surreal after living there for the better part of a week. I went there pregnant and I left empty. Our baby was being shipped to a funeral home to be cremated. In the meantime, we had tests run to see if we could determine what caused the miscarriage. We also wanted to confirm the sex.