October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. I am not going to “kick off” the month with a sentimental post about my miscarriage (although, there are plenty of those coming). Instead, I want to start by celebrating the miracle of pregnancy, since a miscarriage cannot happen without a pregnancy preceding it. I am going to tell you the story of one of the happiest days of our lives.
The wait between seeing that positive home pregnancy test and going to the doctor feels like the longest ever. I remember counting the days, the hours to go to and see the baby’s heartbeat and confirm the pregnancy. Somehow, I needed that to make it real, to allow myself to be happy.
My 8th week appointment fell on Jon’s 30th birthday. It was just too good to be true. When we told the doctor and the ultrasound lady that we found out I was pregnant on mother’s day and that our first ultrasound would be on his 30th birthday, they gushed over how cute we were and how perfect the timing was.
I was confident, and nervous, when they started the ultrasound. I immediately saw a tiny baby hanging upside down with a strong heartbeat. The sonogram technician was a dream. She was super nice and explained everything and even allowed us to record–even though it’s not allowed. I hope she knows how much this means to us today, as that was the only happy ultrasound of my baby. 
I googled enough variations of “what to expect on an eight week ultrasound” to know what I would be looking for. I found it, a beating heart at 165 bpm – which meant it was a girl! Right? What I didn’t know was that God was showing me a greater picture of what my little boy (don’t believe in old wives’ tales about gender and heart rate) was going to represent in my life.
As soon as the sonographer saw the baby, she said, “Oh my gosh, it is shaped like a heart, how cute!” And yes, he looked exactly like what we would call a “heart shape”. We were overjoyed when she gave us the best 30th birthday gift possible: a picture of our first baby, heart shape and all.
We love hanging pictures on our fridge. I have all four of my nephews’ pictures, cute letters etc. So when we got home, I walked to the fridge. There I saw a very cute picture of me and Jon dancing at my friend Erica’s wedding. I decided to hang the ultrasound over the picture of us and I said, “Our baby is the physical representation of our love”. And I left it there.
Little did I know, that was the last picture we saw of our baby. The doctor refused to do an ultrasound at our 12 weeks because everything looked so perfect. And that one picture, with the amazing experience provided by the technician, was our only one of those famous ultrasound pictures that only mothers and doctors can interpret we ever had with Noah.
I came downstairs on Sunday, three days after getting home after losing my baby (thanks to my amazing mom and husband I was able to be in bed not moving after being discharged from the hospital). I had anticipated the sight of that ultrasound on our fridge to be the hardest experience ever.
It wasn’t.
I saw our happy faces. I saw his picture and the Lord whispered to me, “He is the physical representation of your love and marriage”. My friend put it in an interesting way: My Noah was smarter than any of us adults. He was showing me that he loved me and that he was nothing but pure love for me and daddy…
We will always love you Noah. Thank you for going out of your way to show us you love us too.