One of the most horrible things we had to endure was handing our daughter over to the nurses, packing our things and walking out of the hospital without her. Seriously, can you imagine? Can you imagine carrying a baby for 27 weeks, 6 days, going through the labor and delivery process... knowing your child died.... spending those few precious hours together and then handing her over to the hospital staff so you can leave? It was heartbreaking. More than heartbreaking.... there really are no words for what that felt like.
I remember the morning they took her like it was this morning. I remember packing up all our stuff and just sitting in that empty room waiting for them to tell us we could leave. I wasn't wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair... I actually walked out myself like nothing had happened. I was dressed in the clothes I had come in the day before and just walked to the car.
It was a traumatic moment, I have to say. One that I try not to let myself think about too long because it upsets me more than anyone will ever know. It doesn't matter whether your child is born alive or not... once you see your child, it is yours.... Forever.
When I hear about people who have had live, healthy babies, I am glad. I am glad they don't have to hand them back over to the hospital staff 10-11 hours after delivering them. I get jealous of people who get to spend more than 12 hours with their new babies, much less the ones that get to go home. I'm happy for them, but it just makes me that much sadder for myself.
I'm not trying to start my own pity party. I just want to describe for people what it feels like to go through all of that with no living child at the end. Nobody should ever have to experience that.