D Day

In March 0f 2007, I was 4 months pregnant with our son, Kade. At 19/20 weeks, we went for an appointment with a specialist due to a high risk test coming back abnormal. Our OB's nurse told us not to worry, these often came back as false positives, and that in the 17 years experience, only one case had actually been a true positive. We sat in a room with large flat screen tv-Shannon next to me and Kinsley sitting next to me on the table. The tech comes n and shows us our beautiful baby boy (obvious boy) and we were ecstatic! She measures, does her thing, etc and points out various parts of his body as any normal ultrasound tech does. He was even sucking his thumb! It takes a while for the doctor to come in and his ultrasound lasted almost an hour. He wouldn't answer our questions, etc and we had the feeling something was very wrong. At the end of the ultrasound, he states, emotionless, "the fetus has a fatal birth defect. Anencephaly. It is fatal and nothing I see here looks good. You will need to decide by 25 weeks if you want to keep the pregnancy or abort the fetus." Needless to say, I didn't comprehend anything he said. I was in shock. Looking back, I am surprised I didn't punch him in the nose (the Bates temper gets the best of me sometimes). We left there with zero information on the birth defect-they did not even write it down for us-we just left with our sorrow and confusion. I remember making it to the elevator and just losing it. Standing there with my husband and daughter holding me, bawling. It is one of those moments you see in movies where time just stands still and you have no care as to what is going on around you. We walked all the way out to the pick up that way. I remember not wanting to scare Kinsley, yet having no way of controlling myself. The first person I called was Kara and I had no idea what to say...I just needed to hear her voice. I dreaded calling my parents. I knew they'd be heard broken and devastated. Bless her heart, Kara offered herself up to call them, but I knew I had to do it. Telling them was as hard as hearing it myself. In the days to come, I received numerous advice from numerous people. Random people. People who had not been a part of our lives, had stopped being a part of our lives, and then of course, those closest to us. Everyone for some reason thought they got to have an opinion on whether or not we chose to carry our son to term. I can not tell you how many times I wanted to scream "Who in the hell do you think you are???" In a quick moment, I became a very private, withdrawn person. I suddenly wanted no part of who I was or our life before this. It was a tragedy no one could understand, a decision I could not possibly make, and a feeling of complete confusion I could not explain. After much soul searching, I just couldn't abort Kade. To me, it was God's decision as to when and how Kade left this Earth, not mine. As any mother knows, it is our job to protect our children. We'd gladly give ourselves to save our children, keep them from pain or discomfort. I knew I'd love and protect him as long as God allowed me to. So while this story spans over many months, this is it in a quick summary. I began a journal containing letters to Kade-an idea I had read on the Anencephaly support group website. I am so thankful for this advice as in the moment, you don't realize or remember what is happening, but now I can go back and read these and know that I did my best to be the best mommy to Kade as I could while we shared his time with us. Kade's letters were burried with him on August 18, 2007.