As I stated in Kylie's memorial post, I have decided to blog about our daughter's story. Writing has helped me immensely since Kylie's birth. I have journaled to Kylie throughout the past month, writing my feelings of incredible sadness, hope, guilt, peace, strength, and so much more to her. In the few days after Kylie's birth, I wrote down her birth story, describing every feeling and emotion and capturing every memory I could before it started to fade. I have not read my long account of her birth yet, but I am so grateful I had the presence of mind to write in a time in which we were so heartbroken. I have leaned on God's word, writing down scripture that has helped me feel so much unexpected comfort. Writing thank you notes to those who have surrounded us during this time has provided relief from some of the pain. (By no means are we done yet for those of you who have not received one.) I think that for the first few weeks after Kylie's birth, I could explain how grateful I was for the support in writing. I just couldn't find the words to speak out my gratefulness.
One thing that I know I will mention over and over again is that God has provided us with an incredible sense of peace in Kylie's passing. A peace that I cannot fully describe in words. It's a peace that Patrick and I never new existed in this world, but God has blessed us incredibly with it throughout our journey since finding out that Kylie passed away on April 29th. I also want to say that every person experiences grief in a different way. There is no wrong way to grieve. As I know I will describe our feelings of grief in the next few blog posts, I also want to say that how we feel and how we have dealt with our pain and grief is not the "right way." There is no "right way" to feel when something tragic happens in your life. I have given myself grace throughout these past few weeks. I have been gentle with myself. I have allowed myself to feel the pain and to grieve our daughter's death. This grace and gentleness with myself has also been a gift from our Savior. I have a different perspective on others who are dealing with grief. I have such a sense of compassion and understanding that I've never had before. No two situations are the same, but I do know that I grasp a better understanding of how those who are experiencing pain resulting from tragic events are feeling. Now, onto our pregnancy with our first daughter.
On Saturday, December 13, 2014, Patrick and I found out we were expecting our sweet Kylie. Truth be told, we conceived Kylie quicker than we thought we would. We were ecstatic that God blessed us with a child so quickly.
I had expected my monthly "friend" to visit sometime around Monday, December 8. That evening when she hadn't showed, I told Patrick that "we might be pregnant." I was so excited! He told me not to get my hopes up and that my "friend" would probably visit later in the week. He told me to wait until at least Friday to take a pregnancy test. I agreed, and I tried not to be overly excited. Well, Tuesday rolled around, and I happened to be at the downtown Target as I had an eye exam. I impulsively swung by the pregnancy test section and picked up a package of two. When I texted this to Patrick, low and behold, he was not shocked. He knows me pretty well in that I don't have a lot of patience. He told me to wait until the end of the week to take a test. They are pretty expensive after all. Again, I agreed. When I got home from work, I just couldn't take the suspense. I took a pregnancy test. I remember that my heart was racing, beating out of my chest. I waited the 3 minutes. The test said "negative." Darn. I was disappointed. I told Patrick as soon as he got home. He chuckled a little at me, and said, "I told you so." We had one more pregnancy test in the box, and he made me promise not to take another until Saturday. By Friday night, my monthly "friend" still hadn't visited me. I was getting pretty excited, but I also felt some slight menstrual cramping, or so I thought. I was trying not to get my hopes up too high. When going to sleep that evening, Patrick told me I could not wake up at 5am on a Saturday to take the test. Once again, I must say, my husband knows me all too well. I woke up a few times on Saturday morning. I finally allowed myself to use the restroom a little after 7am. I took the test, and it was POSITIVE. I remember feeling like it was a dream. It didn't feel real. We were extremely happy. We have a family video of the two of us expressing our happiness in expecting our first little one that I will cherish forever. I'll spare you the video as we are in our pajamas still in bed. Zailey even got to share her feelings of excitement with us. :)
Our one and only pregnancy test that said, "PREGNANT."
As we found out we were expecting on December 13th, we thought we'd announce to our immediate families at Christmas. What an awesome Christmas present that would make. We had onesies made for each of our parents and for my brothers. Their reactions were pretty fun to watch. My mom was absolutely shocked. I had kept our secret from her for 12 days... probably a record of some kind.
My family, holding their onesies. (Unfortunately, I don't think we took a photo of Patrick's parents.)
At just over 9 weeks along, on January 13, we had our first doctor's appointment. We had an ultrasound and got to see our baby for the first time. It was so exciting! Her heartbeat was strong, and she was measuring just as we had thought. Our baby was due August 17, 2015 - My birthday!
Kylie's 9 week ultrasound photo. She's that little "blob" that I remember saying looked like a snowman.
In January, we prepped our pregnancy announcement cards. We were so excited to announce our child's life to our friends and family. I couldn't wait to send them out. Our announcement had a running theme as it's something Patrick, Zailey, and I love to do together. We fed Zailey about 100 treats to get her to sit nicely. Patrick also snapped what seemed like 1,000 photos. We captured a good one. We sent them out when we were around 12 weeks along.
Our pregnancy announcement
Our pregnancy progressed along nicely. Our check-ups were good. I didn't have morning sickness. I stopped feeling so exhausted right around 12 weeks. I remember saying that it was like a switch was flipped. All of a sudden I didn't feel so exhausted anymore. I thought coffee smelled horrible and stopped drinking my beloved lattes. I continued to run and work out with my doctor's blessing.
We had our "20 week" ultrasound on Friday, March 27th. We were 19 weeks and 4 days along. I remember the technician saying to me that I didn't look that far along. I had received that comment from others, including my nurse practitioner, during those high teen weeks. I was definitely eating more and taking care of myself, so I kind of brushed those comments off. The comments still bothered me though. At our appointment we learned that our baby was a GIRL! We were both so excited. Our final guesses: Patrick - boy, Ericka - girl. We also learned that our baby girl was only measuring at 17 weeks and 5 days, so 13 days smaller than we thought. I was a bit concerned but after speaking with our nurse and eventually our doctor, they assured us that it was probably fine. We would receive a second level ultrasound to confirm that everything was ok. They said we probably just weren't as far along as we initially thought. I could feel some comfort in that we weren't exactly sure when Kylie was conceived.
Kylie's 19 week and 4 day ultrasound. Isn't her profile shot adorable?
That evening, after finding out the gender of our sweet child, we drove down to Rochester. We had dinner with our parents, and revealed our little one's gender. My dad had thought I accidentally told him our baby's gender earlier in the day. He was oh so wrong, so it was incredibly exciting when we announced. I'm pretty sure my mom even cried (not shocking if you know her).
The gender reveal cake. We made everyone wait until after dinner to cut it.
Our extremely excited parents
We were also very excited!
Patrick's mom, Karen, gave us our first baby girl gifts. She had both a boy and a girl gift ready for us. So cute and fun to receive our first GIRL gift.
On the drive home to Rochester, we discussed baby girl names. We had Kylie's name by the end of that one-hour drive. Her middle name, Ryann (sounds like "Ryan," just a little more feminine in spelling), was finalized just a couple weeks later.
We also shared our news with our close friends and next door neighbors the following day. Their entire family and the boys' girlfriends submitted their guesses prior to the reveal.
Callie, cutting the cake
Definitely pink frosting!
On April 6, a week and a half after our "20 week" ultrasound, we had our 2nd level ultrasound. We were now 21 weeks along in our pregnancy. It was much more in-depth than the first. They did a complete echo-cardiogram on our sweet daughter. She was in perfect health. She had grown proportionally within the time period since our last ultrasound, so our due date was moved to August 30th. We found out at this time that Kylie and I shared a two vessel umbilical cord. We had one vein, which brings nutrients from the placenta to the baby, and one artery that bring waste back to the placenta. Most people have two arteries in the umbilical cord. The doctors assured us that this is more common than you think, and normally, there are absolutely no issues with having a two vessel umbilical cord. Again, as most pregnant women do, I let myself stress over this, but our doctors continued to assure us that everything was just fine. After all, they found absolutely no issues with Kylie's health.
I loved getting to see her sweet little profile again
So beautiful to her mommy and daddy
Look at her tiny little foot
As I'm writing this blog post, I finally plugged in the flash drive from this ultrasound to our computer. The flash drive had a couple videos I didn't know were on there. The videos show our sweet baby girl moving. In one of the videos, she tucks her sweet little head and moves her legs up and then down. The videos make me a little bit sad, but they also make me smile. I have a video of our baby girl alive and moving in my womb. I'm so grateful, and it makes me think for the millionth time about meeting her in eternal life.
From the time of the second ultrasound to April 29, 2015, when we found out our daughter, Kylie Ryann, had passed away in my womb, we felt pretty good about the pregnancy. We had some concerns related to the ultrasound findings, but she and I were growing. I started to feel her kick once and awhile, which was amazing. I only wish Patrick could have shared those moments with me. We had bought a lot of diapers (I coupon). Patrick had just started to work on her nursery, painting the closet and adding shelving. We had accumulated quite a few toys books, and clothes for our baby girl. She had a beautiful short life during those 24 weeks, and I am so grateful for those weeks and moments. As Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." God knit her together in my womb. He planned for her. He already knew her story and that she would only see the world inside my womb. Kylie made me a mommy and Patrick a daddy.
April 17 - Almost 23 weeks
April 19 - Patrick taking her nursery furniture out of the boxes
April 21 - 23 weeks and 1 day
