The Day The Music Died

Three years ago today we experienced the death of innocence. I remember the day as clearly as if it were yesterday.

HB was teaching at a huge school, being led by a horrible, nasty man as administrator. I was working three blocks from the maternity hospital, and being followed by the high risk unit due to my "advanced maternal age" syndrome. We had a 3:30 p.m. appointment for our third ultrasound, and were quite excited about seeing our little boy again. I was particularly looking forward to it because, although we had heard his heartbeat on the doppler at our regular GP appointment two weeks earlier, I had felt little movement on his part during the last few days.

HB's Nasty Man decided that morning that HB would not be able to leave school early to both meet and drive me to the appointment, but rather that he would have to stay and coach the soccer team after school. Fortunately, HB took a stand and refused. Not in time to pick me up, but he did make it on time for the appointment.

I grabbed a cab, and found my way up to the clinic....absently rubbing my bump. I remember the taxi driver chatting away about his grandchildren, and wishing me luck as I got out of the cab.

HB arrived all in a flap, and we settled down to wait.

The nurse called us in, and got us settled on the table. The wand appeared and the screen flashed up.

HB was up by my head, holding my hand.

And the picture appeared on the screen. An angelic little boy, hands practically curled under his head...settled in a forever sleeping fetal position at the bottom of the screen.

I knew right away. The nurse technician looked at me, and said "I think we all know what we're seeing here", to which I replied "yes".

HB was frantically looking back and forth between me, the nurse and the screen. "No! No!" he insisted. "No, the baby is just sleeping. Look...he's fine. He'll be just fine!"

And then he too realized.

The rest is a bit of a blur. The crying. The phone calls to cancel a gig we had booked for that night...ever responsible the two of us are even in grief....the amnio to see if there could be any possible answer....the awesomeness of the nurse we were blessed to have that awful day.

And the walk back out to the car, and home.

I found a picture of myself this weekend. I was obviously pregnant, in the kitchen, with Mini Me and Frodo sitting at the table while I stood at the counter. They never even knew that they had a brother.

Ironic that as I type this today, the skies have just opened up and the heavens are pouring out their tears right along with mine.