I've always known that there was a possibility that any one of my children could be born with Down Syndrome. I knew it was a possibility because of how many family members I have with Down Syndrome. I never knew exactly why our family had so many of these individuals, but I always knew that they were the most caring, funny, and non-judgmental people in our family. When my nephew was born with Down Syndrome, after my sister was informed her entire pregnancy that he did not have any medical problems, my mom wanted me and my other two sisters to be tested to see if we carried the gene that caused the type of Down Syndrome that runs in our family. I refused to be tested, and so did my other sisters. We didn't care if we did carry the gene...it wasn't going to stop us from trying to have children when we were ready to.
Call me crazy, but I actually WANTED a child with Down Syndrome. I wanted the challenge of raising a special needs child. I wanted to be the parent who could show the world just how much these wonderful human beings are capable of. I wanted to be the parent whose child with Down Syndrome defied the odd he or she was given by doctors, who met every milestone on time, who was on the honor roll and in regular education classes, and who was artistic and athletic. I wanted to be the parent who encouraged my child with Down Syndrome to be the best possible person, student, and employee he or she could be. I wanted to be the parent who taught my child with Down Syndrome that he or she could be ANYTHING they wanted to be if they worked hard enough at it.
November 30th, 2012 changed our marriage. We found out we were expecting a baby. Not our first baby of course, but our first baby after getting married and with the baby that was going to make us parents. We were so excited for our future with our child. Alex immediately started kissing my pregnant belly as if he were kissing our baby. I immediately started planning ways to announce our pregnancy to our families. December 10th we had our first ultrasound. We couldn't see our baby yet, but it was promising since we could see the gestational sac with a yolk sac in it. On our way home from the ultrasound we got a call from Alex's mom who was hinting around to him that he had something to tell her. I had ordered a stuffed stork that said "Special Delivery" on it and had it sent to Alex's mom with a note that read "To grandma and grandpa, From Baby Monnier." It wasn't supposed to get to her until later that week. To our surprise it had been delivered to her that morning! After several minutes of Alex's mom hinting around, Alex finally guessed that she knew and confirmed our news to her. She of course was very excited for us.
Over the next 11 days we patiently waited for our second scheduled ultrasound and prayed we would get to hear our baby's heart beating. The night of December 15th I had a vivid dream I wouldn't forget. In my dream we found out on ultrasound that our baby had Down Syndrome. I remember sharing my dream the next morning over breakfast with my husband and mother-in-law and remember her response was "well let's hope not" and I responded back "I really wouldn't care. It would be fine with me." I know she didn't mean to hurt my feelings but it did, because what if our baby did have Down Syndrome...would she love him or her the same as her other grandkids?? On December 21st I went to my second ultrasound alone because Alex wasn't able to get off work. I couldn't believe that our baby was so teeny tiny, barely seen on the ultrasound, and had a heart beat that I could hear! The ultrasound tech was so nice and let me record the heart beat on my phone even though it technically was against their policies. Alex was ecstatic at the sound of his baby's heart beating! I was so excited to be able to also share the video to the few people who knew we were pregnant...Alex's mom and oldest sister, my boss, my friend April, and a foster parent I had previously worked with who was like a mother to me.
It was a challenge to keep our wonderful and exciting news from my parents and sisters. I lived with my parents and youngest sister during the week for work. I was so tired all the time and wanted to go to sleep as soon as I would get home from work, but they never caught on. I am glad they didn't though because I had something special planned to reveal our news on Christmas Day. I bought my youngest niece a t-shirt that said "This Little Monkey is Going to be a Big Cousin." It fit her perfectly, because she was such a little monkey, always climbing on things and so rambunctious! I had the shirt hidden in the bedroom I slept in when I stayed with my parents. On Christmas morning I found some old scraps of Christmas wrapping paper which I used to wrap the t-shirt with, and put a sticker on the box which said To: Raegan From:
Santa Claus in cursive writing. While my dad was in the shower, my mom was in her bedroom getting dressed, and my sister was on her way to pick up Raegan from her dad, I hid the present underneath the Christmas tree that was filled with everyone's presents. Once everyone got to my parents house we began our Christmas tradition-my dad passed around presents to all the grandkids for them to open. When he got to our surprise present my heart started pounding! I was excited and nervous all at the same time. My dad looked at the name tag and looked puzzled. He said "This says to Raegan from Santa Claus" as he handed Raegan the gift. He looked at my mom and she looked just as confused and shrugged her shoulders to say "It wasn't me, I don't know who it's from." My sister helped Raegan unwrap the present and stared at the shirt for what felt like a million years...also looking very puzzled. Finally I shouted out "WE'RE PREGNANT!!!!" Everyone in the room was happy for us and even more surprised when I told them we were 7.5 weeks and had kept our secret from them for over 3 weeks! Christmas 2012 could not have been any happier for us....we had the best Christmas present anyone could possibly have...a life growing inside me:)
On January 29th Alex and I hosted a Medium party at our house. A woman who Alex's step-sister had previously went to for a reading came to our home to provide readings for several of Alex's family members. During my reading she appeared to have connected with Riley but initially didn't catch on that I was pregnant until I told her. Once I told her I was pregnant and was honest about how fearful I was that I could lose this baby too like I had lost Riley and Braylen, she assured me that we would have a healthy baby girl...and our baby girl would have Riley's soul because Riley wants to "come back" and knows how much we want her back. I was skeptical but I also was hopeful that she was right...that I would finally get to hold Riley in my arms forever and not have to let her go. I started sleeping with Riley's baby blanket over my stomach in hopes that it would help Riley's soul to the baby that I was carrying now.
Just a few short nights later I remember having another vivid dream. This time I was miscarrying our baby. I was bleeding out everywhere, crying, screaming for help and no one was responding to my screams...no one was coming to help me, not even my husband. It was a nightmare that I prayed to God would not come true. I was surprised I had a nightmare like that...it had been years since I had nightmare like that which started after Riley had died. I told myself I was just anxious and everything would be fine. It seemed to be fine when we had our third ultrasound on January 4th and our baby had grown so much and heartbeat was strong. Our doctor was not worried at all so I thought I shouldn't be worried either. That afternoon Alex and I had our pregnancy reveal photoshoot and included my niece Raegan in some of the pictures with her t-shirt I had bought her for Christmas. We were excited to be getting pictures to be able to announce to our extended family and friends that we were expecting a baby:) It was so much fun! I felt like I was really enjoying every second we had with our baby and couldn't wait to one day share the pictures with our child to show him or her how much love we had from the very beginning.
The days following our photoshoot Alex and I began trying to guess if our baby was going to be a boy or girl. Alex was hoping for a boy and thought for sure that's what we were going to have. I held on to what the Medium had told me...we were having a girl. We started talking about names that we liked and every day we grew more in love with our growing baby. I was taken back when I had another nightmare that I was having a miscarriage. This time the bleeding was much worse, my screaming for help was even louder, and the silence of no one responding to my cries for help was even louder. Why was I having these nightmares?? I was more excited than I was anxious. I had worked through my emotions after both of my previous losses. It didn't make sense to me, but once again I chalked it up to underlying anxiety that I was maybe trying to hide. On January 15th we decided it was okay to announce to our extended families that we were expecting our baby since we had made it 10 weeks with no physical signs of having a miscarriage. My aunts were over the moon with excitement for us!
Our 4th ultrasound was scheduled on January 19th but I changed it to January 21st so Alex could go with me. I wanted him to be able to see for himself how much our baby had grown in two weeks and to hear our baby's heart beating again. We were getting ultrasounds every 2 weeks because of my history of pregnancy loss plus I was considered high risk and was taking blood thinning injections to prevent blood clots which were a risk due to having Homocystinuria. The whole weekend before our ultrasound I felt weird...like something was wrong. I didn't know why I felt that way...but I did. I didn't share how I felt with Alex...he was too excited. He even asked the magic 8 ball at Walmart if we were having a boy multiple times always getting the same answer just worded differently each time. One time it would say "The Answer is Yes" the next time "Definitely Yes", but when he asked if we were having a girl the ball would say "My reply is No." He thought it was hilarious! He has always had strong intuition about what gender pregnant women were going to be having and now the magic 8 ball was agreeing with him...we were having a boy!
On January 21st we headed to St. Ann's Hospital in Columbus where our high risk OB was located. We talked on the way there about how we were ready to announce our pregnancy on Facebook today after our ultrasound "if everything is still okay." The first ultrasound tech we had was an intern and she tried doing an abdominal ultrasound at first. When she couldn't find anything I wasn't worried and told her she would need to do a vaginal ultrasound since my uterus has been tilted backwards. She had me undress and tried a vaginal ultrasound but still couldn't find anything. I was getting worried now. She brought in another tech...the one who did my 7 week ultrasound so I was confident she would be able to find our baby. I stared at the screen...kept staring....nothing looked the same as it did 2 weeks earlier. I couldn't see our baby. All I could see was a blobby looking image on the screen and knew the words were coming..."I'm so sorry. There is no heartbeat. Let me get the doctor." I layed there staring at the ceiling, biting my lip, tapping my foot on the bed in absolute anger. Alex grabbed my hand with tears streaming down his face. I started crying too. The doctor came in the room. He matter of factly told us our options. Out of anger I quickly told him I wanted a d&c...I wanted it that day. He said he couldn't do it and we needed to talk to our regular OBGYN and schedule it with her. He said he would call her office to tell them we had miscarried and wanted to schedule a d&c. He left the room after he told me I could get dressed and we could leave when we were ready. Alex and I sat in the room together crying, hugging, questioning why this happened again.
On our way home we didn't say a word. I turned the radio station to The River, a christian rock radio station in Columbus. As he drove I stared out the window with tears rolling down my face as I silently questioned God. I text my mom and told her to call me as soon as she could. She called immediately, but when I answered the phone I couldn't speak. All I could do was cry. I handed the phone to Alex expecting him to be the stronger one for us. He was strong, he told my mom our heartbreaking news and she couldn't believe it. When we got home Alex made the remainder phone calls to his mom and two sisters and I sent a text to my aunts and cousins since everyone in both our families had known we were pregnant by now. I had to return to work the next day and as I drove 2 hours back to my parents house I felt like a stone as I drove, just staring blankly at the road ahead of me. I didn't cry until I was in my bed at my parent's house trying to fall asleep and prepare myself to face my coworkers and clients the next day. I probably got 2 hours of sleep that night and felt like a walking zombie the next day at work.
On January 24th we met with our regular OBGYN to discuss what to expect with a d&c. She asked if we wanted to have genetic testing done and we immediately said yes. I told her about the dreams I had had and about the other family members with Down Syndrome. I was tired of not having answers. I wanted to know why our baby died. As we prepared ourselves for our d&c the following morning, I cried myself to sleep that night. I knew our baby was already dead inside me but I wasn't ready to be separated from my baby. It seemed I was only asleep for minutes before our alarm went off at 6:00am and we had to get ready to head to the hospital. The whole way there I kept thinking this was all a cruel joke...wondering if God really hated me this much that he would continuously take my babies from me. As the nurse prepared me for surgery I tried to fight back the tears...I hate crying in front of people. As the time got closer and closer I couldn't fight them anymore and they came out like a waterfall. I couldn't believe it when the nurse asked me why I was crying. I wanted to slap her in her face and tell her to switch me places and she would know why I was crying. This was my baby...our baby, that they were about to surgically suck out of me. I didn't want my baby torn apart. I didn't want my baby thrown in the garbage can like a piece of trash. I didn't want to go the rest of my life without ever holding my baby. I was asleep before they even wheeled me into the operating room...I couldn't even tell you what it looked like in there. The only thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room and the first thing I asked the nurse was "Do you know if my baby came out in one piece? What did my baby look like?" She either couldn't tell me because she wasn't in the operating room or she didn't want to tell me. I never did see my doctor that day to ask those questions. Of course Alex was only worried about me and how I did through the surgery so he didn't ask those questions when the doctor came out to see him.
Driving home that day was the emptiest I had felt in a long time. It was the same emptiness I felt nearly 5 years earlier when we were driving home from the hospital the day I gave birth to Riley. No mother should ever have to feel that kind of emptiness. I was an emotional wreck over the next two weeks as we waited for the genetic results. When the doctor had told me we had a boy and he did have Down Syndrome I literally gasped for air because the results took my breath away. How is that possible??? How did I have a dream that our baby would have Down Syndrome followed by two nightmares that I was miscarrying our baby?? Who was trying to prepare me for this? The results made me cry even more for our baby, not because they made me sad, but because they strengthened my love for our baby. Our baby was so special...our baby was a boy! Our baby had Down Syndrome! Our baby was Real! Our baby was not just Tissue! He wasn't just a Blob! He wasn't just an Embryo! Our baby was made up of unique chromosomes that he got from me and Alex and those chromosomes made him Real! Our baby deserves to be honored, and he deserves to have a name! I will give him the name he would have had even if he were born...his name is Logan!
Over the last year I have learned to accept that my grief is normal. It is normal because I love our baby boy and will always love our baby boy. I have struggled to accept that our baby died because he had Down Syndrome. It didn't make sense to me at first...not when there are thousands of babies born alive with Down Syndrome and when there are several family members with Down Syndrome. I've learned I have been naive and learned to accept that we will never know what type of health problems our baby boy would have had. I've learned kids with Down Syndrome sometimes do die because of their heart conditions, even though my nephew's heart condition has required no medical care. I've learned kids with Down Syndrome can sometimes have major brain conditions where their brain grows outside their skull. We would have loved our baby no matter how bad the health problems were, but it does bring me comfort knowing that I held my baby his whole life. He knew nothing but love, from the kisses of his daddy and the "I love you's" spoken through my belly. He didn't know pain and didn't know bullying. His life was short...but it was filled with so much love. Tonight I lite two candles, one blue and one yellow, to represent the colors of Down Syndrome Awareness and to honor our baby Logan's life. It has been one year since the day he left my body, and I still love him!
