Blighted

The initial surprise. The tinge of buyers remorse. The gradual build of excitement. The perfect timing. The spring baby.
A routine screening. Weeks and days don't add up. There's empty area on the screen where you expect to see life, a small flickering heartbeat- but it isn't. The silence of the technician is deafening. Racking your brain to make it make sense, but it doesn't. "There are wide ranges of normal", they said. " Let's check again, dates can be off", and "we aren't concerned, it's just early" you half hear from the doctor. 
But you know.
Worry floods you in a way that you didn't know you could feel. Google becomes your best friend and worst enemy- depending on what the page says. And life around you goes on as normal. Work needs you. Family relies on you. The house doesn't clean itself.
And because no one knows, you're forced to go on as usual with this pressing and consuming your every thought.
When it's final, and the thing you didn't think would happen happens, you feel about as empty as the area on the screen. "We're sorry to see you under these circumstances" they say. They mean it, sincerely, yet all in a days work.  You have to make a choice. Nature's course proves to be far more difficult than anticipated.
Ideas of the cute tee shirt or car decal reveal now sting. This is now bad news to be shared with those you were most excited to tell. You've just been forced to join a club you had no desire to be in. You don't want to share your story and compare notes like you did with others for your deliveries. There's a strange twinge of shame in it- why- I don't know.
Most people you're close to say the right things- whatever that is. But we all know, no one knows what to say.  Maybe we will try again. Maybe something was wrong. It's nature's way. Yes,of course I'm thankful for my two beautiful kids. I think to myself, maybe six and 8 years is too big of a gap... It's a loss. Plain and simple, though there's nothing simple about the feelings that come with losing something that came and left so quickly. It's not the kind of huge devastating, tangible loss that others I've known have experienced. Yet it lingers. Hurts. Leaves wide the door of "what ifs", and "should have been's."
I began writing this a couple weeks ago. I'm finishing it today,October 15, 2013- widely known as Pregnancy, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I had no real intention to hit the publish button this soon, but it feels good to get it out. I'm still processing. Still trying to feel the feelings. Still trying to get back to normal.