3 months

I knew this day was coming, was even aware it would be at the end of this particular week, but somehow it still snuck up on me and bit me on the ass. Hard.

Three months ago today was the worst day of Paul's and my lives: the day my water broke.

I was driving to work this morning, wiping my eyes after my second little cry (in 30 minutes; I should have called it a day right then, instead of crying multiple times at my desk and realizing then it was time to call it a day), thinking about the feeling of my water breaking. I've said this before, but my uterus was already so big in my belly - the fundus, or top, was above my belly button at 14 weeks - and that rapid growth caused a lot of weirdness to occur, not the least of which was me already having bladder control problems, BUT I still had control.

When my water broke at 4:50 p.m. on Thursday, August 4th, I had no control. I could feel the liquid coming out and I was absolutely powerless to do anything about it. It's so agonizing to remember that feeling, and that knowing deep down that it could be the beginning of the end. I remember getting the call back from the on-call OB, via the HMO's consulting nurse line, to head to the ER, and immediately calling Paul, who should have been close to home by then. He was at his brother's. His brother actually answered the phone, and I don't remember what I said but it was probably something like, "I need to talk to Paul NOW." I told him to come home, that we had to go to the hospital, that I thought my water had broken.

I remember lying on a poorly padded bed for hours, in pain after spending 1.5 hours the previous day lying on my back on a poorly padded ultrasound table, so uncomfortable, and in total denial of what was actually going on. I still hate to this day that I had to lie on that table in a puddle of amniotic fluid for over 5 hours before they finally got us in for an ultrasound to see what was going on. That my poor husband had to see the screen, both babies moving and their hearts beating way too fast, our daughter with only the tiniest pocket of fluid around her head, knowing it was the end, just kills me.

That day was the very worst day of my life. I can't imagine much being worse than that. I'm sure there's something that would be, but I think we've had enough pain and suffering for a lifetime at this point.

My babies have officially been outside my body and gone longer than they were thriving inside my body. A quarter of a year has passed now, time that both sped by and crawled. I think at this point I can say the waves of grief don't jerk so sharply up and down as they did in the early days, but they're still rolling and I still hurt so badly.