How do I do this?

I don't know where to start....how to even put these feelings into words. But I have vowed to myself that I will do this, that I will work through this and if writing it all down helps, then that is what I will do.

I'll start from the beginning....
I have 2 wonderful sons, 7 and 5 years old. When my oldest son X was born, I found my purpose in life. I was to be a mom. I loved and still love everything about being a mom, although a 7 year old is hard work at times! Two and a half years later, our second son L was born. Again, I knew there was nothing else I wanted more than to be a mommy and take care of my boys.

When L was 2 years old, we decided we wanted to have another baby. After months and months of trying (and being very frustrated that it wasn't happening), I was pregnant. 8 weeks later, on New Years day 2010, T drove me to the ER because I was screaming with stomach pain. 2 hours later I was in surgery for an ectopic pregnancy.
Luckily, they were able to save my tube. After a couple of days I was sent home to heal.
I thought that was bad.
That was nothing compared to now.


Now. I don't know how to begin my story. I don't want to begin my story, I'm afraid that if I write it all down it will be real. I want it to be a horrible dream, I don't want it to be real.

In September 2011 my period was finally late, and never came. I took 2 pregnancy tests, you never know if one positive test is just a fluke, and found out that we were pregnant.
Because of my ectopic pregnancy in 2010, I was allowed to see my doc earlier than normal and at 6 weeks we saw the embryo for the first time. 2 weeks later, at 8 weeks, we went back and saw and heard a heartbeat.
I was having a hard time, I was very nervous even though I knew that everything was going the way it was supposed to but a miscarriage was always a possibility.
Our 12 week ultrasound was perfect, I was also worrying about my age (I'm 35).....
The 16 week ultrasound also looked good and by then I had felt our baby. Every kick I felt was wonderful and reassured me that everything was still ok.
The 20 week ultrasound, our baby was perfect. We found out that we were having a third boy. We were going to have 3 musketeers!

On Tuesday morning, the 31st of January, I woke up at 4:30 because I had to pee. I was having a bad night, lots of tossing and turning and I was uncomfortable, my pelvis was hurting. I got up, peed, went back to bed. I started getting hard tummies, every so many minutes. 10 minutes later the hard tummies started hurting. Not a good thing. I waited it out for a couple of minutes, but they didn't go away. I woke T up, he got the boys out of bed and dressed, packed them in the car and we were on our way to the hospital by 5 am.
I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. But I was ignoring it, trying to explain to the boys why mommy had to go to the hospital.... I was trying to convince myself that I was just having contractions, would get medication and have to stay home.....

The ER sent us up to the maternity ward. They first checked for a heartbeat, even found one. 5 minutes later a doc showed up and said she wanted to do an ultrasound. She checked my cervix which was still fine. She then went to check our baby. I remember thinking "he's not moving!!", T was holding my hand but was still not worried.
Then the most dreaded words came out of the doc's mouth: "I have bad news. Your baby is not alive any more."
Our worlds collapsed.
T started crying. I was sure that she was wrong, she just needed to look again.
This was my biggest fear. I had not felt the baby move on Monday. I had mentioned this to T, but also said that at 22 weeks it's normal that I didn't constantly feel him.
If I had come a day earlier, would it have changed anything?

I was told I had to deliver our son. Wow. I had not realized what I would have to do. I didn't want to do that. I could not imagine doing that.
T called my mom so she could pick X and L up, they were still waiting for us. We had to tell them that the baby had died. How do you tell your 7 and 5 year olds that the baby in mommy's tummy is no longer alive????!!!! Why do I have to tell them that??? Why do they have to go through something like that???
X started crying, he was so looking forward to a brother or sister. I still feel horribly bad for him. Poor X, why did that have to be taken from him????

At 9:52 am on January 31st, I gave birth to our son Dylan. He was 470 gr and 27.5 cm.
I had only been pregnant for 22 weeks.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was the most physically painful thing that I have ever done. I will not even start to say anything about the emotional pain.

We were able to hold Dylan and take pictures. It was unreal. T cried. I couldn't cry. I don't know why, there just weren't any tears.
An hour or so later I was taken to the OR because the placenta was stuck. So surgery. again. Just to make it all a little bit worse.

I spent the rest of the day trying to understand what had happened. Why it had happened. Why me? These thing happen, I know that. But not to me. Not to us. I had my round of bad luck two years ago. Wasn't that enough??!!

We were able to spend a lot of time with Dylan. I had never though that I would be able to do that.
He was beautiful.
He was a perfect baby, a perfect son, our perfect third musketeer.