On Friday, two days ago, I went alone to my routine OB check-up. I figured I’d pop over the doctor’s office during my lunch break and then be back at my desk quickly to finish up my busy workday.
All went perfectly until it was time to kick back, relax and enjoy the ultrasound. No one expected to see a problem. My bloodwork continued to be perfect, my last ultrasound had showed a healthy baby, and my pregnancy symptoms continued unabated. Unfortunately, however, it was immediately clear from the look on the ultrasonographer’s face when she waved the wand over my belly that something was very wrong. They switched machines, called in my doctor, and then told me the bad news.
Our baby had died – probably within the previous 24 hours. There was a perfect baby pictured on the screen, except for the fact that he was completely still.
The rest of the appointment is a blur, as are the past two days since then. My doctor tried to get me scheduled for surgery immediately, but there was nothing available until Monday. That means I am spending the weekend in bed, on sedatives, surrounded by people who love me, but all the while keenly aware that my dead baby remains in my belly. I keep patting him and talking to him.
Now I think I will try to sleep some more. I wish I could sleep right up to and through the surgery tomorrow, and only wake up when it’s all over.
Have y’all seen the photo published yesterday of 20 year old John David Duggar (of the show “19 Kids and Counting”) posing with a foreign exchange student and multiple firearms, inside the Duggars’ home? Go check it out over at my Babble blog, and then tell me whether you agree with me or with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar regarding whether the photo depicts responsible gun handling.
J attends the same public high school that Henry attended, and yesterday, while she was in the cafeteria during her lunch period, several of the lunch ladies realized that she was Henry’s sister, and they gathered around to tell her how much they looooooved Henry, and to tell her how much she looks like her big brother.
That made my day. I can just see Henry making time as he went through the lunch line each day to chat up the lunch ladies, teasing and joking with them, always being very polite and respectful, and asking them how things were going back in the kitchen.
We sure do miss him. Things like this make me realize that other people do too, that he managed to make an impression on the world in these small ways, even though he was only alive for 18 years.
Please consider becoming a friend of Henry’s Fund on Facebook. And if you are willing to help spread the word, that would be great. Just post a link to Henry’s Fund on your own Facebook page, Twitter account or blog, and ask your friends to join us in raising funds for addiction treatment for kids ages 12-20 whose families can’t afford the help they need.
Just remembering my boy this morning, and still often not able to grasp that he’s truly gone away, forever. It just doesn’t seem possible.
Henry and E, Christmas 2005, playing with E’s new castle.
Henry, E and J – winter 2006. They all had the flu and collapsed together in a heap on the sofa. Henry is sound asleep in this photo. No idea why E is wearing giant gloves
A bed full of silly Granju monkeys – 2005
Wrasslin’ brothers – 2005
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Henry and little sister J – Paris, 2004
First day of kindergarten for J. – 2001. Henry was so excited that she would be going to his school, and E was really annoyed that they were both leaving for the day and he was stuck at home with just Mom
Charleston, SC – 2001
Summer ’05. Our front porch.
Henry with me. He’s 13 in this one.
Edisto Island ’01 – Henry with Uncle Robert, J and E
Henry and J visiting Normandy Beach, France – 2004
Ever since my grandmother died in November, my Uncle Roger (her eldest child) has been going through boxes and books, finding scraps and photos and letters that none of us had ever seen before. He’s been scanning them and then sharing them with our family email list. He’s finding some fascinating stuff.
Below is a feature article that my then-25 year old grandmother had published in the Birmingham Post on November 13, 1944. My grandmother was a girl-reporter back in the days when there weren’t many. She had graduated from the University of Missouri College of Journalism in 1939, and by 1944, she was the married mother of a baby boy. In 1944, she was taking newspaper and copywriting assignments wherever she could, helping to keep food on the table and also muscle her way into what was then a very male profession. Within a year or so, she became an assistant section editor at the Birmingham Post, but she told me that they let her go when her pregnancy with my mother became apparent. (More than two decades after that happened to my grandmother, my mother -her daughter – had a similar on-the-job experience. In the late 60s, my just-married mother and father were both young reporters at the same California newspaper when my mother discovered she was pregnant with me. Newspaper management decided to give my father a raise but not offer one to my mother, even though she had more experience than he did. They told my mom that my father obviously needed the raise to support his family now that his wife – my mother the reporter with more experience – was having a baby.)
But back to my grandmother…. This fluffy piece was probably something she pitched to an editor at the Post as a chance to get in the door in their newsroom. I can just see her, all 5 feet and 95 pounds of Southern charm, convincing the features editor at the newspaper to let her go out and do a “girl on the street” story on what it was like to ride the bus in Birmingham. People had a hard time saying no to Nancy Orr Anderson.
So off she went to spend a day observing social mores among (white) Alabama city bus travelers, noting that many of them were rude and unchivalrous, with men even refusing to give up their seats to ladies and children. The horror!
Of course, this was 1944, and it likely never occurred to my white grandmother or her white editor to comment on the rudest behavior one would have seen on a Birmingham bus at that time. It would be another decade before a brave Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white man, leading to her arrest and a major turning point in the American Civil Rights movement.
But on this day, in 1944, before anyone had ever heard of Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr., this was how my grandmother saw it. And if you can forget about politics and racism for a moment, it’s pretty entertaining.
Just had to share a few recent pix of J. These were taken in downtown Knoxville before the holidays by a really talented local photographer. The last one is J together with several of her bestest friends, all sitting at the base of Knoxville’s historic JFG Coffee sign, which was shipped off for restorative repairs soon after the photo shoot. (J is at the far left in the group photo)
She is an awesome daughter. She makes parenting a teenager a lot of fun.
I noticed yesterday that Zulilly is running an ad on my site, over there to the right. When an advertiser I can personally endorse shows up on my site via my ad network, I like to give them a shout out. So I wanted to mention that if you have a baby or young child (or are an auntie or grandparent of a baby or young child), and if you like buying supercute kid-clothing and shoes at bargain prices, you should check Zulilly out. It’s kind of like Woot or Groupon in that they have these special deals every day until the item runs out, and then it’s gone. I have run across some amazing bargains there. Not everything is at enough of a discount for me to get excited, but sometimes the deals are so good that they are kind of hard to believe. You do have to sign up to be part of the site, but then you get a daily email telling you what’s available that day so you know whether to bother hopping over to the site to look. So go check out Zulilly, and tell ‘em I sent ya.
