Summer and I recently learned that some good friends of ours gave birth to a perfectly innocent, stillborn baby. It broke our hearts to hear the news. I can honestly say there is nothing that frightens me more than losing Avery.
As we talked, we recalled our first pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage. I know that a baby being stillborn is infinitely more tragic than a miscarriage, however I found myself empathizing for our friends through this memory.
Shortly after losing our first baby, I wrote this about our experience.
March 29th, 2012, was supposed to be the best day of my life.
It was a Tuesday. I was rounding up my first 4.0 semester of college, I had just been offered a great new job, and to top it off, I was going to see my baby for the first time.
For the past few months weeks, I was a daddy. It was all I could think about. It was my heart’s true desire. It was my motivation for getting out of bed every day. It was truly my dream come true.
Arriving at the women’s clinic, my wife and I were filled with excitement and anticipation. We didn’t sleep well the night before, but instead spent the evening talking about our unborn child and what he or she would be like.
Eagerly waiting in the lounge, we could hardly wait for the nurse to call us back. When the call finally came, it took everything in us to not sprint straight for the ultrasound machine. Trying to maintain a cool demeanor, we smiled and clinched each other’s hand tight as we were ushered to our room.
The nurse took my wife’s vitals, weighed her in, and said the ultrasound technician would be in shortly. Sitting there in that quiet room, my wife looked at me and inquired,
“You think everything is okay, right?”
“Of course everything is okay. We’re going to have a baby!”
When the ultrasound technician entered the room, I felt a sense of excitement rush over me that I had never before experienced. She fired up the machine, got out her tools, and started her examination.
Looking at the computer monitor provided little clarity to the situation; I couldn’t tell the difference from a fetus and my wife’s gallbladder. Instead, I watched the technician because I knew the smile on her face would reveal the moment my baby was on the screen.
I watched her for what seemed like an hour, but was less than a few minutes. I looked and stared, but that smile never came.
Avoiding eye contact, the technician headed for the door and said she needed to grab the doctor.
Once again, my wife and I sat alone in that quiet room. And once again she asked me,
“You think everything is okay, right?”
“Yeah everything is fine.”
I lied.
Our doctor entered the room cautiously. I immediately knew what he was about to say, but I didn’t want to hear it. I knew exactly what was coming, but prayed that it wouldn’t.
He sat down in front of my wife, explained that our baby stopped growing, probably because its heart never fully developed, and died. He said this sort of thing was common. He said he would give us some time. He said everything would be okay.
Unable to speak, my wife and I sat together. We were alone. Everything was not okay.
March, 29, 2012, was supposed to be the best day of my life.
Hayden Coombs 
One thought on “THE BEST DAY”