Sad Day

At long last, we are totally moved in here in New York. Most of our stuff made it, but it appears we lost a passenger along the way. At some point while we were in Ohio, our littlest passenger passed away. I didn't discover that, though, until I went to the doctor here in New York to check why my feet had been swollen and varicose for about a week. When the midwife did the customary appointment closer of checking for a heartbeat, it just wasn't there. She double-checked with a sonogram and found evidence that the passenger had died several days prior.

After several days of questions, descriptions of unsavory options for helping get the passenger's body out, etc. we came to a decision about what to do. Of course, as soon as we did that, I started to have a slight fever, so we had to go with the potentially riskier and less pleasant option. Dan and my dad were with me when we started inducing labor on Saturday morning. Luckily, I responded pretty well to the drugs and by Sunday morning was holding our precious little Augustine. The hospital staff were really nice through the whole process - willing to give me whatever I wanted pain-killer-wise (they just didn't get why I didn't want an epidural). They made up this nice little certificate with Augustine's footprints, gave us a crocheted hat and blankie, and arranged to have the baby baptized before her autopsy. I stayed in the hospital overnight to recover my strength, Dad headed home and Dan got working on Augustine's funeral arrangements.

Today Dan, Penny, my mother-in-law and cousins buried the tiniest casket I ever hope to see. There is a nice memorial in the local Catholic cemetery for miscarried and stillborn children and we chose to lay Augustine's body to rest there. We could have buried her with my father-in-law, but that seemed like too much sadness for one place to hold. It was sad enough to bury our daughter on mom and dad's wedding anniversary.

Physically, I'm doing ok. Antibiotics aren't too bad. The biggest problem at this point is figuring out what to do with the milk. It's kinda painful - on all levels really. I've gotten a few pointers to help out, though, so hopefully I'll find some physical relief soon. The rest will come eventually. The hospital had info on some support groups and I'm sure there are more I can find online if those don't work for me.

Just wanted to share a little about her name...
Augustine is Latin for "Great" or "Magnificent"
Anjali is Sanskrit for "Gift" or "offering" literally in Bengali "to give with a closed hand, ie: a flower or drinking cup"

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and kind wishes. All this is obviously really ugly to go through and it's nice to know we have all of you out there supporting us. We appreciate everything you've said, not said, and done to help us get through this.