On Father’s Day, June 18, 2017 we found out we were going to be parents. I had taken a pregnancy test a few days before and gotten a negative result, but I knew it was still early and I was convinced I was already having food aversions. I waited until Father’s Day to take the next one, secretly because I thought it would be cool to tell Andrew on such a special day.

And then there was the plus sign…

I think I had a mini heart attack. I was so shocked and excited I didn’t know what to do! I then made a card that said “Happy Father’s Day”, left it next to the pregnancy test on the bathroom sink and then found a way to get him upstairs. My heart was beating out of my chest.

I think it took a minute for him to process, and then he responded with some “is this real?” and “are you serious?” We had officially decided to start trying for Baby Butters once we both turned 25, and this was our first attempt.

We spent the rest of the day doing the typical Father’s Day activities including visiting my dad and grandpa. Luckily that meant lunch outside, because Andrew needed his sunglasses to hide his tears of joy that were streaming all day!

The next few weeks were full of planning for the future, secret texts of excitement between us and giving the baby the nickname of “Sesame” (due to how big the baby was at the time). I even bought some Aunt t-shirts for my friend group and an outfit for baby Lincoln to help announce the news once the time came.

Fast forward to July 12, our first baby appointment. I was super nervous because I did not know what the appointment would entail, but Andrew kept reassuring me it would be fine and reminding me how awesome it will be to see our baby. The doctor eventually came in and began by checking for the baby’s heartbeat. Nothing was coming up, so he moved from the regular ultrasound to the vaginal ultrasound. Still no heartbeat, but we could see a baby measuring about 6.5 weeks (two weeks behind our estimate of 8.5 weeks). Our hearts sank a bit as he explained we were either 2 weeks off of the conception date or going to miscarry. We left the office with an appointment to come back in 2 weeks.

The next 14 days were spent reassuring each other that our baby would be fine and we must have the date wrong. Or our baby is just measuring small. And that my nausea and achy body must be morning sickness. We still hadn’t really told anyone what was going on (only Andrew’s boss knew), so all we had was each other.

On July 26 we went back to the doctor. I hadn’t had any bleeding, so we were pretty optimistic. We even planned to visit our parents after to tell them the news. However, Baby Sesame had not grown. We were devastated by the news.

On the way home (in tears) we let our moms and my sister know we had been pregnant and that we had miscarried. Then we went home, snuggled the dogs and let the full weight of what happened hit us.

Friday, August 11, I started to physically experience the miscarriage in the same hour that Andrew called to tell me he had been laid off. On top of that, the next day happened to be my sister’s baby shower. I was in a lot more pain that day, and after barely making it through teaching dance I ended up spending her shower holed up in my mom’s room instead of being able to celebrate with her. This is the only picture we got, after everyone left.

We will always treasure the memory of our Baby Sesame.

5 weeks pregnant: