What do you do the day your baby dies?

What do you do when you find out your baby is gone?

A piece of your world forever changed. A piece of your heart forever gone. A piece of your innocence, never to be reclaimed.

So what is there to do when it all comes crashing down?

As soon as my eyes opened yesterday morning, the countdown to 10 am had begun.

1.5 hours till I can find out if my baby has made it. I play with Maddy and changed little miss's diaper. 1 hour left. Off to get breakfast on and try not to snap at my kiddos. 30 min left... Let both kids watch tv (against my better judgement) and hope they will be quiet enough that I can think.

20 min left... And the nurse calls me. I know it's a bad sign. They would only call if they had bad news... Otherwise, they would just let me call after the appointed time.

In as nice of a voice as she can muster, my nurse delivers the same news she has delivered before. "I'm sorry, but your hcg dropped. You will lose this pregnancy."

Such a short, stupid conversation to have.

I can't say I was shocked. After the bleeding and the ultrasound yesterday, I knew. But I had still hoped against hope.

Sometimes you cannot will away hope. You can't think it away, or talk it away. It's a seed firmly planted in your heart, that grows deep and wide despite any of your good intentions to the contrary. Hope does not fizzle or fade, I don't think. The only way to truly get rid of it is to rip it out with irreversible truth. Otherwise, a bit of hope is always left behind.

And so with that call, the news grabbed at the hope in my heart and yanked it ever so fiercely. There is and forever will be a hole where hope should have remained.

And so, my world has changed yet again. January 15 will come, and there will have been no more ultrasounds, no baby showers, no birth plan to write up. There will be no baby to hold. It will be a day that will ease in and out of our lives as silently as baby lewis's due date did this past Tuesday. It will sneak up on me, and be gone, with nothing to remember it by.

After i first got the news, I just cried, and tried my best to let people know who had been praying for us. I couldn't get a hold of Ryan, so I had to leave him a voicemail, asking him to come home. I told my family, ryan's family, friends and my support groups.

The people who responded with anger or shock I could relate to more. To be honest, I'm outraged that my body has the audacity to kill my babies. Of course, I was sad. But I'd say anger at the unfairness of it all weighed out. 3 babies in 17 months.

I was being impatient with both girls, much more than I should have been. Sometimes I think being a good parent is knowing when you are no longer being "good" and someone else must take over.

So I called some friends and relatives to see if they could take little miss and Maddy.

My intent was to spend the day crying and blogging and feeling sorry for myself without worrying about kids. But ryan was there, and I realized what I desperately wanted was something that would take my mind off my impending loss.

So Ryan and I used some tickets we had been saving and went and watched Iron Man 3. I snuggled him and pretended like we were back in our dating days... Back before we had 2 kids with us here, 2 in heaven, and 1 on it's way to be with God.

Still wanting to feel "normal", I went to an Arbonne party that night. Weird as it sounds, the same thing happened with baby Lewis... I picked myself up and went to a party the day we found out we were losing him.

Of course, I was late for my party. I took a long shower beforehand where I could just cry and pray. Showers seem to be the best place for that.

After my party, I drove to Trader Joe's, to pick up all of my favorites there. If I am going to be home cramping... I want to have good food. And I also bought some sunflowers for myself, just because.

When we tucked Maddy in and did books, Ryan and I sat with her and explained why mommy and daddy were so sad. She hadn't known what was going on... But it didn't feel right not telling her. She doesn't know about baby lewis yet. And I still feel weird about that.

Maddy asked what it felt like to go to heaven. I told her I imagined of to be the most loving, most peaceful, most beautiful feeling you could have. She said, "Mom, can you see the sunshine sparkling off the flowers in heaven? You know, the ones by the little pond?" sometimes the way she talks about heaven makes me wonder if she's dreamed about it somehow. She seems so sure of what heaven looks like.

Before I went to bed, Ryan and I watched another movie. I guess I spent almost the entirety of the day avoiding how I felt, instead of embracing the truth.

So that's what I did the day I found out our baby was gone.

What did you do the day you found out? How did you cope?