still.

I hope you are watching This Is Us. Talk about a show that depicts real life. Every week Taylor and I get to the end and can't move. We just look at each other, shake our heads, and one of us says, "it's too real." A few weeks ago, we came to the episode where Kate loses her baby. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know how the emotions in the show would bring my own emotions bubbling to the surface. I watched as tears silently slipped from the corners of my eyes. Too real.

It's been four years since the miscarriage where I was furthest along. While I have experienced so much since then and given birth to two beautiful and healthy boys, I still vividly remember every single thing about that day.

I still remember how all sound dimmed except a loud buzzing in my ears and everything in my line of sight went hazy as the doctor in the ER said the words I dreaded hearing. I thought those things only happened in movies, but it truly does happen in those moments where life stops.

I still remember hitting send on a text message to Taylor. "No heartbeat." I hated having to tell him that way, but I also knew my voice would fail if I tried to call. I did not want to say it out loud.

I remember the hospital admin who followed me to my car just to console me. It wasn't her job, but she saw my chart and worse my face. I needed her in that moment.

I remember when the contractions hit a week later. I so naively thought it was over, but at twelve weeks along your body has to labor and release it all before it's done. I found my leftover bottle of 800 mg Ibuprofen from Gideon's birth and kept taking them hoping for some relief, but it didn't touch the pain.

I still remember spending the day on my knees in the shower. There was so much blood and I didn't know what to do. I did not want to go back to the hospital so I stayed right there, begging God to let it be done.

I remember as my body expelled everything into the toilet and I remember panicking about what to do. And I remember as I flushed it and knew that my baby was gone.

I remember rocking Gideon in his room that evening as Taylor went to pick me up a steak. With that much blood loss I needed to get my iron up. The irony was not lost on me. New parents get a steak dinner in the hospital.

And each and every December 13, my heart hurts and breaks all over again.

When I'm old and gray and maybe don't know where I am or what day it is, I know that these memories will be iron clad in my mind. They are with me forever. Those moments that are fuzzy while you're in them yet crystal clear in hindsight.

As much as it all hurts, I also have peace knowing that my baby only knew the good parts of this life. My baby was safely tucked inside of me and for twelve weeks only knew the love and excitement that we had for him/her. And now that baby is tucked in the safest arms there are.