Rainbow Baby

14 weeks.  Good bye first trimester.  Hello second.  There is a sense of relief that I have made it this far.  But since I did lose one baby in the second trimester I am not as relieved as I wish I could be.  The fear is bad today and I don't know why.  It just comes some days worse than others.  I am checking my baby's heart beat with a fetal Doppler again this pregnancy.  I am closing in on 16 weeks, my latest miscarriage happened at 16 weeks.  These few weeks leading up to then are more anxious than usual.  I remember checking that baby's heart beat for the last time.  The heart rate was in the 140's, completely normal, and yet I had a bad feeling that it was too low.  I just knew.  So I guess it's no surprise this morning when I checked my baby's heart beat and it was in the 140's, I started to worry.   I checked it again....130's.  My mind went to the dark place immediately.  I was right back there and I was paralyzed with fear.  I checked it again 15 minutes later...back up in the 150's, a small sigh of relief, but still a call to my doctor's office where the nurse assured me that as long as it is between 120 and 160 it is normal and fine and even if it fluctuates that much it is still fine.  Oh, how long can I do this?  Well, I have to do it for six more months.  I have no choice.  I just want this baby here, in my arms, safe, at last. 

I don't know how I have never heard of this before, what with all my miscarriages and my connection to rainbows.  But I came across this for the first time yesterday, the term rainbow baby.  A rainbow baby is a bay who is born after a miscarriage or stillbirth.  The thought being that in order for a rainbow to appear, there must first be a storm.  The rainbow doesn't mean that the storm never happened or that it is even over.  But it means there is a gift, beauty, a reward for enduring the storm.  Rainbow babies can only come if first there is a storm.  I read this two days after my best friend sent me a picture of a rainbow she saw while on vacation with the simple words, "This made me think of you".  It is so hard to be this afraid.  I feel so weak, like such a failure for not having more faith, more trust in God.  I pray, "Please God don't take this baby for lack of my faith."  It is such a tormented place to be in.  All I can do is move forward with the sheer hope and faith that this is my rainbow baby.  The one that will come after such a long and devastating storm.  The one that will bring beauty back into our lives and remind me that the storm was so worth it.  Today is a tough day.  Stay with me Baby Life, my sweet little rainbow baby, stay with me.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.