Your heartbeat was still there, then

It's been a year now since we last heard your heartbeat, Luke.

September 7, 2012 was the last appointment we had with our OB. It was perfect, too. Daddy and I were so excited. I was 1cm dilated and 25% effaced. The doc said that you could show up any day. And there were NO worries. I'd tested negative for strep. Your heartbeat on the doppler was right there and perfect. That night after dinner at Chipotle, you were doing flips and I was positive I was going to explode at any minute. I'd finally developed cankles--at 38 weeks, 4 days. I was so thankful I wouldn't have to put up with those for much longer...

There was nothing to alert us that something would be so wrong in less than 48 hours.

That's the part that hurts the most to think about. How blind we were. I was shocked at how simple my pregnancy was up to that point. I called myself lucky.

And then we found out in less than 48 hours that you were gone. With no warning. No potential to save you. It was already too late. I was the unluckiest.

We were supposed to bring you home in your going home outfit--in the carseat we'd just gotten checked--to the bassinet that was passed down through my family for generations. You were supposed to just BE here.

And then you weren't. In an instant.

Thinking about the whiplash of this weekend last year is hard. It will never make sense. How everything could be so perfect, and then so wrong, so quickly...

I will always try to think of something I could have done--to know that you were in trouble. But I can never come up with anything that would have told me a single thing. I've had a year now--to think of something, but nothing lines up.

I will always wish for things to have turned out differently--For the path that our lives should have taken that weekend, instead of the path that we were forced down.

I miss you, Luke. And I wish I had a time machine to go back to this day and then go to L&D and meet you when you were still alive. Before it was too late.