As they were waiting, they flipped through magazine after magazine trying to forget why they were there. "Mrs. Bray" the doctors called out, loud and clear even though the waiting room was noisy. Everyone looked up, and watched as they dragged their feet going into the examination room. The nurse asked Mrs. Bray to put on a gown. The gown was torn at the bottom and smelled like a hospital but she put it on anyway. The doctor squeezed clear jelly into the palm of her gloved hand and rubbed it over the middle of her pale and already rounding stomach. She placed the wand near her belly button and squinted at the screen, at the little human being inside of her. She told the scared young wife that she"d be right back, grabbing her boss to confirm the worst. "I no longer see a heartbeat," the doctor said. Those words will forever haunt the newly married couple. As they looked at the image on the sonogram, they saw a lifeless little girl the size of a melon floating in the amniotic fluid. And so it became official. Life was never the same again, she had lost her innocence. From that moment forward, pregnancy was no longer a purely happy exciting event. It was tinged with apprehension, drenched with fear and doubt and many times it led to overwhelming sorrow.
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Nonetheless, the doctor told her, she could either have a surgical procedure done to get the baby out- or she could have an induced miscarriage. The thought of waiting to push out her dead daughter, killed her. It was a given though, especially knowing her husband had to leave for his tour to Afghanistan the next afternoon. She slept in the tub with the cold water running the night before he left, still waking up to a puddle of blood. She had thought for a while, she might die because of how much she was bleeding. After an emotional goodbye to her husband, she had scheduled a flight home so she could be with her family in times of need. As soon as she got home, she was having "contractions" so her family rushed her to the emergency room.
