EXCEPT...

There have been plenty of lovely, happy prenatal appointments since the awful day of telling a new mommy that  she wasn't pregnant.  Plenty of perfectly perfect baby bumps.  Plenty of blissfully happy mama's, proudly exposing their bellies for me to "play with" (insert palpation, fundal height measurements, fetal heart tone auscultation and other boring terms that all equal "playing with baby" in my little world).

Yesterday was no different, EXCEPT... one little mama...26 weeks pregnant with her second wiggly, actively kicking darling...just back from vacation with her family...suntanned...relaxed...smiling and sunshiny...here for a follow-up ultrasound.

Her last ultrasound, before she left on vacation, showed a lower than normal amount of amniotic fluid.  Our U/S tech wanted to look again, to be certain...

Certainty is the term Gross Abnormality; Non-Compatible With Life;  meaning that once this little one is born, she will die.  The U/S shows only a partial spine, only two chambers in her little heart, no kidneys, no stomach.  Yet she is alive at the moment, kicking and wiggling inside her mommy's belly.

When I saw Mom's face as she exited our ultrasound room, I knew the diagnosis.  My heart broke.

I never really know what to do or say in this type of situation.  I'm a terribly emotional person and very very sensitive to others emotions.  When this mama came down the stairs from our ultrasound room, all I could think to do was hug her, hug her HARD!  She made eye contact with me and my footsteps advanced.  I didn't ask, but told her, "I am going to hug you," while tears are pouring down my cheeks.

And I did hug her.
And she hugged back, desperately.
And I wept while she wept.

I do not like this day.