I could have listened to my body but I was trying to ignore my mind.

After I’d overcome the initial shock of hearing the gynecologist tell us two weeks ago, at our first prenatal appointment, that it looked like the pregnancy had stopped progressing a week or so prior, I realized I should have known I was no longer pregnant.

Within days of the positive pregnancy test(s), I felt pregnant – well, but pregnant. That feeling started to go away a week or so before that first appointment, as the few uncomfortable pregnancy symptoms I'd had began to diminish. I’d chalked this up to normal – as symptoms can naturally vary during pregnancy. In fact, the day of that appointment I'd read this:

For a lot of women, sore boobs are the first sign that Something Is Up. ... Except when it doesn’t hurt, because the soreness can and does vary from day to day. (So if you’re pregnant and your boobs hurt yesterday but don’t hurt today, don’t panic, and don’t mash them into lumpy potatoes while trying to get reassurance that you’re still pregnant.) 

Accordingly I was trying very hard not to mash anything into lumpy potatoes.

Usually Gilles is the non-worrying, happy-go-lucky optimist, and I, in comparison, seem to be the neurotic fear-mongering pessimist. Well, I'm not really, especially without the contrast that he provides, although it is true that I do worry a lot. It is also true that without too much rationale or reason, I was – and still am, even more so now, perhaps slightly more rationally, slightly more reasonably – terrified of having fertility problems.

Despite this fear, once I saw the positive pregnancy test, I had no doubt that everything would be fine. Would be more than fine. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, that I could be so lucky, but I just had no doubt.

Something like loss of symptoms ordinarily would have caused me a great deal of apprehension, given that it can not necessarily, but possibly, indicate a corresponding loss of viability, but I made myself think I was just lucky to feel so well. I wanted to push away any irrational and unreasonable fears that this could trigger and just enjoy those moments.

With a newly focused hindsight, however, I now recognize it was a sign that the little life was disappearing, had disappeared.

I thought everything would be fine.