That's that.

On Wednesday, Marci and I found out that the heart beat had stopped. Dr. A conferred with us, letting us know that there were really only two options. We could wait for a "natural miscarriage" or she could have a dilitation and curretage (a "d and c"), in which the fetal material is removed from the uterus.

In many cases, we learned, a "natural" approach requires a d and c anyway, so the choice seemed obvious.

So, yesterday morning at 5 am we went to the surgery center for the procedure. Marci was under IV anesthetic in a regular operating room, and the whole thing took about an hour. The actual procedure (which of course I wasn't present for) takes about fifteen minutes.

She felt fine during recovery, and said that the whole staff was exceptionally kind. They expressed that they were sorry for her loss, and were quite supportive of both of us.

When Marci just entered recovery, Dr. A asked me into a little room to talk about the procedure. He let me know that the positive news in all of this is that we could be ready to try again once Marci has two cycles.

Probably the most traumatic aspect of this experience was that babyman wasn't allowed to nurse for 24 hours after the procedure, due to the anesthetic in Marci's system. He was baffled and hurt by this, and was virtually inconsolable. We just put him to bed kind of early after trying many things to calm him down.

Everyone has been great to us but it's been a bit of a shitty week.