A Little Epiphany

I was sitting around one evening thinking about Taylor, and I had a little epiphany. This "ah ha!" moment left me feeling blessed and proud and humbled and sad all at the same time, so I wanted to share.  
One of the first things we did when we found out we were expecting was go to my period app on my phone and try to figure out when this little baby would be due. I think this is fairly common, especially if you have been trying and documenting all that good stuff. Anyway, based on my last period, we were due April 9, 2015. Sounded like the perfect day to us to have a baby! We were ecstatic. 
When I went in for my first appointment, I thought I was about 8 weeks along. The doctors weren't positive since my periods were never regular, so they wanted to hold off listening to the heartbeat in case there wasn't a heartbeat yet. I was super bummed but I of course understood. I went back in for my dating ultrasound at 10 weeks, according to my app. When they did the ultrasound and we saw our precious girl for the first time, they measured her at 7 weeks 6 days. I assumed my period had been off, so they knocked our due date back to April 21st. Again, sounded like the perfect day to us to have a baby!
Fast forward to that 16 week ultrasound when the doctors became worried she was measuring small. She was measuring about 14 weeks, so they told me not to panic and that my dating could just be off, meaning I wasn't as far along as I thought I was. That was a nice thought, but I knew it couldn't be that off. My due date had already been knocked back 2 weeks, so there really was no wiggle room left. I knew fairly immediately that something was wrong, but I kept the dating detail to myself and didn't really tell anyone other than Parker. 
If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that something was in fact wrong. Taylor Grace had triploidy, causing her to always measure small, and we miscarried her at 18w5d. Here's where the epiphany came into play. She was always measuring small. Based on my last period, I was supposed to be 10 weeks with her at that initial ultrasound instead of 7w6d. I think I carried her longer than I initially thought. 
She measured small from the beginning, but at 10 weeks they can't tell anything is wrong on an ultrasound without doing an amniocentesis, so they just pushed our due date back without thinking anything of it. There is a really good chance Taylor was over 20 weeks when her heart stopped beating. I might have carried our girl over halfway through the pregnancy. 
Does it make any difference? No, I suppose it doesn't, but talking to my friend earlier this week, I remembered just how blessed I was. She works with a doctor who delivers the same bad news we received at 17 weeks to parents all day. When my friend told her about us and asked if they had ever seen anything like that, the doctor shook her head no. She said triploidy babies just don't make it that long. She's right. Statistically, triploidy babies miscarry in the first trimester, so many times you have no idea your baby even had it. To think that we may have gotten to carry Taylor a couple of weeks longer than we thought we had just makes me feel so overhwelmingly blessed and humbled. It's just unheard of. 
Taylor was a little fighter, beating the odds way beyond what the doctors thought. I am just so incredibly proud to be her mom, and I feel so humbled that God let me carry her as long as I did. That's why we have been so open about our experience. Taylor was a miracle in every since of the word, and God chose to use her, our baby, to tell a story about His love. My little epiphany that she was likely farther along than we gave her credit for just reminded me tenfold what a gift she truly was and always will be to us. 

Our favorite ultrasound. She was such a wiggle worm and moving like crazy! I really wish I would have had Parker record it, but I'll forever have the image in my head of him staring up at that screen, mesmerized by her every move.