that time when grey's anatomy looked a little bit like my own life

so i admit it. i watch grey's anatomy....every week. it's my trash tv. i know i shouldn't like it, the stories are outlandish. i could be watching something much more wholesome, but i'm addicted to it. i freely admit it. and then one day, the story had a resemblance to my very own life.

so usually there is some insane story line....there was once a shooter in the hospital, there have been plane crashes, bus accidents, boat crashes and car pile ups. there have been times when the you thought there was no way the person was going to survive, but of course they did survive and you are left feeling like the story was so fake. 

last weeks episode was the one that ripped my heart out. in last weeks episode april and jackson find out that their baby will not survive. their baby has some sort of condition and life outside the womb wasn't possible. also they found out that even while in the womb, the baby's bones could be breaking and the baby could feel what was happening. april and jackson decided to induce labor and then they could have whatever time they could with the baby. 

as the story progressed, you saw what their friends and family were doing...trying to make things better or easier on them. you saw april and jackson trying to figure out what to do and how to make peace with this situation. jackson is trying to cope with his own emotions and grief and at the same time trying to figure out what to do to help his wife through this terrible tragedy. and at one point april is just not ready to have her baby yet. she knows that once she has the baby, there is only a limited amount of time they will have left with their son. 

i remember feeling that way...being told all the things that would happen next, that i was going to go to the hospital and they were going to give me medicine to start labor. once our baby girl was born, we could spend time with her, but we would have to give her up eventually. 

i remember not wanting to go back to the hospital. not being ready to say goodbye. it was like i was standing still and the world around me kept moving. i was trapped in this fog of confusion and grief while the rest of the world kept turning. you feel almost hollow....like everything is just gone from inside of you. and then for me, i felt numb....like it was a bad dream that i would wake up from. only when i woke up, my terrible reality was still staring me in the face. 

i thought that the show did a great job showing what it is like to be faced with infant death and how heartbreaking and devastating it is to walk out of those hospital doors empty handed. a few weeks before you were anticipating the arrival of your sweet baby and then before you can even process what's just happened to you, you are leaving without your baby. 

as i watched this episode, the tears streamed down my face because it hit so close to home. my situation is a little bit different than the situation in the show....we had no idea that our baby had a genetic problem. we were not faced with the decision of continuing the pregnancy or ending it. i often think about what we would have done, how we would have acted, what we might have felt getting that devastating news. but, in the end, i'm glad we didn't know. i don't think that it would have made her passing any easier and we were able to completely enjoy my pregnancy with her. but it other ways it was so much the same. 

i don't know if the show will keep up with this story line....i hope they do. i hope that others can see the grief that happens afterwards and how hard it is to pick up the broken pieces of your life. i hope they show the strength of bereaved parents and what it takes to survive the death of your child. 

thank you grey's anatomy for sharing this often times untold story with your viewers!