My 2nd trimester missed miscarriage (16 week baby, 21 week pregnancy)

I still find myself wishing to rattle on incessantly about my MMC while simultaneously wishing to hoard the information. Even typing this feels wrong and intrusive, but somehow I still come back and begin again. Select all, delete, close tab. Only to return with some other format that'll make documenting how I feel now and try to recall the 'in-the-moment' emotions. Do I tell the whole journey or just the 'break up'? I was pregnant. I felt him kick and then I lost him. Not that quick in the timeline, but I remember thinking how awful a miscarriage would be if I had felt the baby and then lost it. I was spouting self-prophesy and didn't even know it. Fertility awareness method was our birth control method, it worked for 3.5 years. We balked at the permanent birth control options, we should have known we weren't ready to say no more kids. Yet, my November 30th, 2017 positive pregnancy test elicited fear and nausea. We couldn't afford another kid for all the retroactively stupid reasons you can think of. I called up PP and asked numbers, dates, and location. Set up an appointment to end the oops. The countdown got me more and more nervous and I misunderstood my own feelings. I was so stressed and panicked about the drive out of my town to a city that I spilled the beans to my parents. Thank God I did. They and my sister know me well enough to know what I couldn't/wouldn't see for myself. I wanted that unplanned baby. I'd already envisioned holding an infant daughter on the couch as Hubs and I discussed what to do. They talked my out of a decision I didn't want and felt sick about. I thought I was being responsible even though it felt wrong. I never made it to my PP appointment. I told Hubs the night before my appointment that I wanted baby. I was scared and some changes that needed doing in the coming months would certainly be difficult, but doable and worth it. I was 6ish weeks along. I wait til 10ish weeks to make an appointment. I got my first prenatal at 13 weeks. Some rescheduling for a variety of reason delayed my late appointment further. I had an uneventful prenatal. My ultrasound was scheduled for 3 days later. Baby must have been sleeping during the ultrasound, but its heartbeat was strong and measurements were good for growth. Went back a month later, normal heartbeat, uneventful appointment. Anatomy scan scheduled for later that month. March 29th, my anatomy scan, was a very BAD day. Dunno if it's the worst day of my life, but it full of tears and anger and no escape and little emotional comfort no matter how many hugs I got. My baby was dead. I hadn't felt kicks in weeks. I had thought baby was lazy or sleepy or some other innocuous reason for no kicks felt. I thought I'd felt big movements, like baby's butt, but I know that wouldn't have been possible now. Baby wasn't big enough or strong enough to do that yet. Somewhere deep inside, intuition told me something was NOT right. But, I trusted that I was in the clear being in the 2nd trimester. I might get a grim diagnosis, but baby was reasonably well otherwise, right? Wrong, so wrong. 
I'd visited my Dad the same day I'd heard baby's heartbeat the last time. It was his birthday and he had a cold. I was worried I get sick, but not especially worried about baby. I'd be miserable, but baby would be fine, right? I can't remember being that sick. I still don't know if it was a bad cold or the flu or something else. My throat hurt so bad for so many days. Hurt so bad, sometimes it traveled to my ears. I thought I had strep throat, I thought perhaps baby could be in danger. Retrospect and a pathology report tells me that it was likely a number of things that killed my baby.
Back to the ultrasound, the sonographer started the ultrasound, stopped and quickly excused herself to the bathroom. I kinda knew something wasn't right. Ordinarily, I'd be unconcerned, but there was no heartbeat and it seemed like she'd struggled to find the baby. I was right in my observations, she left to get the midwife. The sonographer tried again, while my midwife told me "I have no good news for you." I'll try to recall all of what happened even if I can't recall what order it happened. I seems so unimportant now other than the intent behind it. For all it felt awful, awful in ways that I couldn't articulate and still struggle to try now, but the concern and sadness and compassion for me was real and felt. They had me call Hubs, he wasn't with me. He wasn't excited about the ultrasound; baby comes home regardless, right? I call him, tell him, and loose my composure completely. I was sorta stable until I heard his sadness. I believe we discuss my options after: induction or D&C/E. I talk to their on call doctor via Skype. He tries to explain all the likeliest what ifs. I choose induction, thinking I want to hold baby and say goodbye. My midwife calls the hospital and schedules my induction, after some back and forth, for that evening. That conversation has me fuzzy on the details. 
But, I'm walked to the door of the office building, by my midwife. I assure her that I'll be okay. I do keep it together long enough to pop into the nearby Target to get Goose a new light jacket. She needs it and it'll lighten the mood she'll feel when she gets home from school.
The drive home from Target was harder. I was crying hard enough to have me drifting in the lane. But, I do sober up enough once I realize my recklessness.
I get home and melt into my Hubs arms, it's needed but offers little comfort. I know he's struggling, too. We decide that he'll drop me off at the hospital and pick me up later, as the kids need watching and no other options were currently available. My parents and sister were sick with a mutated version of what I just dealt with. My neighbors are wonderful, but retired and we haven't known them long enough to ask for that kind on responsibility.
We've still got 5 or 6ish hours before I need to get to the hospital. I have Easter goodies to grab at my parents house, so I go over and spill the news. Baby died, about a month ago. Everyone's crushed. I never felt like I had failed anyone but the baby, but it still felt like the bad guy for dangling such a delightful possibility only to pull the rug out from under everyone. They talk me out of the induction. Explaining that baby had been dead for 4 weeks inside me, I don't want to see that kind of mess and identify it as 'mine'. So I call my midwife to ask if surgery could be arranged instead and explain why I think this would be better for my sanity. My family hugged and reassured me that I'd done nothing wrong and that this wasn't karma for originally intending to abort.
I head back home with goodies for the kids and Easter goodies to hold til Sunday (this was happening the Thursday before).
I went back to my house, to present my kids with their new Easter clothes. My daughter is delighted, yay. My son is unimpressed, surprise, surprise. We linger about the house waiting for 6 o'clock. We arrived at the hospital at roughly 7 after getting a little lost. I say goodbye and watch them drive away.
I know the name of where I need to go, but not the where. We would've toured the hospital closer to my due date. So I head over to the concierge to ask for directions. The hospital is beautiful and the maternity ward is enchanting, the little of it that I see. I fill out paperwork and wait about an hour, what I expected, no big deal. I don't know why I didn't prep myself for who else might be waiting with me. An adorable toddler excited for her baby sibling, driving her Daddy and Grandma crazy. Or expectant folks wandering in and out of the waiting room. It was hard, but not as impossible as I thought, even in the moment. When I'm finally summoned, I go to the labor & delivery side. The procedure is explained. I'm asked questioned about my general health and asked if I have any questions. I thought I'd be getting a D&C. I'll be getting a D&E. They insert dilator sticks into my cervix, 4 of them. They had to try twice. It felt like menstrual cramps and a PAP smear. Then it felt really uncomfortable when they shoved gauze in after to keep the dilators in place. Weirdest nights sleep EVER. My procedure was supposed to happen at 8 the next morning, but the inevitable emergency C-section was bound to happen. I'm unconcerned if somewhat bored and lonely, I don't cry as much as I expected. Family and home make me more prone to tears than the compassionate, empathetic staff that come and go. I'm finally made ready for a 4 or 5pm ish procedure. Hurry up and wait game is almost done with. As I enter the procedure room, I loose it. I'm scared and sad and cold and so not ready to say goodbye to this pregnancy, certainly not this way. I'm shaking hard enough to catch the attention an sympathy of my surgeon. He assures me that I'm safe and that it's okay to cry. I tell him I'm scared, "I've never had an epidural." The 6 or so people there explain that I'll get a surface numbing agent followed by the spinal block. That I'll experience a pinch, then an electrical shock sensation down one leg, then warmth and loss of sensation in my legs. It was exactly as they said. They help me to lay down on the table/bed and move me around as needed, help get my legs in to the stirrup things. It's all rather comical and I laugh often. As they're getting me in position and putting the curtain up, I ask the anesthesiologist if he can calm me down, he obliges. I thought I would be asleep for this procedure, but being awake is always preferable if possible. So, I was numbed and drugged. I don't remember much of the goings on. I remember feeling good, feeling hopeful and happy. Even though I remember pain/pressure strong enough to make me cry out, I don't remember the details of the sensations, only the awareness that it was likely from them pushing on my uterus to get it back down to size. I think I heard talk of my not wanting to see baby. Before I know it, the procedure is finished, they're happy with their efforts, saying it went well. I was released from the stirrups and heart monitors and the breathing tube that rests under the nose. I was transferred to a recovery bed and monitored for an hour, maybe less. That was more of a challenge than I thought. Recovery was combined with other observation patients. The other Momma that was there was in strange pain, worried for her unborn. I was listening to hear fetal monitor and crying, but silently rooting for her. Sometime during my recovery, a nurse peeked in to ask if I still wanted to know baby's gender, I did. It was a boy. When I was cleared for returning to my room, I needed help, my legs were still numb. That was comical, feeling like a baby, my legs useless. When I got back to my room I was told that I might go home that night, once my legs were back to normal. I needed to pee before I could be discharged, too. I tried once while I was still too numb. The second time was the charm. I was out of the hospital by 10PM the day of my procedure. I was so nice to be with Hubs again after a much needed hospital stay.

The week following my D&E was a blur of mourning and spinal headache. It was annoying at times to be so sad, to be disinterested in life. I have to 2 healthy beautiful kids, I have reason to rejoice. But, still I felt so sad and angry and apathetic toward life. I felt guilty despite know better that this was not my fault; didn't I think I wanted an abortion? Did I not summon this outcome somehow? I felt anger at the illness. All these emotions did unexpected thing, I was mourning, I wasn't depressed. I would get better. It would get easier.
I had a follow up appointment with my midwife just after a week later. Even a week later, I felt much more level headed an stable. Still weepy, but not destructive. Ready to try again.