If you are reading this you probably know that our family has suffered great heartache this month.
I really just feel the need to post our story in memory of our tiny baby, born May 10, 2010 at 16 weeks, 3 days.
On Thursday evening, May 6, I went into work feeling pretty good. I was coming to peace with our decisions on the birth plans for our baby, due in October. I was feeling pretty invincible for the first time since being pregnant so soon after a previous loss. At this point, four months pregnant, I figured it wasn't likely for anything to go wrong.
Overall I was in a good mood. That all came crashing down at around eleven pm, an hour before my shift ended. I noticed I had started spotting, and while this could be completely normal, I was completely gripped with fear at the thought of losing another baby. The next few hours were a whirlwind as I called David, left work and headed for the E.R. I hardly remember the E.R trip, I was in such fog. It was all a blur of rude doctors and nurses, and waiting waiting waiting. The ultrasound was the worst, as there was the tech, looking at my baby, knowing what was going on but not allowed to tell or show me anything.
We waited an hour and a half for the doctor to tell us the results of the scan. When he sat down and told us there was no heart beat, that the baby had died, I swear my own heart stopped briefly. We left the hospital soon after, and had to wait all weekend before seeing the doctor. I was numb. I had no idea what to think or feel or say. I couldn't even cry about it. i just carried on through the weekend, in that miserable fog, waiting.
On Monday morning I went into the Ob's office. It was truly painful to sit in that office that I had sat in so many times when pregnant with my daughter and son,now with a baby that I would never see grow up inside of me. During the appointment the doctor explained that she thought I had been too far along to go straight to a D&C and instead prescribed three days worth of medication that would start contractions and essentially induce labor. This terrified me, but in the long run more appealing than the D&C.
We got home around three thirty, after picking the children up from PapPap's and I took my first dose of Misoprostol. David went to bed (he had to work that night) and I was left with the children. Over the next two hours I slowly started getting abdominal cramps which by five thirty had become so painful I couldn't focus. i woke David up to take them and went to lay down. By six pm I hadn't rested and could no longer handle the pain. I called for David, who ran me a hot bath I(the midwives epidural, after all) and made me a cup of tea. I don't know how long I was in the tub before things intensified, but I started to feel an intense amount of pressure and climbed out of the tub. I think I was crying out in pain at this point, but I don't really remember for sure. David brought me a vicoden and called his mom to come get the kids.
He had both kids out in the living room, getting them ready to go. They were upset, tired and crying for Mommy, so I wrapped a towel around myself and slowly started to walk out to try and calm them. As I started to walk I had one hard painful contraction and felt a "pop", I quickly stepped into the kitchen (no carpet to ruin)as I felt a gush of fluids. My water had broken.I only needed that one dose of Misoprostol. Over the next I don't know how many minutes David got the kids loaded into the van and his mom drove them back to her house. I sat in the kitchen overcome with pain, but surprisingly lacking emotion. Within half an hour of my water breaking, the baby was born. At first I was scared to look down and see, but I am so glad I did.
Up to this point I had not pictured the baby as a baby with 10 little fingers and toes,fully formed facial features...everything. He was no different then a full term newborn, just smaller. I was truly amazed.
Over the next few hours we waited and waited for the placenta,and it just wan''t coming. After a couple hours I was able to work out a small piece and get up. That's when it went down hill. the birth had been fairly "easy" up to that point, but after delivering that small piece of the placenta, my pain picked up and was unbearable and i was bleeding a lot. It was probably close to eleven. We got me dressed and headed to the E.R. I was in so much pain I don't even know how I got into the car. At the E.R I had to be lifted out and put in a wheel chair. By the time we got there there was no break in the pain and i was covered in blood. The immediately got me a room and dosed me with morphine. The morph did nothing to dull the contraction, but it did provide a small break in between to rest. It didn't take long for them to make the decision to admit me and send me up to labor and delivery.I spent the night in L&D, with morphine every hour and Percocet every three hours. In the morning they did an ultrasound to confirm that the placenta was still inside, and then sent me down for surgery right away. They knocked me out for the D&C, so I can't really say much about that.
We went home a few hours later, and have been slowly recovering emotionally and physically since. The heartache ewe have experienced is indescribable. and I'm sure I will never fully recover. But while there will always be an empty spot in our family where our baby boy belongs, we will, eventually be ok.
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