The Whole Story..so I will remember

Thursday afternoon (May 10, 2007) I had my doctor’s appointment and everything looked fine. My doctor told me I would probably go into labor this weekend, which sounded right because my due date was the 12th or 13th. I was 2 cm dilated and about 60% effaced. Friday and Saturday morning I was having more contractions and tried to walk around a lot so I'd dilate some more. I lost my "plug" on Friday so I knew things were underway. Saturday morning I was very "weepy" but just thought it was hormones because my body was preparing for labor. I was also really tired and wanted to just sleep and lounge around all morning (which I assume was because my body was gearing up for the big day). Later that morning I had a bit of "show" so I knew labor would begin really soon. The baby was moving fine and at the same times of day she always had so there was no reason to think anything was wrong -and it probably wasn't. At about one o'clock I decided to take a nap and woke up at three. When I woke up I thought I felt her move again which is normal when I wake up from naps. We took a walk later that evening and after we put Aiden down for the night, I sat down to my computer. At about 8:30 I noticed that I hadn't felt her move and she normally did at that time of night.
I asked Robert to grab the little BeBe Sounds monitor to try and get her heartbeat. We tried for a while and couldn't hear anything but because of the baby's position on Thursday, the doctor had had problems finding it and it took her awhile before she finally got it. The baby's back was on the far side, making her sunny side up. My mother called and after telling her about the day, she suggested that I might just want to call my doctor to make sure it was normal. My body never went into labor with Aiden so this whole process was new to me. After talking with my doctor, she didn't seem concerned but said that I sounded a little concerned so why not go to the hospital to check it out. She would call to tell them I was coming and they'd hook me up to a monitor and just check things out.
At that point, we called Robert's parents to see if they would come out to the house since Aiden was sleeping. They suggested we bring Aiden over and that way wouldn’t have to worry about what time we’d get back.
I had the thought that we should bring the hospital bag just in case they wanted to keep me for whatever reason. Then I thought, well, maybe we should bring the baby car seat too, just in case.
On the way to the hospital we kept reassuring ourselves that it was probably nothing and they would just check me out and then release me again, but at least I would be reassured that everything was ok.
We got to the hospital and the nurse took out the monitor and tried to find the heartbeat. After a minute of fussing, she got out the Doppler and tried to find it again. After fussing with that another minute, she said she’d just go get the ultrasound machine. I had mentioned that it took my doctor awhile to find it on Thursday because of her position. When she couldn’t find it on the Ultrasound…I got really worried. I asked her if I should be worried, she said something about how they don’t train the nurses very well on the machines and she’d go get the doctor who was on-call. She left the room and I freaked out…crying…yelling…. I was sure that I would know intuitively if something had happened, right? And how could the baby have just been gone? Babies don’t just do that without reason.
The doctor on-call was delivering another baby and so they called my doctor and she was on her way.
About fifteen minutes of what seemed like forever left alone in that room of unanswered questions, my doctor arrived. She took the ultrasound and this time we could see the screen. The baby was still in there all right. She kept looking and looking and I stopped looking….I couldn’t look at the screen anymore not knowing and was tearing up again. She called in the other doctor who was on call and he looked. He said something like “well, there’s the heart” and “I don’t see anything Rosemary”…at which point I knew for sure.
They left us and my doctor explained that sometimes baby do things that just aren’t very smart. They sleep on their cord the wrong way, and that’s it. It’s not common, but does happen. In her entire practice, it has only happened three times, counting this one. We were left for a few minutes at which point we both broke down.
They moved us into another room to discuss “options”. My first reaction was that I wanted her out. I couldn’t bear to think about her in there..gone. I thought it would be a very surgical procedure, a c-section, where I would feel nothing and just have the procedure done to me. My doctor came in and as I expressed that she told me what I already knew in my head. That a c-section is major surgery with risks that include death and infection, complications with my uterus and weeks of recovery and that although she understands my desire for the procedure, that it is not in my best interest. Understanding this, I asked her what would happen next. She said they’d give me some Pitocin to get things going and then just wait for nature to take its course.
And so that is what happened. I asked how long it would take and she asked me how long my first labor was. I said about 12 hours with the Pitocin and so she expected it would be about half (I guess the second is about half the first) She checked me and I was already dilated to 3cm. I would have been in labor on my own very soon anyway. She broke my bag of waters and we saw that the amniotic fluid was clear. The doctor explained that she must have passed very recently because if it had even happened more than 12 hours ago, the fluid would have been greenish. I opted to run a dry tap for the epidural since I wasn’t planning on having one and with Aiden I had a bad experience of contractions on top of one another and having the anesthesiologist and nurse arguing while trying to hook me up. When I started to have more regular contractions and at the first sense of pain, they’d start the epidural medicine. So we waited and they suggested I get some sleep so I took a low dose of Ambien, which totally tripped me out, and we started the epidural and I took a nap for a couple of hours. When I woke up I was feeling some pressure so they checked me and I was fully dilated but they wanted to wait until the baby moved further down so I wouldn’t have to do any real “pushing”. We called Robert’s parents because they wanted to be here, and waited another hour.
Then, since they gave me a strong “dose” of the epidural (my doctor told the Anestiologist that she didn’t want me to be in any pain whatsoever), I couldn’t feel my legs at all and wonder how the heck I would feel enough to deliver her. But I did feel some pressure during contractions so on the next one, I’d give a gentle “push”.
After only two contractions, there she was. When she came out, it was apparent what had happened. She had wrapped her foot around the cord about six or seven times and at some point she pulled it so tight, it cut off the oxygen and blood from the cord.
She was perfectly formed-over eight pounds. The doctor said there was no muconium in the fluid and when babies are stressed, they have this. Since she didn’t have this first bowl movement, it must have happened very fast and painlessly. There was no way we could have known. It happened in an instant.
I guess in some way this was comforting to me. A few hours ago I had the thought that maybe there would be some way we could donate her organs to other babies and so we had started that process. They had entered the data into the database and were checking. At some point, there was a chance that another baby needed her heart valves. After a few hours after the delivery, they found out that too much time had passed since there was no way of knowing exactly when and the window was only 12 hours. It was after seven the next morning when she was delivered. So that was sad, but at least we tried.
Every life is precious, even before it is born. I’ll never take that for granted again. We also have to come to terms that we don’t always have control over what happens. I had done everything right. I ate right, took my vitamins, and was even doing low impact cardio up to a month before. I didn’t have high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preclampsia or any complications. I even only gained within that 25-35lb window. Well, ok, I had gained exactly 35 lbs which was exactly comparable to the 34 lbs I gained with Aiden. Every test taken came back normal, including the genetic testing they do around 18 weeks. There was no way to have foreseen this outcome and no way to prepare for it. The only thing that didn’t seem right was that afternoon/evening when I got a little concerned. I guess maybe that was some motherly intuition…I’d like to hope it was.
And so there is no moral to this story other than children are truly a gift and when that gift is taken away, there is not always a reason.