February 1st started out like every other day had. I woke up, had my morning vitals taken, and ate a breakfast of pancakes with syrup and eggs. Normally, this is one of Ellison's favorite breakfasts. I had asked my nurse if we could do our morning monitoring a little earlier because I knew my sister in law was coming to visit with her three boys.
The nurse hooked me up to the monitor around 8:30 - I had to lay somewhat still for both the heartrate and contraction monitoring. I usually liked to listen to her heartbeat go all over the place like it did after I ate pancakes. The monitoring seemed to go fairly fine. I did notice that she dipped down below 120 for a little bit before going right back up. She was also hovering closer to 130 that morning, rather than her usual 140s. However, she was moving and swishing around, so I thought it was strange but OK. After an hour, the nurse came back in and said everything looked great - great accelerations as usual. I told her I had worried a little bit about the dip but she said everything was fine. I figured maybe she was just sleeping more than usual. This is where I have the hardest time with my guilt. I guess I should have known then that something was going to go wrong. Even the nurse and doctor assured me she looked great.
I showered and got ready for my visitors. My nephews came bearing handmade cards and a present. Cards talking about how they couldn't wait to meet their baby cousin. It was a good visit, and they left shortly before lunch. I had had an IV site change the night before because the one they had replaced had gotten a little warm to the touch, achy, and red. The doctor had marked the boundaries just to be safe and had said it was most likely some sort of thrombosis (or tissue bruising) from the IV site giving out. She had ordered an ultrasound of my veins just to be sure there were no clots. Now I was just waiting for that and my lunch.
As my lunch was brought, a good friend of mine and his son had come to visit. Right about that time, the tech showed up for my ultrasound. My friends stepped out, and the tech looked at my veins for about 10 minutes. Everything looked perfect - no signs of clots, blood flow was perfect. She left, and my friends came back in. While we were chatting, my Mom and Dad walked in. For the next 2 hours we all visited and talked and traded stories. It was a nice time.
Around 2:30ish they left, and I again was alone in my room. I started thinking to myself that I hadn't felt Ellison move that much after lunch. I figured she was finally napping. So I decided to eat a few squares of chocolate, change positions, and give her a few pokes. After about 5 minutes of poking and moving around, I still hadn't felt her respond. I decided to call the nurse just to check on her. The nurse came in and hooked up the sensor. For what seemed like 5 minutes she kept moving the sensor around, and wasn't getting anything. She went out and got another nurse and a handheld ultrasound. They assured me that sometimes the baby's position makes it difficult to find a heartbeat. Again, I immediately knew. Something was just not right. Both nurses tried to find that heartbeat, but nothing. They told me they would call for a nurse from Labor and Delivery who would hook me up to the large ultrasound. I immediately felt my heart drop.
As that nurse came up and checked, they couldn't be sure if they had caught her heartbeat during their checks and decided to wheel me down to L&D to check on the big machine. As I waited for the wheelchair, I just knew that she was gone. I prayed that she would just wake up, but I think I sensed it was too late. I called my Mom, knowing Doug was asleep, and told her to come back immediately - that they couldn't find a heartbeat. I felt as if I was in some alternate universe watching these things go down.
They wheeled me down to a room in L&D. I remember thinking where is the doctor? Why is she not moving faster? After what seemed like an eternity, she came in and introduced herself as the OB hospitalist. She placed the gel on my abdomen, and began her scan. There it was plain as day - my lifeless little girl and a void of movement from where her heart was. It was just a black void. I immediately went into shock - how could this be? She had been alive at 9:40, and now around 3, she was silent. I felt a heaviness in my abdomen - a crushing heaviness. How could this have happened? Wasn't I in the hospital to protect her? I had failed her. I broke down uncontrollably. I felt my heart literally break into pieces.
The nurses around me were all crying with me. They saw this devastation firsthand. My Mom finally arrived, and I told her that Ellison was gone through my sobs. She also was in disbelief and shock. She asked the doctor to see for herself. I think she was hoping that maybe it was a fluke and her little heart would be beating again. Again, the doctor scanned and again, I witnessed the lifeless void from where Ellie's heart should have been beating away as it had this morning. I told my Mom that I wished it would have been my heart, not hers. I told God that I wanted to trade places - I just wanted her to live. Why not take me and let her have life? I feverishly tried calling Doug's cell phone and paging him...I needed him. I had told Mom to send Dad over to the house to wake him up. Finally, Doug called saying my Dad was there and he was on the way.
They had paged the on-call doctor to come back to the hospital. Everyone was in shock. They all tried to assure me that I had done nothing wrong and had done everything I could for her - this was just an unexplainable tragedy. But as her mother, I take the full blame for her outcome. I had failed her - I had failed to protect her. It was my sole responsibility to keep her safe, and I had not. I jumped from extreme emotions - anger, guilt, unimaginable sadness. Why was this happening? Someone had to be to blame - God, the doctors, me. Why was my little girl gone? If we had just taken her that morning, she would be alive and well.....
Doug finally arrived and I had to tell him through sobs that our baby was gone. He didn't believe me. The on-call doctor had arrived and she too was crying. She was in disbelief. She did another scan, and Doug saw that our little girl was no longer there. We both hugged each other and cried. The doctor explained our options. Because my cervix was so long and not ready for labor, she could induce me which would probably take anywhere from 36-48 hours or more to deliver her and I'd have to endure the delivery. Or I could opt for a c-section that could be done as early as 8 pm which would allow the doctor to see if a membrane from the vasa previa had ruptured or if anything apparent had caused Ellie's demise. Or I could go home for the night and think about it. My decision was easy - c-section. The physical pain did not worry me - all the pain in the world would have been bearable just to bring her back. I did not believe I could endure the emotional process of the delivery for up to 2 whole days. The thought of going home with my baby girl laying in my abdomen, lifeless, was just unfathomable. I needed to hold her as soon as possible - wake up from this dream I was sure I was having. Perhaps get some answers as to what had gone wrong.
We were told about the surgery, the recovery process, and what would happen to our little girl. We were told we had options and decisions to make about handling her arrangements, but these did not have to be made now. We were told that we could see her and spend time with her for as long as we wanted. There was no question - I had to see her. I had to see for my own eyes that she was truly gone. My brother and sister-in-law arrived - and we all cried. I felt numb. My childhood youth pastor, and the pastor who married Doug and I, hurried up to the hospital. There was nothing to say - nothing that could be said, other than why had this happened? Why did Doug and I have to lose our baby? We were just 17 days away from hearing and seeing her. Did God hate us? Why did he have to take all of our happiness all the time?
They prepped me for surgery and 8 pm could not get there soon enough. They wheeled me to the operating room, gave me a spinal epidural, and prepared for the surgery. When they were ready, they allowed my Mom and Doug in to the room. The whole time I just couldn't believe what was happening. I kept praying to just take me instead. Finally, I felt pressure, and she was taken out at 2057 hrs. Nothing - no crying, no excitement, nothing. After a few minutes, a crying nurse handed her to me all wrapped up. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She looked so perfect. I kept thinking she would just open her little eyes and let out a cry. But it never happened. Both Doug and my Mom held her and then she was given back to the nurse so that she could get measurements and clean her up more.
They finished up their surgery. The doctor told me that she did not see any rupture of the membrane, no apparent cord kink. everything looked anatomically perfect, and that the placenta appeared textbook. She did not have any answers for me as to what had gone wrong. She said she would come back to see me after I was settled back into my room. I was wheeled back to my room - without my baby. The nurse said that the social worker was there and would dress Ellison, get a handprint/footprints, and take pictures for us to have, but that we could see her first. Once we were back in the room, Ellison was brought in to us.
They placed her in my arms, and I just cried. She looked so perfect. We had made such a beautiful baby. She had blond highlights in her hair, just like I had when I was born. She had the cutest pudgy cheeks. She had the Burton forehead just like Doug. She had his nose and chin butt. She had my lips. She had such long fingers - like I had at birth. Her toes were shaped just like mine. She was 4 lbs. 13 oz., and 17.5 inches long. Her head alone was 12 inches around and the nurse said that they couldn't use a preemie hat for her because she fit into a regular newborn's hat. I had done such a good job beefing her up and getting her to such a healthy weight. But all of that just didn't matter because her spirit was no longer inside of her little body. I just rubbed her cheeks and continuously kissed her forehead, holding her little fingers, trying to keep telling her how much I loved her. Doug and my Mom each took their turns holding and caressing her. It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life. I had to send her back so that they could get her dressed and ready for pictures.
The doctor came back in and said that the surgery had gone well. Anatomically, everything inside of me looked fine. She had no answers as to what had happened to Ellison. The only possible conclusion that could be made is that there had been a cord accident of some kind. Possibly Ellison's positioning had made her compress one of the exposed fetal membranes due to the vasa previa. But there had been no bleeding, no signs of clotting, nothing. We could opt for an autopsy, but the doctor basically concurred that this would most likely be inconclusive as well, and we'd still be left wondering. It was just some freak, unexplainable act of nature that took our baby from us. An unexplainable tragedy.
Ellison was brought back in wearing a cute little pink outfit with a beautiful hand knit sweater and hat. We again held her for some time and kissed her. We had her baptized and we all prayed. We had made such a pretty baby and she was taken from us. We said our goodbyes and her body was taken away for good. All that remained of our beautiful Ellison Ann were the imprinted images of her pretty face, and a butterfly box of mementos given to us by the social worker. Inside of the butterfly box were the pictures they had taken of her for us, the outfit she had been wearing, a blanket they had wrapped her in, the towel they had wrapped her in, a handprint, her footprints, a few locks of her hair, and the tape they had measured her with. They had made a mold of her footprints inside of a shell and handed it to us. We added the shell that our minister had used to pour the baptism water over her head with.
We signed some paperwork asking for a certificate of her birth and for copies of the official hospital photos that were taken by a photographer. Then we were eventually returned to the room I had been staying in the whole time I had been in the hospital. I had asked my Mom to remove the decorations from that room earlier - there was no longer anything to celebrate. My heart was now forever broken, and incomplete. I was left lying in a bed, with a cut across my abdomen, and a still pregnant looking body. A further insult to injury. My child was gone, and to be honest, so was I. I laid there not knowing if she ever really knew how much I loved her and how proud I was to be her mother. And now, I will never be the same.
-This is all I can write at the moment. Again I apologize if this is too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment