I've had a insanely busy last couple of days - last concert of the semester, finals/juries, studio party last night - and I've had little time to breathe, let alone process anything. And have been fine, right? It's not like I forget, it just becomes not in the forefront.
And then this morning I was sitting here, benignly reading an article, and thinking about how I needed to get in for a lesson again. I haven't seen this woman for over a year, and I'm not sure how much she knows, so I was thinking about the conversation I'd have to have with her: Well, I've had a pretty traumatic last twelve months. I got pregnant in March of last year and our daughter was stillborn at 36 weeks in November.
And then I lost it. DH is giving a final this morning, so it's just me here. I went in the nursery and sat on the bed (there's a full bed in there), and grabbing the little photo album we have of all of her ultrasounds (and we had a billion). I was teary, and then got to the last picture, the ultrasound shot of her one week before we lost her, that has a perfect shot of her gorgeous little nose and chin, and I just sobbed. Sometimes I go in there and just talk to her, and today it was about how my life should be so different now and it's not, and how much I miss her, and how she'll always be my little girl.
And then I rang the bell - one of my students grew up in Japan, and after Olivia died she gave us a rin (this small bowl-shaped bell) and zabuton (the cushion it sits on) - it's often used in Buddhist prayer and in memory of someone. She told us that when we're feeling down, to go and ring the bell three times, letting the sound ring, and it's a way to find peace and connection to her soul. I'm not Buddhist, but I do find comfort in it - it's just basically a form of meditation. And then I just sat in the room and talked to her more and about how I have to make her daddy fix the painting job he did in there. :)
-----------------
I also finally heard back from the internist this week - she wants me to double the iron dose I'm taking and then check back in three months. THREE MONTHS. Ugh. I should have gotten AF last weekend and still nothing, but once I've completed that (that will be round 2) I'm going to call my OB-GYN and ask what we should do. If he says we should wait until the anemia thing is better, then that's what we'll do, but argh.
Deep breaths, one day at a time. That's all I can do.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Five months.
I can't believe it's been that long. I miss her so much. I want to hold her, I want to listen to her, I want to smell her, I want to kiss her.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Last day of school.
It was our last day of classes today, thank God. Some exams and juries over the next few days but then the semester is finally over.
Our department is having its traditional end-of-the-year party this weekend and I've decided not to go. It's kind of lame, anyway, but our students tend to bring their wives and kids (remember, I live in Utah, where they marry and procreate very young as a general rule), and I know that the student whose daughter was born the same day as Olivia will bring his family, and I just can't handle that yet. It would be sad for us, it would be uncomfortable for them, and I'm not dying to go, anyway. C'est la vie.
DH had to turn in some sort of activity report - gotta love the weird academia requirements - and started looking back through his online calendar for dates of things. And then saw all of the doctor's appointments, her due date, everything. Really brought him down. I can't even imagine, thinking back over the past year - it was almost a year ago exactly this weekend that we found out we were pregnant. It also will be five months on Saturday. It will be a quiet day, I think. Luckily we have nothing going on. I'm planning on spending some time in the nursery, just sitting, and remembering her. It's going to suck.
On another crappy note, my iron levels are still crappy. Which blows. Back to the daily iron pills and hoping that my body will figure it out in a month before my next round of blood work. Our OB/GYN didn't say we had to wait until my iron levels were okay before we started TTC, but it would make me feel better. I just feel like I can't take any chances. It's weird, I've actually been feeling better the last month since I got the iron infusion, so I was hoping it was going to be okay. Alas.
I do feel like things are getting easier, though, at last mentally. We still need to go see a therapist. We're so bad. I really feel like we're handling things pretty well, but we know we need to get on that. Hopefully sometime this month we can get on that to get some different perspective.
Our department is having its traditional end-of-the-year party this weekend and I've decided not to go. It's kind of lame, anyway, but our students tend to bring their wives and kids (remember, I live in Utah, where they marry and procreate very young as a general rule), and I know that the student whose daughter was born the same day as Olivia will bring his family, and I just can't handle that yet. It would be sad for us, it would be uncomfortable for them, and I'm not dying to go, anyway. C'est la vie.
DH had to turn in some sort of activity report - gotta love the weird academia requirements - and started looking back through his online calendar for dates of things. And then saw all of the doctor's appointments, her due date, everything. Really brought him down. I can't even imagine, thinking back over the past year - it was almost a year ago exactly this weekend that we found out we were pregnant. It also will be five months on Saturday. It will be a quiet day, I think. Luckily we have nothing going on. I'm planning on spending some time in the nursery, just sitting, and remembering her. It's going to suck.
On another crappy note, my iron levels are still crappy. Which blows. Back to the daily iron pills and hoping that my body will figure it out in a month before my next round of blood work. Our OB/GYN didn't say we had to wait until my iron levels were okay before we started TTC, but it would make me feel better. I just feel like I can't take any chances. It's weird, I've actually been feeling better the last month since I got the iron infusion, so I was hoping it was going to be okay. Alas.
I do feel like things are getting easier, though, at last mentally. We still need to go see a therapist. We're so bad. I really feel like we're handling things pretty well, but we know we need to get on that. Hopefully sometime this month we can get on that to get some different perspective.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Trying to heal.
It's really amazing how quickly the body heals. Within a week of having Olivia most of the physical wounds were gone. It's like my body forgot it had a baby.
Physically, I'm mostly fine. I've been struggling with anemia since the seventh month of my pregnancy and then with the massive blood loss I suffered I'm still not back on track. I've been on pills since then and got an infusion of a gram of iron at the end of March. Did some bloodwork last week and although it's better it's still low, so something is still not right.
Emotionally....meh. It's really up and down; I expect it will be that way for a long, long time. Some days I'm fine, some days something I'm not expecting just knocks me down for the count. This could mean tears, this could mean full-blown sobbing, it could mean irrational anger. Or a combination thereof.
I'm really struggling these days with jealousy and anger towards women that have babies or are pregnant. It's not all the time - sometimes it's totally okay - but sometimes I just get so angry, and my head and heart just fill up with all of those WHYs again. Why us? Why her? But I know there is no answer to this.
I see my husband really get angry when he sees people taking it for granted - seeing a kid hanging out of a stroller, or outside without proper clothing in the cold, bitching about having to wake up for a crying child, etc. All those things we take for granted and we don't even realize it. If there can be the slimmest of tarnished silver linings in all of this, it really has made me look at my priorities - really appreciating those true gifts in my life and caring less about the things that don't matter. I simply don't have the emotional capacity to do that anymore. Besides, she's more important than any of that crap anyway.
All we can do is go one day at a time. This Saturday it will be five months....it seems like five years and five days and five minutes, all simultaneously.
Physically, I'm mostly fine. I've been struggling with anemia since the seventh month of my pregnancy and then with the massive blood loss I suffered I'm still not back on track. I've been on pills since then and got an infusion of a gram of iron at the end of March. Did some bloodwork last week and although it's better it's still low, so something is still not right.
Emotionally....meh. It's really up and down; I expect it will be that way for a long, long time. Some days I'm fine, some days something I'm not expecting just knocks me down for the count. This could mean tears, this could mean full-blown sobbing, it could mean irrational anger. Or a combination thereof.
I'm really struggling these days with jealousy and anger towards women that have babies or are pregnant. It's not all the time - sometimes it's totally okay - but sometimes I just get so angry, and my head and heart just fill up with all of those WHYs again. Why us? Why her? But I know there is no answer to this.
I see my husband really get angry when he sees people taking it for granted - seeing a kid hanging out of a stroller, or outside without proper clothing in the cold, bitching about having to wake up for a crying child, etc. All those things we take for granted and we don't even realize it. If there can be the slimmest of tarnished silver linings in all of this, it really has made me look at my priorities - really appreciating those true gifts in my life and caring less about the things that don't matter. I simply don't have the emotional capacity to do that anymore. Besides, she's more important than any of that crap anyway.
All we can do is go one day at a time. This Saturday it will be five months....it seems like five years and five days and five minutes, all simultaneously.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Memorial service.
The kicker with this is that we started writing these the day after we lost her - we felt SO strongly that we wanted to remember her life and not her death.
First are the readings that we picked, then what we wrote.
1st reading: Isaiah 25:6a, 7-9
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples.
On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples,
The web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.
The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces;
The reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken.
On that day it will be said:
"Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the Lord for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!"
The word of the Lord.
2nd reading: 1 John 3:1-2
A reading from the first Letter of Saint John:
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
The word of the Lord.
Gospel: John 14:1-6
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John:
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way."
Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The Gospel of the Lord.
Opening
A lot of you have already heard the end of the story -- the bad parts. How this was the worst thing that was ever happened to us. We aren't going to get into that today. Instead, we wanted to talk about the good parts -- how she was the best thing that ever happened to us. It occurred to us that, while we lost a daughter, our parents lost a granddaughter, our siblings lost a niece, our nephews & nieces lost a cousin, and so on. But no one but us really got a chance to get to know our little Olive. So we wanted to tell you about her.
"Turtle"
Our first nickname for her wasn't "olive" -- it was well before we knew that she was a "she", and we called her "turtle". At our first doctor's appointment, they looked at her on the ultrasound, and there she was: at 7 weeks, we could discern her body and little arm and leg buds that made her look like a swimming turtle. We saw her little heartbeat for the first time too.
"Spatula"
When people learn that you are pregnant, the first thing they ask is when the due date is. The next thing they ask is what names you're thinking about. We did have some names in mind, but didn't want to decide until she was born. So, in keeping with the modern tradition of obscure baby names, whenever someone asked we said we were naming her "Spatula Bernadine". L'il Spatchy.
"Tiny Dancer"
Some weeks later, at another appointment, they were checking her out on the ultrasound, and she was putting on a show for the nurses -- spinning and kicking and dancing in the womb. She wouldn't be her mother's daughter if she wasn't performing. We tried to encourage her artistic side by playing her Mozart and Metallica. Later, she would be serenaded by her daddy's moving a cappella, falsetto version of "Don Gato", a song he learned in elementary school. We tried not to alarm her when we yelled at the TV when watching Packers and Bears games, and reassured her that Mommy and Daddy only rooted against each other when those two teams played each other. We told ourselves that when she was older she would learn to root for the right team.
"Modesty"
It took us several more appointments to find out that she was a she. We were receiving ultrasounds every two weeks and once we reached the point where we should be able to see twig & berries, we were intently gazing at blurry white-on-gray images on the ultrasound looking for clues. It was like a medical Rorschach test, or interpreting tea leaves. Every time the goo went down on my belly, she would be turned a certain way, fidget at just the right time so that we couldn't get a clear look at the, *ahem*, parts-region. Our daughter, it seemed, was very modest, and wasn't going to show without a fight. We kept joking that she was a Baptist.
"87.5%"
After three ultrasounds where we should have been able to spot *something*, DH, being the nerd that he is, made a calculation and found that there was a 87.5% chance that it was a girl. The ultrasound techs gave a 75% chance (but don't think that was backed up by firm statistics), and our Maternal Fetal Specialist said he was "pretty sure"... but DH had numbers. At our next appointment, we got some very clear pictures -- it was indeed a girl. Pink, here we come.
"Put up your dukes. I'm tuff."
It wasn't long after that when the kicking began. And kick she did. Probably as part of her dance routine we saw the earliest versions of on ultrasound. We imagined her in a fight for space with my internal organs. "Put up your dukes," we imagined her saying to my spleen, "I'm tuff." As Olivia grew, she focused her pugilistic tendencies -- her technique having evolved to a Billy Banks-style Tae-Bo kickboxing on my bladder. I had to step in and call time every couple hours by going to the bathroom.
"Alien baby"
DH, of course, had been feeling Olivia kick ever since she first started stirring. He was well-prepared for feeling the kicks. What he wasn't as prepared for was *seeing* the kicks. We would be sitting on the couch at home, and, when looking over at me, DH would *see* my belly being pushed up, and that was freaky. I would put her cell phone on my belly and we would watch it bounce around like it was one of those new-fangled ringtones. Like there was some Alien-style monster trying to break its way out.
"NSTs"
Her stubborn streak continued. Stubbornness combined with calisthenics. We were heading into Labor & Delivery early every Tuesday morning for an NST, or Non-Stress Test. For those who don't know -- don't be fooled by the name, it was quite stressful for us. She, I'm sure, was fine. In fact, since by the time we got in there we had already had breakfast, little Olivia was up and doing her morning jumping jacks -- making it a little tricky at first to do the NST, because she kept moving. We'd find her heartbeat, and everything would be fine for a minute, or 5 seconds, and she would shift and we'd lose it, forcing a very patient nurse to move the mic around to find it again. Our first NST, which usually only needs a good 20 minutes, took about an hour. She was probably in there challenging the nurse to put up her dukes.
"Her"
The later ultrasounds we had started to show what our little girl looked like, and we started to settle on the name "Olivia". On one of our amniotic fluid check ultrasounds we had a clear shot of her hand -- DH kept it in his office because it looked like she was waving to her Daddy (or, given its bear-claw type appearance, suggesting to him which team she would choose to root for). We could see a full head of hair floating around in that amniotic fluid, and we have a great shot of the lower part of her face -- that was our last ultrasound. It wasn't until she was born that we found that she had DH's hair -- dark and curly. She had my chin and nose but DH's little upper lip divot. She was a [my last name] and a [DH's last name] and a [DH's mom's maiden name] and a [my mom's maiden name]. She was beautiful.
Closing
Olivia, being derived from the word "olive", the branch of which is the symbol of peace, means peaceful. We know that she can't be here in person, but we will always carry her in our hearts, and know she is at peace.
We'd like to end by having our cousin Becky come up and read a passage from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night".
Twelfth Night, Act One, Scene Five
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest
Between the elements of the air and earth,
But you should pity me!
First are the readings that we picked, then what we wrote.
1st reading: Isaiah 25:6a, 7-9
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples.
On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples,
The web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.
The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces;
The reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken.
On that day it will be said:
"Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the Lord for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!"
The word of the Lord.
2nd reading: 1 John 3:1-2
A reading from the first Letter of Saint John:
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
The word of the Lord.
Gospel: John 14:1-6
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John:
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way."
Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The Gospel of the Lord.
Opening
A lot of you have already heard the end of the story -- the bad parts. How this was the worst thing that was ever happened to us. We aren't going to get into that today. Instead, we wanted to talk about the good parts -- how she was the best thing that ever happened to us. It occurred to us that, while we lost a daughter, our parents lost a granddaughter, our siblings lost a niece, our nephews & nieces lost a cousin, and so on. But no one but us really got a chance to get to know our little Olive. So we wanted to tell you about her.
"Turtle"
Our first nickname for her wasn't "olive" -- it was well before we knew that she was a "she", and we called her "turtle". At our first doctor's appointment, they looked at her on the ultrasound, and there she was: at 7 weeks, we could discern her body and little arm and leg buds that made her look like a swimming turtle. We saw her little heartbeat for the first time too.
"Spatula"
When people learn that you are pregnant, the first thing they ask is when the due date is. The next thing they ask is what names you're thinking about. We did have some names in mind, but didn't want to decide until she was born. So, in keeping with the modern tradition of obscure baby names, whenever someone asked we said we were naming her "Spatula Bernadine". L'il Spatchy.
"Tiny Dancer"
Some weeks later, at another appointment, they were checking her out on the ultrasound, and she was putting on a show for the nurses -- spinning and kicking and dancing in the womb. She wouldn't be her mother's daughter if she wasn't performing. We tried to encourage her artistic side by playing her Mozart and Metallica. Later, she would be serenaded by her daddy's moving a cappella, falsetto version of "Don Gato", a song he learned in elementary school. We tried not to alarm her when we yelled at the TV when watching Packers and Bears games, and reassured her that Mommy and Daddy only rooted against each other when those two teams played each other. We told ourselves that when she was older she would learn to root for the right team.
"Modesty"
It took us several more appointments to find out that she was a she. We were receiving ultrasounds every two weeks and once we reached the point where we should be able to see twig & berries, we were intently gazing at blurry white-on-gray images on the ultrasound looking for clues. It was like a medical Rorschach test, or interpreting tea leaves. Every time the goo went down on my belly, she would be turned a certain way, fidget at just the right time so that we couldn't get a clear look at the, *ahem*, parts-region. Our daughter, it seemed, was very modest, and wasn't going to show without a fight. We kept joking that she was a Baptist.
"87.5%"
After three ultrasounds where we should have been able to spot *something*, DH, being the nerd that he is, made a calculation and found that there was a 87.5% chance that it was a girl. The ultrasound techs gave a 75% chance (but don't think that was backed up by firm statistics), and our Maternal Fetal Specialist said he was "pretty sure"... but DH had numbers. At our next appointment, we got some very clear pictures -- it was indeed a girl. Pink, here we come.
"Put up your dukes. I'm tuff."
It wasn't long after that when the kicking began. And kick she did. Probably as part of her dance routine we saw the earliest versions of on ultrasound. We imagined her in a fight for space with my internal organs. "Put up your dukes," we imagined her saying to my spleen, "I'm tuff." As Olivia grew, she focused her pugilistic tendencies -- her technique having evolved to a Billy Banks-style Tae-Bo kickboxing on my bladder. I had to step in and call time every couple hours by going to the bathroom.
"Alien baby"
DH, of course, had been feeling Olivia kick ever since she first started stirring. He was well-prepared for feeling the kicks. What he wasn't as prepared for was *seeing* the kicks. We would be sitting on the couch at home, and, when looking over at me, DH would *see* my belly being pushed up, and that was freaky. I would put her cell phone on my belly and we would watch it bounce around like it was one of those new-fangled ringtones. Like there was some Alien-style monster trying to break its way out.
"NSTs"
Her stubborn streak continued. Stubbornness combined with calisthenics. We were heading into Labor & Delivery early every Tuesday morning for an NST, or Non-Stress Test. For those who don't know -- don't be fooled by the name, it was quite stressful for us. She, I'm sure, was fine. In fact, since by the time we got in there we had already had breakfast, little Olivia was up and doing her morning jumping jacks -- making it a little tricky at first to do the NST, because she kept moving. We'd find her heartbeat, and everything would be fine for a minute, or 5 seconds, and she would shift and we'd lose it, forcing a very patient nurse to move the mic around to find it again. Our first NST, which usually only needs a good 20 minutes, took about an hour. She was probably in there challenging the nurse to put up her dukes.
"Her"
The later ultrasounds we had started to show what our little girl looked like, and we started to settle on the name "Olivia". On one of our amniotic fluid check ultrasounds we had a clear shot of her hand -- DH kept it in his office because it looked like she was waving to her Daddy (or, given its bear-claw type appearance, suggesting to him which team she would choose to root for). We could see a full head of hair floating around in that amniotic fluid, and we have a great shot of the lower part of her face -- that was our last ultrasound. It wasn't until she was born that we found that she had DH's hair -- dark and curly. She had my chin and nose but DH's little upper lip divot. She was a [my last name] and a [DH's last name] and a [DH's mom's maiden name] and a [my mom's maiden name]. She was beautiful.
Closing
Olivia, being derived from the word "olive", the branch of which is the symbol of peace, means peaceful. We know that she can't be here in person, but we will always carry her in our hearts, and know she is at peace.
We'd like to end by having our cousin Becky come up and read a passage from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night".
Twelfth Night, Act One, Scene Five
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest
Between the elements of the air and earth,
But you should pity me!
The worst twenty-four hours of my life.
Our beautiful daughter was stillborn 11/24/09 at 36 weeks - cord wrapped around her neck and knotted. There was absolutely nothing we could do. Please forgive me as I type out the whole story because I haven't done that yet and really feel like I need to.
We had a low amniotic fluid level scare and a previa scare earlier in my pregnancy, both of which resolved themselves, and everything was great. And then last Monday she just wasn't moving like I was used to.
We went to L&D Monday night and the nurse tried to find her heartbeat and then called our doctor. He came in, did an ultrasound, and nothing was happening in her perfect little ribcage - no heartbeat.
After our initial sobs, Dr. G said he would need to induce me then. They started me on Pitocin right away. Well, they tried to. Apparently my veins are thin - they had no problems finding a vein but they had a hard time getting an IV in. It's a week later and I still have four huge bruises on the insides of my forearms - took 5 sticks.
Called my mom, woke her up, cried for a long time. Both of our families live across the country. My husband tried to call his mom, couldn't get an answer. Turned out later she had gone on vacation and hadn't told us - luckily she had her cell phone and he got a hold of her the next morning.
Texted about five of my friends that night to get the grapevine going - I couldn't bear to talk to anyone besides my family. My husband drove home quickly to get phone chargers and some other things - we obviously hadn't been prepared to stay.
Got an epidural around 11AM - well, tried to, again. First time didn't work, the anesthesiologist said that he didn't have a needle long enough and that I'd have to go without. My main nurse gave him the look of death and said that that wasn't an option, so he tried again and got it. The anesthesiologist was really a douche bag - he makes an appearance later.
Epidural kicked in and we were able to nap for a little bit. My brother called and said my mom had gotten a flight and would land at the nearest major airport (150 miles away) that night at 10PM and would drive up.
Contractions continued - I had been dilated 1 cm at my previous appointment and it had been slowly expanding that morning but by 1PM I was 8 cm. They kept me on Pitocin and said they'd probably have me start pushing around 3:30 or 4.
Social services guy stops by and he’s…interesting. Has some good things to say but sort of a tool when it comes to information – he told us about a support group in town for parents who have lost infants but has no idea how to contact them. He does give us some things to think about, and then he leaves. We decide to cremate her – where we’re living is not home and I can’t bear to think about leaving her out here when we leave. We cry some more – I don’t know if we ever stop – but manage to catch a few minutes of sleep.
4PM rolls around and we start pushing – apparently I wasn’t doing it right at first (?) but got the hang of it pretty quickly as she was out in 45 minutes. They had to cut the cord just to get her out – it was wrapped that tightly – and then they found the knot and showed us. Horrible, but some closure and comfort in the fact that it wasn’t anything else – something genetic, a virus, whatever.
And she was beautiful, but frozen. No breath. Eyelids torn. Full head of curly dark hair, just like her daddy. They laid her on my chest and my husband and I just cried. They kept working on me – delivered the placenta, massaging my uterus, and something wasn’t right. I asked my husband if he wanted to hold her, and he took her. Then I started shaking.
I was still numb from the epidural but they kept pushing on my uterus and I was shivering and didn’t know why. I asked and they said my uterus wasn’t clamping down like it should and I kept bleeding. I remember thinking that I just wanted them to leave so I could be with my husband and daughter and just mourn by ourselves.
I was shivering because they were pumping me full of fluid because I was losing so much blood – there wasn’t time for them to warm it up. My husband told me later that Dr. G was just pulling clots out of me right and left. They kept giving me some kind of shot in my leg and told me they’d tell me about the side effects later. Apparently those side effects included vomiting, because all of a sudden I had to do that into some creepy blue bag, and all that came up was medicine and water. A couple of other nurses came in to take some blood, which in retrospect seems weird because they ended up giving me two pints of blood. My husband said they all just looked so worried because I just kept bleeding, and he was terrified.
Then they said it was getting better and I was bleeding less, but Dr. G said they wanted to take me to surgery for a D&C to be safe and if I continued to bleed he might have to do a hysterectomy. I couldn’t even comprehend that at that moment – my baby is dead and now you might have to take my uterus? They started rolling me out of the room – I couldn’t even catch my husband’s eye, just said “I love you” as I was rolled out, and he was left standing there, holding our precious, still daughter, thinking he could lose me too.
The nurses run down the hall with me to surgery and then they leave. I don’t know any of these nurses and they don’t know me – one of them asks me my name. I respond, but they can’t hear me because my voice is shot from crying for the last 12 hours. I’m still violently shaking from all of the cold fluid and they cover my upper half with a couple of heated blankets. Douche bag anesthesiologist comes back in the room and slams an oxygen mask on my head, not fitting it on my face and getting the band stuck in my hair. I said ow, or something, and he says, “Women and their hair.” I’m not joking. I end up fixing the mask on my face before they strap my arms down. I’m trying to ask questions but they don’t hear me through the mask and I feel like no one is listening. Luckily I’m still numb from the epidural so they decide not to give me more anesthesia. Dr. G comes in and introduces another doctor to me who will assist him. I’m so cold and so tired and am in and out for the next period of time – I don’t even know how long it was.
When they did the D&C they were able to fix everything so no hysterectomy was necessary, thank God. The nurses roll me into a recovery room where they’re going to set me up with some antibiotics, and leave me with two nurses whom I’ll call Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Dr. G stops by quickly, lets me know what’s going on and says he’s going to go fill in my husband and spend a little time with him and my baby – and he keeps calling her by her name, which I appreciate.
They see the bruises on my arms but are reluctant to add another port to my current IV as I’m still on Pitocin until it runs out (it was helping my uterus clamp down) so they decide they want to try to start another IV. I’m still freezing so they give me some more heated blankets. I’m thirsty and ask them for ice chips, and they each start working on an arm trying to stick me. They both fail the first time. I ask again for some ice chips (hadn’t gotten any yet), they each try again and fail. Then the Pitocin runs out so they decide to just add a port with the antibiotic. Yeah, thanks for that.
They finally roll me back down the hall to my room (which is now a different room) and there’s my husband, just sitting there, holding our daughter. He hadn’t set her down the entire time – just sang to her, rocked her, and waited for me. He sat down next to my bed and I finally got to hold her again. She was still just wrapped in a blanket, covered in vernix – the nurses had told us they wouldn’t clean her until we told them to. So we call in the nurse and she brings a CNA with her and they begin to clean her with baby oil. They ask us if we want pictures, and we decide against it. The CNA is the one who does footprints and handprints in addition to doing casts of the hands and feet so she does that and then finishes cleaning Olivia up and washes her hair. They found a little outfit and blanket so she dressed her and then brought her to us and we cried some more – I will never, ever forget that perfect little head of hair, her sweet chin, her lips with the cute little divot above the top lip that my husband has. We really did make a gorgeous kid – and so big! Over seven and a half pounds and twenty inches long at 36 weeks.
We just sat there for awhile and cried – loved her, cradled her, caressed her, and then decided it was time for us to let her go. We called the nurse and told her what funeral home we wanted and that we wanted to cremate her. The nurse said she’d call, picked up Olivia, put her in the crib, and rolled her out. And then we both sobbed like our hearts were about to break.
We had a low amniotic fluid level scare and a previa scare earlier in my pregnancy, both of which resolved themselves, and everything was great. And then last Monday she just wasn't moving like I was used to.
We went to L&D Monday night and the nurse tried to find her heartbeat and then called our doctor. He came in, did an ultrasound, and nothing was happening in her perfect little ribcage - no heartbeat.
After our initial sobs, Dr. G said he would need to induce me then. They started me on Pitocin right away. Well, they tried to. Apparently my veins are thin - they had no problems finding a vein but they had a hard time getting an IV in. It's a week later and I still have four huge bruises on the insides of my forearms - took 5 sticks.
Called my mom, woke her up, cried for a long time. Both of our families live across the country. My husband tried to call his mom, couldn't get an answer. Turned out later she had gone on vacation and hadn't told us - luckily she had her cell phone and he got a hold of her the next morning.
Texted about five of my friends that night to get the grapevine going - I couldn't bear to talk to anyone besides my family. My husband drove home quickly to get phone chargers and some other things - we obviously hadn't been prepared to stay.
Got an epidural around 11AM - well, tried to, again. First time didn't work, the anesthesiologist said that he didn't have a needle long enough and that I'd have to go without. My main nurse gave him the look of death and said that that wasn't an option, so he tried again and got it. The anesthesiologist was really a douche bag - he makes an appearance later.
Epidural kicked in and we were able to nap for a little bit. My brother called and said my mom had gotten a flight and would land at the nearest major airport (150 miles away) that night at 10PM and would drive up.
Contractions continued - I had been dilated 1 cm at my previous appointment and it had been slowly expanding that morning but by 1PM I was 8 cm. They kept me on Pitocin and said they'd probably have me start pushing around 3:30 or 4.
Social services guy stops by and he’s…interesting. Has some good things to say but sort of a tool when it comes to information – he told us about a support group in town for parents who have lost infants but has no idea how to contact them. He does give us some things to think about, and then he leaves. We decide to cremate her – where we’re living is not home and I can’t bear to think about leaving her out here when we leave. We cry some more – I don’t know if we ever stop – but manage to catch a few minutes of sleep.
4PM rolls around and we start pushing – apparently I wasn’t doing it right at first (?) but got the hang of it pretty quickly as she was out in 45 minutes. They had to cut the cord just to get her out – it was wrapped that tightly – and then they found the knot and showed us. Horrible, but some closure and comfort in the fact that it wasn’t anything else – something genetic, a virus, whatever.
And she was beautiful, but frozen. No breath. Eyelids torn. Full head of curly dark hair, just like her daddy. They laid her on my chest and my husband and I just cried. They kept working on me – delivered the placenta, massaging my uterus, and something wasn’t right. I asked my husband if he wanted to hold her, and he took her. Then I started shaking.
I was still numb from the epidural but they kept pushing on my uterus and I was shivering and didn’t know why. I asked and they said my uterus wasn’t clamping down like it should and I kept bleeding. I remember thinking that I just wanted them to leave so I could be with my husband and daughter and just mourn by ourselves.
I was shivering because they were pumping me full of fluid because I was losing so much blood – there wasn’t time for them to warm it up. My husband told me later that Dr. G was just pulling clots out of me right and left. They kept giving me some kind of shot in my leg and told me they’d tell me about the side effects later. Apparently those side effects included vomiting, because all of a sudden I had to do that into some creepy blue bag, and all that came up was medicine and water. A couple of other nurses came in to take some blood, which in retrospect seems weird because they ended up giving me two pints of blood. My husband said they all just looked so worried because I just kept bleeding, and he was terrified.
Then they said it was getting better and I was bleeding less, but Dr. G said they wanted to take me to surgery for a D&C to be safe and if I continued to bleed he might have to do a hysterectomy. I couldn’t even comprehend that at that moment – my baby is dead and now you might have to take my uterus? They started rolling me out of the room – I couldn’t even catch my husband’s eye, just said “I love you” as I was rolled out, and he was left standing there, holding our precious, still daughter, thinking he could lose me too.
The nurses run down the hall with me to surgery and then they leave. I don’t know any of these nurses and they don’t know me – one of them asks me my name. I respond, but they can’t hear me because my voice is shot from crying for the last 12 hours. I’m still violently shaking from all of the cold fluid and they cover my upper half with a couple of heated blankets. Douche bag anesthesiologist comes back in the room and slams an oxygen mask on my head, not fitting it on my face and getting the band stuck in my hair. I said ow, or something, and he says, “Women and their hair.” I’m not joking. I end up fixing the mask on my face before they strap my arms down. I’m trying to ask questions but they don’t hear me through the mask and I feel like no one is listening. Luckily I’m still numb from the epidural so they decide not to give me more anesthesia. Dr. G comes in and introduces another doctor to me who will assist him. I’m so cold and so tired and am in and out for the next period of time – I don’t even know how long it was.
When they did the D&C they were able to fix everything so no hysterectomy was necessary, thank God. The nurses roll me into a recovery room where they’re going to set me up with some antibiotics, and leave me with two nurses whom I’ll call Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Dr. G stops by quickly, lets me know what’s going on and says he’s going to go fill in my husband and spend a little time with him and my baby – and he keeps calling her by her name, which I appreciate.
They see the bruises on my arms but are reluctant to add another port to my current IV as I’m still on Pitocin until it runs out (it was helping my uterus clamp down) so they decide they want to try to start another IV. I’m still freezing so they give me some more heated blankets. I’m thirsty and ask them for ice chips, and they each start working on an arm trying to stick me. They both fail the first time. I ask again for some ice chips (hadn’t gotten any yet), they each try again and fail. Then the Pitocin runs out so they decide to just add a port with the antibiotic. Yeah, thanks for that.
They finally roll me back down the hall to my room (which is now a different room) and there’s my husband, just sitting there, holding our daughter. He hadn’t set her down the entire time – just sang to her, rocked her, and waited for me. He sat down next to my bed and I finally got to hold her again. She was still just wrapped in a blanket, covered in vernix – the nurses had told us they wouldn’t clean her until we told them to. So we call in the nurse and she brings a CNA with her and they begin to clean her with baby oil. They ask us if we want pictures, and we decide against it. The CNA is the one who does footprints and handprints in addition to doing casts of the hands and feet so she does that and then finishes cleaning Olivia up and washes her hair. They found a little outfit and blanket so she dressed her and then brought her to us and we cried some more – I will never, ever forget that perfect little head of hair, her sweet chin, her lips with the cute little divot above the top lip that my husband has. We really did make a gorgeous kid – and so big! Over seven and a half pounds and twenty inches long at 36 weeks.
We just sat there for awhile and cried – loved her, cradled her, caressed her, and then decided it was time for us to let her go. We called the nurse and told her what funeral home we wanted and that we wanted to cremate her. The nurse said she’d call, picked up Olivia, put her in the crib, and rolled her out. And then we both sobbed like our hearts were about to break.
Why I write.
The background: I'm 32, married to my soulmate. We got pregnant in March of 2009 after only trying for a few months. It was not a difficult pregnancy, despite some concerns with placenta previa, morbid obesity and depression. But it all came crashing down the night of November 23, 2009, when we went into L&D because our precious daughter had been quiet all day and they couldn't find her heartbeat. She was stillborn the next afternoon, with the cord wrapped so tightly around her head and neck that they had to cut it to get her out, in addition to a true knot. She was gorgeous, perfect in every other way, and at 36 weeks, HUGE. 7lbs, 7oz, 20 inches long.
I miss her desperately - I wish I could find words that really, truly described it accurately. There are times that I just feel so empty. So guilty even though logically I know there was nothing I could have done better. I can't hear a baby cry without feeling like the bottom is dropping out of my world.
And worse yet, a student of mine had a perfect little daughter the same day we lost ours. I never saw him at the hospital although my husband did. The few times I've seen his daughter have been the more horrifying, gut-wrenching, heart-squeezing moments that I've ever experienced.
I am trying so hard just to get through every day. I feel like most times I'm succeeding. I just keep telling myself I have to go on being her mom - the same crazy, smartass woman I would have been if she was here or not. She deserves no less - I owe that to her. But that's much easier to say (or write) than do some some days.
Thanks for reading.
I miss her desperately - I wish I could find words that really, truly described it accurately. There are times that I just feel so empty. So guilty even though logically I know there was nothing I could have done better. I can't hear a baby cry without feeling like the bottom is dropping out of my world.
And worse yet, a student of mine had a perfect little daughter the same day we lost ours. I never saw him at the hospital although my husband did. The few times I've seen his daughter have been the more horrifying, gut-wrenching, heart-squeezing moments that I've ever experienced.
I am trying so hard just to get through every day. I feel like most times I'm succeeding. I just keep telling myself I have to go on being her mom - the same crazy, smartass woman I would have been if she was here or not. She deserves no less - I owe that to her. But that's much easier to say (or write) than do some some days.
Thanks for reading.
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