So small, So sweet, So soon

I should be 26 wks pregnant this coming Wednesday but instead I delivered my baby at 16 wks on November 20, 2011. It is as though it was yesterday. I remember everthing so vividly and when I go to bed at night, the two things I see when I close my eyes are the ultra-sound monitor in triage and me looking down as my baby slid out of my body.

I was taken to a private room in which I was told later that there was a sign on my door with a leaf with rain drops...a sign to let the hospital staff know my baby had died. Ya know, so they wouldn't be-bop into my room with bounce in their step along with a cheerful voice saying "hellllooo, how are we doing today". No, when the nurses entered MY room, they entered with caution saying "i'm so sorry, how can we help you, is there anything we can do for you"...almost in a whisper.

I had told the nurse in triage that I wanted more us pics of the baby so once I was taken to my room I demanded to have an us machine brought in---I wanted to make sure they didn't forget. Dr. Horlander was still on call and as much as I wanted ((my)) ob (dr. schweichler) there, it was a blessing that Dr. Horlander was there. She was sweet, understanding, and reassured me that although this was a sad day, it was a beautiful day. She shared her story with me as she had been through the same thing at 15 wks, she let me ask her questions about what she did, whether or not she chose to do what I was doing, and she held my hand. Pure compassion! She took some us pics for me, all the while telling Jay and I how perfect our baby was, asking "who has the sleds in the family" as our baby's feet looked huge on the monitor. There were a few chuckles here and there as I replied "that would be me! when i was born, my uncle told my mom i was all feet"!  We tried to lighten things up a bit but as much as we tried,  it was heartbreaking to look at the monitor and see my little miracle laying there, inside my belly, not moving, not flopping around, no heartbeat....all the while wondering why, what went wrong, what did I do to cause this.

One of my best friends, Kelly, was with me and stayed with me the entire day. I was sort of in a daze as she finally talked Jay into going home to change clothes....he didn't want to leave my side, afraid of the "what if's". He kissed me goodbye and not long after he left the room I told Kelly I wanted to see the baby again, I guess one could say I wanted to see if the baby was really gone.  I could tell Kelly knew what I was wanting but she didn't say anything as she slowly rolled the us machine over to my bed. She turned the monitor on, moved the wand over my belly and I stared, watching, waiting...waiting for my baby to move. "did you see that", I asked Kelly. She looked at me and said "yes, i saw it"....I wanted my baby to wake up and when it moved, my heart skipped a beat but Kelly then reminded me that I had already taken the meds to start inducing labor and that the baby was slowly moving down to prepare for delivery. I sat back on my pillow and savored the moment...a moment I will never get back and as I did this, my baby moved further down into my belly and an arm swayed across the monitor in slow motion, it took my breath away.

The meds were started by mouth at 1:30pm, I was told I would experience some cramping and when the cramping became so intense that I felt I couldn't take it anymore then I could have an epidural. I hadn't experienced anything within 3-4 hours of the nurse giving me the meds and I was completely fine with that. I wanted to take in every minute of my baby being in my belly that I possibly could, the time would come soon enough and my womb would be empty. Kelly and I sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity as she had told me earlier she just didn't know what to say. What do you say to someone who has lost a child? I went through this a few months earlier with a friend who had to make the hardest decision a parent could possibly make...turn the ventilator off. Her baby was only a few months old. I attended the visitation with the only words a person knows to say when someone dies... "i'm sorry", not knowing that those would be the very words I would be hearing soon.

It was a horrible feeling knowing that each time the nurse came in to give me more meds that the outcome was going to be a dead human being. Jay had come back to the hospital and although he and Kelly were both with me, I felt alone. I couldn't wrap my mind around what was about to happen let alone the fact that Jay and I needed to decide on what to do with the baby after the delivery.  Time seemed to creep by. All I could think about during this time was that I had just been to see Dr. Schweichler on Thursday...just ((three)) days earlier and she had told us the heartbeat sounded great. We didn't have an us due to the fact that we had one the month before and everything looked great then as well.  I had gotten the flu shot that day so I began to wonder if that did something to the baby, had I layed the wrong way, too much tossing and turning, I was trying to come up with something, anything but there was nothing. Around 8:30/9:00 I began to cramp, labor I guess...I had no clue what labor was as I had had a c-section with Jayden. I laid there on my left side, covered up, shivering, breathing those labor breaths and waiting. Jay held my hand while Kelly rubbed my back. I'm not sure what time it was but I'm thinking it was around 10pm that I finally decided I wanted the epidural. When the anesthesiologist arrived after what seemed like forever,  Jay and Kelly were asked to leave the room. I remember that as soon as the epidural was in, the nurse laid me back on the bed and I told the nurse "i feel somthing". She replied with "that's normal with an epidural" to which I promptly told her "NO, I FEEL SOMETHING, I THINK THE BABY IS COMING" as I leaned up, looked down and watched my baby girl arrive into this world......sleeping.