Wednesday, September 29, 2010



Angie
Mom to
Tred, born still on June 5, 2008 at 21 weeks
Talya, born still on April 10, 2009 at 38 weeks
Twin Cities, Minnesota
 
I have had 3 healthy pregnancies so having any problems with pregnancy was never something we thought about. We found out I was pregnant in January of 2008 and at the time my husband was in a job transition so we didn't have insurance. I thought it had been a while since I had my AF so I went to the store and bought a home kit and it was positive, I also went to the free local clinic and took a test and that also was positive. I was so excited! We weren't trying but the surprise is always a welcome one. I called my DH at work and said "Are you sitting down". I told him "We're pregnant". He couldn't believe it. He was excited and scared as I was. We weren't trying and it just happened. This has happened with all of our pregnancies except one. I started my prenatal vitamins and was on cloud 9 because I was going to have another baby!! I loved being pregnant!!

As time went on we slowly started to tell friends and family that we were having a 4th. Holy buckets, I was going to have another baby. I went on ebay and craigslist to find maternity clothes, baby clothes and then of course I was determined to breastfeed. I went online and was looking at cover-ups. I found a beautiful green one that was for both boys and girls. DH and I decided this would be our last baby because we were running out of bedrooms for the kids.
 
I had my first appointment with a Nurse practitioner at a new clinic. I switched OBGYN's because of the drive time; I wanted a shorter drive time as I had to schedule appointments around my husband’s job and children’s sports. My appt. was on Tuesday April 8th at 9:30am. We had insurance and everything was good. My LMP I was already 3 months pregnant. Everything was going great. On Wednesday April 23rd I found out I was exposed to Fifths disease (parvovirus). I was in a panic, but my sister and husband thought things were fine since I was exposed to it when my 2 year old had it and once you've caught it, you can't get it again. Well, I called my OB and they wanted me to come in and have lab work done. I wasn't able to do it during the day because of my work so I went to my general practitioner's office in the evening to have the lab work done. I had to wait a few days for the results but on Saturday I already knew what they were. I had developed the rash that is consistent with Fifths disease. I got my lab results back on Monday and my OB decided it would be beneficial to see a high risk OB to have ultrasounds done to make sure our baby didn't catch the virus.
 
My next OB visit was on Tuesday May 6th with my new OB clinic. The dr. was so nice and very informative. She said that when I go to the high risk dr. that they would keep her up-to-date as to what the ultrasound results are. My First Ultrasound was on May 18 at the ER. I took a shower around 11:30 because I couldn't sleep. When I got out of the shower I noticed I was bleeding. I was admitted to L&D and they did an ultrasound and everything was fine. They had no idea why I was bleeding and since it stopped they send me home. We also found out we were having a boy. DH was so excited that he already had a named picked out. He told me the name and I was all for it. It was an unusual name but not too far off the wall. All of our children have unique names so we were pretty excited to name our son Tred.
 
I had my first high-risk ultrasound on Tuesday May 20th. Everything was fine but they wanted me to come in every week to keep an eye on the baby. The dr.s main concern was to keep an eye on fetal hydrops that could develop in babies that are exposed to Fifths disease. I was still scared but it seemed to be fine. I went on-line and purchased tons of clothes. I was now set for our baby boy to come home. I was scheduled to have another ultrasound on Tuesday April 27th but it my oldest sons field trip and I wanted to go along with him. We reschedule the ultrasound for Wednesday May 28th. The ultrasound revealed our worst fear; he was developing fluid around his organs (fetal hydrops). He had fluid in his abdomen as well as small amounts of fluid around his heart and kidney. They scheduled me for another ultrasound on Thursday April 29th to see if things were getting worse.
 
The next day came by pretty fast and we had our ultrasound and it was for certain, the hydrops had gotten worse. The fluid in his abdomen had gotten worse. It was also getting worse around his heart and now their were signs in his head and neck. We were scheduled for Tred to have a blood transfusion on May 30th. He was so small and his gestational age was 20 weeks and 4 days. The dr.s were very certain that he would be fine after the transfusion and we would have a follow-up ultrasound on Monday June 2nd if things looked better. If they didn't look better we would have another transfusion on Tuesday June 3rd.
 
We went into the office on Friday May 30th at 2:00 to have the transfusion. I was crying out of fear. Not only fear for myself but fear that things could go wrong with out son. The dr.s had to use the ultrasound machine to see where Tred was. He was so small they decided to fill the abdomen with the blood and then on Tuesday if he needed another transfusion they would go through the umbilical cord. His umbilical cord was so small that they wanted to wait a week to see if it got a bit bigger. The dr stuck the needle in my belly, through my uterus and into the amniotic fluid. Our baby boy moved so they had to take the needle out and try again. It was so painful for me I could only imagine the pain for our baby. The second attempt was great. They did it all and the needle was in our baby's belly and filling with blood. You could see the blood taking over the fluid; it was just what they wanted. It worked great, we were one day closer to having our healthy baby. I was told to take it easy all weekend and not lift anything over 5 lbs. I rested as much as I could being we have 3 active children in sports.
 
Monday June 2nd came and the whole day was very nerve racking. I check in at the dr. for my 3:45 ultrasound confidant that things were good. This day will be in my memory forever. Greg was working so we thought it was fine for me to go to the ultrasound alone, because, well our baby would be fine. I walked in, laid down and got ready for the ultrasound. She put the jell and wand on my bell and I knew immediately, I saw nothing. No heartbeat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She swept around my belly and then delivered the devastating news. I'm sorry your baby has passed. I need to get the dr. and do a few more scans. She handed me some tissue and then left to tell the dr. The silence was horrible and not to mention Treds lifeless ultrasound was still a picture on the tv.
 
The ultrasound tech came back in the room to me in tears. She said she was sorry and rubbed my arm and asked if she could continue taking pictures of our baby boy. She stated they had to do this for their paperwork. She said she was going to have the dr. and nurse come in to talk to me. She left the room and I just broke down again staring at the tv screen. HOW COUD THIS HAPPEN TO US. I was a wreck. I sat in the chair thinking I was in a dream. I just heard his heartbeat on Friday, how could he be gone.
 
The dr. that did the transfusion, the nurse, the ultrasound tech and another dr. came in to offer their condolences and help me through what to do. I didn't hear a thing. I didn't want to hear anything. They asked if I wanted to stay or to leave. I wanted to leave, I wanted out of that place and never wanted to return. I called Greg before I left and called him in hysterics. He asked what was wrong and I told him, "he died". We were both silent and then he said "WHAT", and I broke down. I said "he died, he doesn't have a heartbeat." We talked for a bit and we decided that is was best for Greg to go on with the night because our oldest son had baseball. I left the dr.s office with some pregnancy loss paper work which was really hard to have in my hands. I left the dr. office and it seemed to take forever. Everything was so different now. I was more aware of my surroundings. When I pulled up in the driveway, Greg ran out to me and we stood there and hugged and cried. We told the kids and it didn't really set in for them right away. They weren't sure what to say or do but I really didn't expect them to know as I didn't know either.
 
I went to the dr. on Wednesday June 4th at 2:00 to have Dilateria, a laminaria by product, put into my cervix to help soften it to get it ready for labor. It was painful. One thing I didn't want is physical pain on top of emotional pain. I had some slight cramping so I pretty much stayed in bed the rest of the night as we were scheduled for our induction at the hospital at 8:00 Thursday morning.
 
We were told to be at the labor and delivery department at 8:00. The nurse came and got us at about 8:45 and we had to walk right by the nursery which was just gut wrenching. At 10:00a.m. they put some pills near my cervix to help it continue to dilate. Every 4 hours they had to repeat this. I wasn't sure what time it was but the contractions and back pain started and I asked for an epidural. I wanted this to go as painless as possible. After 8 failed attempts at sticking that damn needle in my back, the 9th time was a charm. It was working, the pain was gone. I could still feel a bit of feeling in my feet and I could move my legs but the back pain was gone.
 
At about 11:00pm I could feel some pressure. The dr. came in and said the pressure was my bag of water. She broke my water and said we could either push him out or let my body do the pushing. I looked at Greg and said "what do I do". I really didn't know what to do. I wasn't ready for this to happen. I wasn't ready. Greg really wasn't ready to make the decision either but I really wanted to see Tred. I choose to push and it took 2 pushes and Tred Paul was born still at 11:11 pm. He was 12 oz. and 9 1/2 inches long. The nurse asked if I wanted to see him and I said yes, of course I do. He was just beautiful. He had so many features that we saw in the other children. We had the Hospital Chaplain come in and bless him and the Chaplain talked with us for a while and she prayed for us to get our faith back because of my anger towards God. We didn't sleep at all. We took catnaps but not a good sleep. I was afraid that if I didn't look at him constantly, I would forget what he looks like. If I wasn't holding him I was looking at him. The next day we had pictures taken from Now I Lay me Down to Sleep. The photographer was wonderful. She was so respectful of us and our little boy. At 3:30 we were as ready as we could have been to leave. I had such a hard time leaving without out baby.

We were leaving the room and I kissed Tred on the forehead and said I love you as we walked out of the room. The nurse, that had taken care of me while I was in labor and when I delivered Tred, was starting her shift for the day and asked if she could give me a hug on our way out. She is a wonderful lady and was so good to us knowing what was going to happen.

Tred's funeral was on June 9th at 3:00. We said our final goodbyes before he was laid to rest.

Being pregnant with Talya came as a big surprise to us. We found out we were pregnant in August. We had just lost our precious Tred to stillbirth and we weren't trying to get pregnant but someone else has other plans. I didn't know I was pregnant as I had been bleeding off and on for a few months. Apparently I had a low lying placenta which was causing the bleeding and I took it as AF. Besides the bleeding everything was fine except our fear. We had so many fears because of losing Tred. We waited to tell people as long as we could and finally told everyone I was pregnant which was right after I hit 21 weeks. I was diagnosed at my first appointment as having GBS. I remember calling my sister to ask her what that was since I didn't get any info from my dr.s except that I would need antibiotics when I went into labor.
 
As Talya's due date approached fear kicked in. In the last week of March I started losing my mucus plug and this was a new thing so I got nervous. I called the dr. and they said it was normal. I had weekly exams and after I had an exam the first week of April I had some spotting, the dr.s again said this was normal. I think the dr. office was getting sick of me calling and being overly scared.
 
The following week was the most devastating week of our lives. I woke up on April 8th to some blood clots so I called the dr. and they had me come into the office. I got to the dr. and the bleeding had stopped. The dr. checked my cervix and said all she saw was old blood nothing new. Again, they said it was normal. I was dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced and they said things may happen on their own (my other pregnancies were induced). The next morning on the 9th I woke again with blood clots. I called the dr. and they sent me to L & D and Talya and I were monitored for 3 hours. Her heart rate was lower than normal but it was within the normal range. They again checked my cervix and said that their wasn't any new bleeding. The dr. had me eat some peanut butter toast and checked her heart rate and then said everything was fine and sent me home.
 
The next day, which is the 3rd day I woke again to blood clots. On top of having the blood clots, I hadn't felt Talya move. She always moved in the morning, I immediately knew something was wrong. I ate food, I poked at my belly, I did everything I could think of to make her move and their was nothing. My sister called and I told her I had to go to the dr. because I was bleeding again, I didn't want to alarm anyone so I rushed off the phone and I quickly called the dr. and they called about 5 minutes later but if felt like hours. They told me to go to L & D again. Before I even made it to the van, I threw up in the driveway. That's when my anxiety started to take over. I had that feeling that something wrong wrong, terribly wrong.
 
We got to the hospital, I put on a gown and then the nurse looked for her heartbeat and she couldn't find it. The nurse was so nice she said that sometimes they don't find it right away because of the movement. I knew something was wrong. They called in another nurse and still couldn't find it so they said they would do an ultrasound, by then I new our little girl was gone. They brought in an ultrasound machine and it confirmed our worst nightmare.....again, Our precious little girl had passed away at 38 weeks. I looked at Greg and said I couldn't do this again. We both hugged each other and cried. Everyone left the room and left us to cry. The dr. and nurse came back in after a while and told us we were not leaving, that we were going to have her today.
 
We were left with the daunting task of calling our family and friends again. I called my sister first because I new she could do the task of calling everyone else. All I could get out is that I was at the hospital and that we didn't have a heartbeat. All she could get out was "WHAT" and then I repeated myself. She asked if I wanted her up at the hospital and I said I don't care. I was in no way able to make any decisions but she did. She came up to the hospital in what felt like 2 seconds. I am so glad that she is my best friend and was able to be their for me when I really needed her. Greg then called his mom (she was watching the kids) and we asked her not to tell them because we wanted to do that. Greg then called his brothers and told them the devastating news. Greg then called the kids and told them what happened and that we wanted them to come up to the hospital after Talya was born to say goodbye to her. My sister called my parents and they came right up to the hospital as well.
 
The next few hours went by quick. I was induced and was in full labor within an hour. The contractions hurt like hell and it felt like I was going to die. At the time I really hoped for that, not only did I have to endure the pain of losing another child but I was feeling the horrible labor pains and knowing what was going to happen. I was hurting so bad and asked several times for an epidural but things went so fast that by the time I got one it was already too late. I gave birth to our baby girl without any pain meds. Why wouldn't they start the epidural right away, I mean really, why should I have physical pain on top of emotional pain?
 
I gave birth to our little girl Talya Rose on April 10th at 1:58pm. She weighted 6lbs. 11oz and was 18 3/4 inches long. She was just beautiful. She looked just like her brothers and sister expect she had dark hair. We had mainly family visit us but I wasn't able to see many of them come in. Immediately after having Talya I got sick. I had a horrible fever, shakes and a headache. Again at that time I was just hoping I would fall asleep and never wake up. Emotional pain and physical pain just suck but having them at the same time was just unbearable.
 
I was lucky enough to have my sister call some friends to let everyone know what happened and was very grateful for her doing this. I was way too sick to make any calls and I don't even know if I could call anyone. After family and friends came to visit it was time to sleep, or dose off. I really didn't sleep I wanted to spend as much time with my girl as I could. I knew I didn't have long and wanted to look at her as much as I could. Greg went home so he could get some sleep, but I found out later that he didn't sleep much either. The kids spent the night at my sisters and Greg was alone. I was scared that he was alone because he had such a hard time with Tred passing that I was afraid he my drink himself to nothing. He did have a few drinks and was able to dose off through the night. My best friends came to visit me at night and one of them stayed the night with me. I am so thankful for those friends that are able to comfort me.
 
Our nurse had come in at night and did Talya's feet and hand prints and I was able to wash the ink off. What a great and horrible feeling that that I was able to give her, her first and last bath. The nurse had asked if I wanted a bassinet to put her in so I could sleep and I never answered her. I didn't want to put her in a bassinet, I wanted to hold her and rock her and just have her near me. I held her all night and was able to do so until the next day.
 
The next day I was going to be going home and we had to say goodbye to our baby. I was dreading this time as I knew it would be hard. I took a shower as Greg sat on the bed and said his goodbyes. I got out of the shower and heard voices so I just finished getting dressed. I came out and Greg said I couldn't leave because I had a blood infection. So again I was at the hospital for another day. We said our goodbyes to Talya and they took her away. It was so hard to say goodbye to our baby girl. I left the hospital on Easter Sunday without my baby girl. We laid her to rest on April 15, 2009.
 
and can be contacted at angierose@yahoo.com

1 comments:

Mommyto8 said...

I am so sorry for your losses, we too laid our son River to rest on April 15th, but in 2003, we also lost our son Blaze in 2006 at 2 days old. I know your pain, you are so brave for sharing...thank you.

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails