Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Kelly

Mom to Elise Renee Tagliaferri

April 6th, 2009

Whiteford, Maryland

My name is Kelly.

I have 5 children...4 with feet, 1 with wings.

Elise was my fourth child. My husband and I weren't sure we wanted another baby, but we knew that if we weren't sure, then we weren't done (I really wanted another, he wasn't sure) so no sooner did we decide to try, we got pregnant!

At 10 weeks, I developed a blood clot in my leg and was hospitalized. I was directed to take blood thinners by injection twice a day. At about 13 weeks I had an emergency CT scan to check for a pulmonary embolism (to see if the blood clot had traveled to my lungs). It didn't. I remained on the thinners and had unexplained heart/breathing issues until almost my third trimester.
 

I was under a lot of stress during this time as I was not only dealing with pregnancy and complications as well as 3 children, but I was also completing an internship and going to school to finish my master's degree. We hired an au pair to stay with us to help out. She wasn't much help.
 

Anyway, at almost 36 weeks I went into labor. I had been having off and on contractions for the last 2 days and just as I was ready to call my midwife they would stop...only to start back up a few hours later. So, it took a good part of the day to convince myself I was really in labor, but I finally couldn't deny it any longer and arrived at the hospital 7 centimeters dialated! In triage,
the nurse was putting the monitors on, but was unable to find the baby's heartbeat, so she called the head nurse to try. The head nurse could not find the hearbeat either, so my midwife got the ultrasound machine to try. She also could not see it. She called the doctor in to try. The doctor declared that there was no heartbeat and the baby was deceased.
 

I was moved to a delivery room and almost immediately felt pressure and was ready to deliver. The midwife broke my water, there was none, it was all meconium. On the next contraction, I took 3 breaths and pushed 3 times before Elise came out all at once. She not only had the cord wrapped around her neck 5 times, but there was also a knot in it. This was less than an hour after arriving at the hospital. It is assumed that Elise passed away about 2 days before I delivered.

Elise Renee was delivered on April 6, 2009 at 4:45 pm. She weighed 4 pounds 1 ounce and was 17 inches long.  She is loved so very much and missed more than words can say.

You can contact Kelly at  kellytagliaferri@yahoo.com