Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Stephanie

Mom to Aurora Rose

Born sleeping on April 21st, 2010 at 35 weeks

Binghampton, NY

Late August of 1998 I went on a mini vacation with my father and grandmother to the St. Lawrence River. It’s a place we’ve been going all of my life. Late one night my father woke us up and made us go outside to look at the sky. Together, we watched the sky, witnessing the Aurora Borealis together. It was then that I knew I wanted to name my daughter Aurora. I was going into my senior year of high school and wasn’t even dating anyone at the time, but I didn’t care what my future husband thought.

Fast forward to September 2009, my husband and I just got home from a vacation at the St. Lawrence River and were setting up for a garage sale. We had been married for 3 years, and had been ready for a family since day one. The night before I had the most vivid dream of a baby girl being dropped off at or door stop. I ran outside to grab her out of her car seat and noticed a name tag around her neck with the name “Rose” on it. I looked up and down the street and didn’t see anybody. So I snuggled this girl so tight and told her she was mine. All of the sudden people were knocking at my door and asking for the baby back. I cried and screamed, they couldn’t take her! When I woke up I took a pregnancy test, as I had many times before, and was shocked when this one actually came up positive. We were on cloud nine and couldn’t wait to welcome our first baby into the world.

Besides bleeding very early on, my pregnancy was perfectly normal. She was always growing right on schedule and was so healthy. I had only gained 12 pounds, which my doctor loved, and had wonderful blood pressure. I had an anterior placenta which made movement hard to feel, but I finally started to feel her around week 21.

In the beginning of April, around week 31, her movement started to decrease. I would only feel her a handful of times throughout the day. I brought my concern up to my doctor who told me that it was normal. With my anterior placenta and her getting bigger, movement was supposed to decrease. At a 3-D ultrasound a few days later Auroras heartbeat was 134, which I felt was strange. I told the tech that her heartbeat was always in the 160s, but 134bmp was still perfectly normal. Aurora was quite stubborn and had her hands in front of her face the whole time. We tried to get her to move and she would, but not enough to get a good picture.

At 35 weeks I had another ultrasound and appointment scheduled. We had the ultrasound first and we were looking forward to finding out how big she was. I expressed my concern for possible loss of fluid to the technician and told her how I had not felt much movement. My husband and I watched the screen the whole time, but I did not see her move. The tech was quiet, not saying one word. She then excused herself for a minute, it was then I knew. My husband and I sat there holding hands waiting for her to come back in the room. When she did, she told us the worse news ever. She could not find a heartbeat.

The next minutes were such a blur. I was in a state of total shock and went on auto-pilot. My doctor told me that she was going to have someone walk me over to the hospital and we would get started right away. By the time I arrived at labor and delivery, my mother was already there. The next few hours were filled with questions we didn’t know how to answer, preparations we didn’t know how to make, and too many tears.   

About 12 hours later, at 11:59pm, Aurora was brought into the world. Although she never took a breath she is living on in our hearts. She weighed 4lbs 2.8oz and 17 1/4 inches long.  She had her fathers face with my nose. Her feet were huge with long toes. We dressed her in an outfit my father had picked out and was going to give me at my baby shower and we wrapped her in a blanket I had crocheted for her.  We held her for awhile, and my father baptized her. We loved each moment we had with her, even though it was too short.

Today, we still have no reason why Aurora died. We opted for an autopsy since the cord and placenta were in perfect condition. The results came back normal. Every test we had done on Aurora and myself were completely normal. While it gives us hope for the future, it hurts that we do not have any solid reasons on why we had to lose her.

I miss my baby girl every day and hope to meet her again. Until then she tells me that she’s okay with the dragonflies and pennies that she sends my way. I love every single one of them. 

Stephanie blog at Aurorarose421.blogspot.com

You can contact her at sblaisure@gmail.com