Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Elisa

Mom to David Scott born February 17, 2010

Lost the fight for life on February 20, 2010

Leavittsburg, Ohio
 

It all started February 16th, 2010.

I was sitting at my in-laws house talking to my father-in-law. I had gotten up to use the bathroom and went in to talk to my husband Arthur who was at the computer.  I told him I think my water had broken or I hadn't drained my bladder all the way, with being 39 weeks pregnant it was all possible that it could be either. So I went back into the bathroom and nothing so I went back out and told Arthur that it has to be my water, and as soon as I said that I feel a little gush and said yup it's my water breaking.  I went back into the bathroom and climbed into the tub so I wouldn't leak everywhere as Arthur made the necessary phone calls. Then he come and starts grabbing towels for the car for me to sit on, We all ( Arthur, his mom Karen, and sister Claire) head out to the car and run home and get the hospital bags and then to my mom's house and pick her up and head to the hospital.

We finally get there and sign in and they ask me what is going on.  I told them that my water broke, and three different times I told them my water had broken and I had a puddle between my feet until one nurse came around and saw and finally took me to my room and then again asked me why I was here.  I told her once again that my water had broken.  Then she told me that she had to check and make sure. So she checked me and said yup your water surely did break. I then said DUH!! that's what I've been trying to say for the past 20-30 minutes. So they hooked me up to everything so they could monitor me till my midwife got there.  She finally got there and told me that I had to start walking cause for one I had too much water and David's head was not down far enough. So away Arthur and me went walking up and down the halls trying to get my contractions sped up and for David to drop more, We must have walked for 2 hrs. then they wanted to check me again and hook me back up to the monitors again,

They then told me my contraction had slowed down so they wanted to start me on pitocin. Midnight came and went and then February 17th at 1:07 am David Scott Stroud cam into this world at 8 lbs 12.6oz 21.6in long scoring a 9/9 on his APGAR and he was perfectly healthy, or so we thought.
 

February 17th, 2010
 

David was taken back to the nursery and cleaned and checked over, Then the Dr. came in and said that his reflexes were not as good as they liked, but as they read my chart they saw that I had pain meds a little bit before he was born, so they blamed the way he was acting on that. I wish we would have made them do more and maybe our little man would still be here with us now. But we just left it at that and he was in my room the entire time we were in the hospital, And I had also tried to breastfeed like I have with the other boys, but David wanted nothing to do with it and as I look back now and throughout the whole pregnancy a lot of things were different.
 

February 18th, 2010
 

The Dr. comes in and checks on us and makes sure everyone and everything is going great, Which it was other then the breastfeeding, but we got over that and just decided to go with formula. And then they asked if we would like to leave cause they were busy and needed the room so I didn't hesitate. I have 3 other boys at home that also needed their mommy as well. So off they went to get the paper work filed and took little David to get his circumcision done which also went perfect. Now the waiting game of having little David go pee to make sure everything was good which took about half an hour. We finally get home and Arthur's parents bring the kids to see their new baby brother. And after everyone leaves Arthur and me try to settle into the new routine. Arthur was gonna get up with David at night since Arthur was a night owl as it is and he was gonna let me sleep.
 

February 19th, 2010
 

I wake up to kids running around being kids so I get up and go heat up a bottle while making the other three boys food. And let Arthur sleep for a while, Then once Arthur woke up it was pretty much easy, except for the pain of my milk coming in we pretty much got use to the routine pretty quick. But once Arthur had his coffee he let me go back to bed cause he knew I was still pretty sore, so I go back to bed to rest and wake up to Arthur calling me for something to eat and I come out and the house is clean for the most part and everything I was gonna try to help do was already done; bottles made, dishes are clean, pretty much everything we couldn't do before David came but needed to be done.
 

February 20th, 2010
 

The dreadful day.  I wake up to my breast being completely engorged so I go out and grab an ice pack and see how Arthur and David are doing, David is sleeping soundly in his bassinet and Arthur is sleeping on the couch. So I woke Arthur up and told him what was going on and that I was gonna go back into bed and try to relax. About half an hour later Arthur is running in screaming at me that David is not breathing and to call 911. I run out and start looking for my phone my head spinning cause of what I just heard. I couldn't think straight. I finally find my phone and call 911 and tell them my address and tell them what is going on as Arthur is on the couch with David giving him CPR our neighbor who is also the fire chief (Kenny) comes running over cause he heard the call come over his scanner and took over doing CPR.

The ambulance finally shows up after what feels like hours and Kenny grabs up David and his blanket and runs out to the waiting ambulance and off they go. I grab my phone as Arthur grab his and we both call our parents and told them what was happening as we are both hurrying to get dressed and get Arthur's nephew up and awake (he was staying with us to help us with the other kids), and out the door we head to get to the hospital and I swear everybody out driving had to knew we were trying to get somewhere quick cause they were going so dang slow.

But we finally made it to the hospital and go up to the desk to find out what is happening. Then a nurse comes out from the back and me and my mom rush over to her and ask her if she knows what going on.  At this point I'm hysterical and the damn nurse has the nerve to tell me to calm down or she will have to ask me to leave and that pissed me off to no extent and she once again told me to calm down and if she had to tell me one more time she was gonna have a cop take me off the property. How the hell would she want a person in my shoes to act?  My 3 day old son is dying or worse, cause at this point we have no clue what is going on. So she leaves and a different nurse comes out and ask for us and we rush over to her and she asked if we wanted to go back WELL DUH! of course we do, that's our son and as we go back she warns us that it's gonna be hectic scary and hard for us to see.

At 10:10 am February 20th, 2010 David Scott Stroud lost the fight for life. But in my eyes he had already passed way before he even got to the hospital, He had passed as soon as his daddy's loving arms picked him up at home; where he still is and always will be.
 

Elisa blogs at http://angeldavidscott.blogspot.com/

and can be contacted at AEAS000105@aol.com