Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Shannon

Mom to Chaya Eliana

Stillborn November 6, 2008

Medford, OR

In March 2007 I had a miscarriage at nine weeks gestation, after my baby had already been dead three weeks. A year later, I miscarried again. Three months after that, I found myself pregnant yet again.

Once we passed first trimester and were well into second, I relaxed, feeling as though things would be alright. And for the most part they were, with the exception of finding out my darling had a two vessel umbilical cord instead of a three vessel umbilical cord. The Doctor was concerned mostly because of my high blood pressure that we were having difficulties regulating. But things were going okay, until 20 weeks when I found myself with the worst migraine of my life that caused me to have to be admitted to the hospital for almost a week. 

During that week an amniocentesis was done, the results of which determined my baby was perfect so the problem was apparently with my own health (my first two pregnancies that did result in living children were very complicated with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome). From that point on it was only downhill.

I prayed and prayed things would be okay, but every week the ultrasound would tell us she had less and less amniotic fluid. And where she should have been over a pound, she was still significantly less than that in weight. 

On November 4 I went in for another ultrasound to see if she had grown. She had, barely. But that was the only good news. She was now without ANY amniotic fluid, and the flow of the umbilical cord was now backwards. Two days later, her heart had stopped beating, and at 10:06pm on November 6, 2008, my beautiful daughter was stillborn.
 

Shannon blogs at http://adventuringlifetogether.blogspot.com/