Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Amber

Mom to Eli David Roseberry

Stillborn on June 17th, 2010

Olive Hill, Kentucky

The whole day on Wednesday, June 16th, Eli made little movement. I wasn't too concerned because I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second baby and this was the first time I had made it this far, I thought this was "normal" for this gestation. At 10:45 that night I felt him push his little butt up against the right side of my ribs. I assumed everything was alright even though I couldn't hear his heartbeat with the doppler (it picked up too much static). At that point I decided to take a shower and go to bed. At 11pm while going to the bathroom, I felt a pop and assumed my water had broken. When I looked down I was gushing blood and I knew something was wrong.
 

I got dressed and we headed straight to the hospital. I called labor and delievery with en route to let them know what had happened so they would be prepared once we got there. Once at the hospital I had several nurses in my room getting me hooked up and set up with IVs and blood work. One nurse tried to find his heartbeat with the monitor while another prepped me for a c-section. I knew something was wrong when after five minutes she couldn't find it. They then tried the dopplar and an ultrasound, the whole time not saying anything, except to call Dr. Dotson. The ultrasound technician from downstairs came up and did another ultrasound and then Dr. Dotson arrived, sat on my bedside and watch the ultrasound. He put his hand on my leg, looked at me and said "I'm so sorry, we've lost his heartbeat." My whole world crashed around me. I had made it 36 weeks with a healthy baby, felt him move 15 minutes before the blood came, and now he was gone. That was at 12am on Thursday morning.

They waited until 5:30 am to start pitocin, before which they had given me an epidural. My ob, Dr. Frederick came in at 7am and sat with me on my bed and prayed with us. He was in and out of my room alot that morning. At 10:41 am I delievered my Eli, a 6lb 3oz and 20.5 inch long baby boy. The first thing I asked Dr. Frederick was that if he was sure he was gone. I couldn't believe it. Somewhere deep inside I thought maybe they were wrong.

They took Eli straight out of the room to be cleaned up and then brought him back into us so we could study him, breathe him in and love on our baby boy. We spent all day with him, holding him and admiring our son. The nurses took him for an hour to do his pictures and brought him back to us. At 6pm that night, a man from the funeral home came to pick Eli up. That's the point where I lost it. For crying out loud, they were taking my son to a funeral home! How do you cope with that?

 

Once Eli was gone Dr. Frederick came back in to talk to me. He said that he flipped just so that the cord wrapped around his neck two and a half times and then got a knot in it which prevented him from getting any blood or oxygen. He told me that even if I were at the hospital when it had happened they wouldn't have been able to do anything to save because by then he was already gone.

After 2 hours, my nurse came back in with a little box. Inside were all the photos they took of Eli, a molding of his foot, a ring that they had put on him for his pictures, the tape they measured him with, our hospital bracelets and locks of his hair. They also gave me everything he wore. That is all I have of my son, everything fits in a box.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to make each and everyday, but I have to because my older son, Austin needs me. I don't want anybody to ever forget about Eli. He may not be here with us but he is still my son, I still have 2 beautiful boys. I am Austin AND Eli's mommy.