It’s taken me a few months to get to some things with Jude’s birth story being one of those items. It’s not that I didn’t want to write one, but I just hadn’t put all of the words together to properly articulate what it was like to meet my daughter for the first and last time.
So here it goes… Beginning to end. It's going to be a long one--I want every memory of this written down while I can still recall it.After waking up in the morning, blogging a few times, and talking to my tummy for a bit, I went about my usual routine of showering, getting dressed (wondering if I should wear clothes that I hated in case I never wanted to wear them again because “that’s what I wore to the hospital”), I dutifully packed up some items for a friend’s engagement party that I was supposed to be co-hosting and dropped them off to the other co-host.
Luckily, we decided to take a quick trip through Taco Bell for my final meal, as I figured I wouldn’t be allowed to eat for awhile in case I needed a D&C.
When I arrived at the check-in desk at labor & delivery, the woman immediately looked at me and was like, “You must be MSC.” Apparently having barely a bump at all makes it obvious you’re the 21-weeker who is coming in to say goodbye.
The obgyn from the original office who send us to the specialist spotted us from across the room and came over to tell us that he was sorry to see us there and asked how we were holding up. I’m fairly certain I choked out something like, “This fucking sucks,” because quite frankly—that’s about all I said for the first week or so.
The nurses were wonderful and kind, but I wondered why they kept explaining things to me over and over and asking me the same questions. I realized later it's because they know that you might not be thinking clearly. I had expected things to move really quickly, but in retrospect they really did try to handle me with gentle gloves, not rush things, and not rush us out of there, which I really appreciated.
I seem to recall our arrival time being 10 a.m. or so, but I didn’t have my first cytotech pill until 1:00... Something like that. The timetables are hard to remember now. Anyway, they put a pill in to soften and dilate my cervix and then I'd wait an hour before I could move around.
After we were settled and the images of a speedy, dramatic delivery were out of our heads, we called our families and allowed them to come and visit. I had initially resisted this because I didn’t want to infect them with what I assumed would be a horrific, traumatic memory.
Both sides of our families visited and during that time I felt surprisingly good—I was able to chat, crack jokes, and remained very, very calm and relaxed. I kept focusing on keeping myself from tensing up because I did not want to fight the cytotech and make this a longer process than it had to be. I even got to catch Wheel of Fortune, where I got almost every single puzzle before the contestants. (Go me!)
I didn't have any effects from the pill until 9:00 p.m. or so. As my sisters left for the evening and I went to make a bathroom run, I started shaking like crazy and freaked out a little. DH called to the nurse who said it was a normal side effect, so I was able to calm down enough to get myself out of the bathroom and back into bed. Turns out I was running a fever, so they covered me in a ton of warm blankets.
They kept having to up my doses, eventually taking the drug in maxed out doses both orally and vaginally (crushed). The cramping was super light and mild--kind of like a period, no biggie. I kept saying that I had a cervix of steel. It made me feel better to know that my body was operating in the proper manner and trying to keep this little one inside of me like a good mommy.
Somewhere around midnight the anesthesiologist came in to see if I wanted my epidural. They said because of how many doses they gave me that they wanted to go ahead and do it early because you can go from zero pain to a "10" pain really quickly and without warning. I went ahead and did it, but I kind of wish I would have held off--the epidural made it impossible for me to move one of my legs, which was painful during the night. I had to call the nurses every 2 hours or so to help me flip over. As you can imagine, I don’t do well with feeling helpless, so my self esteem sort of took a hit here.
I started to have a panic attack before they put the epidural needle in because I was terrified. I didn’t want to be there and I never wanted an epidural for any childbirth experience. It made me feel like things were finally happening and progressing and that the moment of truth was coming closer, despite my best efforts to stay mentally in my happy place.
The nurse, Melissa, was so wonderful. She told me about losing her daughter after a year in the NICU and how she understood what the loss of a baby was like. I told her that I had been trying to treat this like a miscarriage (and I recognize how awful miscarriages are, I just mean in the terms of not seeing the baby afterwards. Miscarriages are also heartbreaking losses of a child—we are in the same awful club here.) and she was just like, This is not a miscarriage or something that’s going to just disappear. This is your baby and you’re her mom. And the sooner you act like it and treat it like it, the better off you will be.
Truer words were never spoken. It changed everything for me. I think I needed someone to validate that this was my daughter and that I should say goodbye to her instead of pretending this all never happened. After that they gave me a shot in my IV to calm me down and in went the epidural.
There were a few things I was scared to ask for because DH didn't want to see the baby, so during one of my checks where he left the room, I explained to my nurse Melissa about my apprehensions about seeing the baby. She promised me that if it was deformed she would tell me. She told me that if I couldn't hold/see the baby that she'd still do photos and footprints in case I changed my mind one day. And if I didn’t want to take that box of photos and clothes home, they would keep it for me at the hospital indefinintely.
I have low blood pressure to begin with and the cytotech made it worse, so alarms kept going off all night, even though I was okay. DH would only get 15 minutes of sleep at a time because he would have to get off of the pull-out couch to reset the machine—I felt awful for him. I knew he was an emotional wreck, he didn’t need to be sleep deprived on top of that. Anyway, I seem to recall my lowest blood pressure being something crazy like 58/30. LOW!
There are more details about the cytotech making me sick, but quite frankly I’d like to forget that.
I was in/out of it all night and through the next day. I didn’t feel any contractions unless I was holding my tummy, which I most certainly did not want to do, so I just tried to stay relaxed and breathe.
At one point, DH came into my room and told me that I wouldn’t believe who he just ran into in the hallway—his cousin. His cousin and his wife were giving birth to a healthy baby in the same hospital and the same day, right across the hallway. How bizarre is that? I immediately was like, “That’s great! Congratulations! Go and get him a card in the hospital shop!” but he was a little shaken up by this.
I didn't feel anything until the middle of the afternoon the next day--I had started to get sick and when I tightened up, I felt something drop. That’s it. I flipped my lid. I was convinced that my baby was in the birth canal and that this was it. My mom was in/out of the room, but trying to get the nurses to help me with the sickness and I just kept bawling and saying, “I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want this to be it.”
Soon afterwards, the doctor came in and checked me and said the baby was low, butt down, and starting to move a little, but not in the birth canal yet.
When they came to check me around 4:15 p.m. (so we were over the 24 hour mark at this point), the doctor said that it was time. My mom and husband had cleared out of the room for my check and I didn’t ask for them to come back—I just wanted to do this. They got everything ready and soon afterwards I was pushing--it wasn't hard at all and quite frankly I had no idea what I was doing or feeling. I didn’t even know when I was done because everyone was so quiet. Finally I just asked, should I keep pushing or am I done? I sort of saw someone wrap something up and walk it out of the room, but I couldn’t really see.
The doctor explained that I had passed everything at once—the placenta, the sac, and the baby, so he didn’t think I’d need a D&C, but he gave a quick look to make sure I was alright (and I was… finally some good news.)
The nurses helped to clean up and I heard one of them ask the other if they needed to use the green form for the certificate. The other one responded yes, so I was just like, So that means it was stillborn, right? They said yes—and I cried a little more and in a weird way I was grateful that she had passed peacefully in the only warm and wonderful environment she’d ever known. She’d never struggled for air or hated the sudden cold. They don’t monitor the baby's heartbeat in these types of situations (probably not to freak you out when they do pass), so I don't know when she died. But you know what? That’s okay with me.
Apparently my mom was there when they came through the hallway with the sac, so she followed them and watched them pull her from it, clean her off, and held her until I was ready. Later she told me that she sang her “our songs” aka the German lullabies that she sang us as children (we’re not German, but somehow it’s still a family tradition! We’re oddballs like that.)
The doctor came in and told me that they weren’t quite sure what the gender was because of the nature of the condition and that our paperwork would say gender unknown. I was okay with this because I had told them that we didn’t want to know either way—we had selected a name that we’d be using either way – Jude – after the patron saint of lost causes.
A little while later my mom brought her to me and I just burst into uncontrollable tears that I could barely see through. At first I could only uncover her face a little, let that absorb, then her hands, feet, etc. It definitely took awhile.
At 21 weeks, they're young—red and splotchy, but she was an amazing, adorable little baby and like all parents, I was instantly in love—but heartbroken. She was on her way to being such an beautiful little girl. And how could she look so perfect on the outside with so much wrong on the inside?
I counted ten fingers, ten tiny little toes (with tiny fingernails! Can you believe it?) and the most adorable button nose, full lips, and very chubby cheeks! Her ears and top of her head had loose skin from being pressed in my uterus without fluid, but I just kept the blanket over it. She was 10 inches long and 12 ounces—not bad at all for 21 weeks! Like I’ve always said, we make big babies in our family!
I can’t remember who visited when. I know my sisters came in together and we cried and marveled at how perfect she was in her own way. All we could do was stare and comment on all of the little things we noticed—like cute little eyebrows (DH’s hair color), my chin and chubby cheeks, DH’s nose, my slender fingers and bubble toes. There was so much to absorb in so little time.
DH’s mom and sister came in and it was sort of the same thing again… What do you really say at a time like this? She was beautiful. She was sweet. She was gone.
DH didn't want to see her at first, but changed his mind when our families had been in/out and said good things. I think it also became obvious to him that she wasn’t going to be whisked away immediately and that I was probably going to spend some time with her—and I think that was torture for him. I could hear him at the door and someone asked if he was going to go in. The curtain partition was up, so I was just like, “Okay. I’m going to describe the baby and you can decide if you want to come in.” After explaining her skin and saying she had my cheeks and his nose, he entered.
I had to do the same thing with him—only show a little at a time and he didn’t want to hold her. My dad came to visit and I started crying all over again and just choked out, “So I had a baby today…” After we visited for awhile, I asked him if he wanted to hold her and he said that he would if I wanted him to—which I couldn’t tell if that was his way of saying yes or no, so I just handed her to him.
DH came in while my dad was holding her and stood around for a while and finally said that he’d like to hold her. It was sweet and precious, but so hard to see him hurting so badly. I knew that I’d already been taking lots of steps toward dealing with this because I was the one who had to physically do this, so I knew he was a little behind in his grieving.
Throughout the process we had changed our minds on a few things—we were going to go ahead with the local funeral home’s offer to cremate her free of charge and DH wanted to have her blessed. When our nurse, Chantel, came in to fill out the paperwork for the blessing, she caught herself calling the baby “she” and when we sort of stiffened, she was like, I’m sorry—they’re not quite sure, but it looks like it was a baby girl.
More tears. Yes, I did sort of want a girl. But I would have cried a little more if she said boy at that point because I know DH sort of wanted a boy. We both would have been happy either way—we just didn’t want this ending.
Our families came in for the blessing and I could barely say or do anything—just looked at my baby and cried. I didn’t want to look at anyone else—I would see them again, but not my little girl. If this was all of the time I was going to get with her, I was going to savor every last moment. They had put her in a sweet, soft little dress—god only knows where they order them from, they’re so tiny.
They took the baby for measurements and photos and family started to trickle out after awhile—everyone was emotionally and physically drained. While I appreciated every ounce of their love and support, it was nice to have it just be the 3 of us for a little bit.
At one point I had to go to the bathroom, so I handed her to DH and when I returned, he was laying on the couch with her carefully perched on his chest and he said, “I just wanted to see what it was like.”
As if my heart hadn’t already broke into a million pieces that day, it happened all over again a million times over in that moment. I’ll never forget it and I’ll never be able to speak those words, look at them, or type them without crying for the rest of my life.
Our nurse Chantel came back with a digital camera (Thank god! I didn’t bring one because I thought it was weird and morbid, but now I’m so grateful for those photos) and we snapped a handful of us with the baby, her hands and feet. Unfortunately, the lighting was awful, so they’re hard to see and very discolored, but I’d rather have them than nothing.
All in all, we spent about 5 hours with her before we gave her back to go to the funeral home. I could see that her color was changing fast (getting more red/splotchy) so I felt like it was time to let her go.
The hospital staff was amazing. I really cannot say enough good things about them. They were unbelievably sensitive, attentive, etc.
The hospital gave me a lovely box that ties with a white ribbon—the symbolism being that when it’s untied, you’re opening your heart to your feelings and when it’s tied, you’re closing the book (for the time being.) In the little box, they wrote her name, birth stats, footprints and it has her photos, baby blanket (which was actually my baby blanket), her dress, and the shell they used for her blessing.
Seeing her, taking photos, and having these mementoes seemed so morbid going into the whole process. I am not the type of person to dwell on things. But I'm glad that I forced myself through it. I know what my baby looks like, I know that I touched, held, and sang (well, kinda. I tried and cried instead) and gave her everything I could offer. That is what makes me smile instead of cry today. But it's one of the things that got me through—to remember that I had a baby that I loved and gave the best life I could give, even if she couldn't stay.
