As the fog lifts

Now that I am off drugs, I feel like I have my brain back.  We met with the OB yesterday and I was armed with questions.  A girlfriend watched the kids for us and as I was leaving her house, she said "I didn't think you would just lie down and take a c-section."  Ahh, she knows me so well.

First, I would have a c-section of M and I, along with the care provider we choose, decide that the lesser risk if/when I get pregnant again is a RCS.  But, that it is major surgery.  It is painful.  It is dangerous, especially if we want to have more than one more child. 

But it makes me sad that I might miss out the amazing parts of birth that come only from labor and pushing a baby out.  I want the bonding experience of labor for our marriage.  I want to be fully aware and awake when I meet my baby for the first time on the outside.  And I want that for my baby too.  I want to be able to walk and move and care for my baby easily.  My baby deserves a mom who can do those things.

So, I have begun my research.  Just like when I wanted to VBAC, I research every night.  This time it is harder though.  It is harder because I don't have a baby in my arms while I do my searching.  And it is harder because there just isn't information about scars like mine.  It is so rare that there just aren't facts.  There aren't statistics. There isn't anything.

So, that leads us to have to do the same things the doctors do.  Find situations similar and infer from that.  I have found a couple of doctors who are known for attending vaginal births with women who have a "special scar."  M and I plan on talking with at least one of these doctors to get an idea of the risks involved.  I feel like we will get a more real idea of what we are looking at from a doctor who supports VBAC after C-sections that weren't low transverse.

I don't want to get my hopes up that I can push a baby out, but at the same time I am not ready to surrender.

Just thoughts

It has been nine days since we found out that Anthony and I wouldn't both survive.  It has been nine days since his heart last beat.  It has been nine days that we have been missing the sweet boy we hardly got to know.

I feel so blessed to have such amazing people around me.  M and I have been showered with love and prayers and we are so thankful.  Friends have brought meals, came to just listen to us talk at night, watched the kids so we can grieve together, prayed for our family.  We are so thankful.

In all our gratefulness though, I find myself so confused and angry.  Why do babies have to die?  Why do mothers have to make such hard choices?  Why did I let them kill my baby?

I'm going to be really raw for a bit.  It is hard to say the things I want to say, but I am going to say them.  Maybe getting some of this out will bring me some peace.  I am really just searching for peace.

I have so much guilt about allowing the things that happened to happen.  I feel judged.  I keep seeing
this picture  and feeling like it is directed at me.  I am fully aware that it is not, but it hurts because I feel such guilt.  I feel like a murderer.  I am scared that because of the choice I made, I won't be seeing my babies or S in heaven.  What if I was supposed to put my faith in God and let him protect Anthony and me.  I failed.  I failed at keeping my baby safe.  I failed at keeping my baby alive.  I failed at trusting God.

I hate that I won't ever know what I was "supposed to" do.  I will always question my choice.  Every night, after Mike goes in to put the kids to bed, I start researching.  I research all types of ectopic and extra-uterine pregnancies and look for statistics that show that the baby could survive to a point of viability.  Nearly all the statistics show that if the pregnancy isn't terminated, the mother and the baby die.  Like 98% of the time.  Even in cases where the mother elects to have the surgery I had, mothers die frequently.  It is scary.  But I still question my choice.  I think I know in my heart that Anthony was always meant to be an angel, but my brain knows that if its 98%, that means that 2% are ok.  Why couldn't we be that 2%?  We were already in a teeny tiny nothing of a percentage since this happened to us.  Who is to say we couldn't be in that same teeny tiny percentage that survived?  Maybe we should have taken that chance.

It is so hard to lose a child.  After S died, people who had lost children told me that they understood because they had lost a child and I just (foolishly) thought that losing a child was easier because at least there was someone to go through it with you.  When a spouse dies, you go through that alone.  Now, I understand that neither is easier than the other.  They are both hard, just different.

I also sort of felt like since S died, I was sort of exempt from bad things happening.  Like our family had paid our dues.  Foolish.

Then, the other night, I was thinking and I told M that if S and I were still married, if he hadn't died, and I had gotten pregnant again and this had happened, I wouldn't have gotten an ultrasound.  S was as trusting of pregnancy and birth and I was (am?).  And even less medical.  If he heard a heartbeat, he would have been comfortable, just like me.  If S and I were still married and this had happened, I would have surely died (not that I am blaming him or anything, his views on things were just different than M's-neither is right or wrong). 

Then I got to thinking, what if S died so that I would live.  If Anthony was always meant to be my son, and this was always meant to happen, then what if S had to die to save me.  More guilt.

My BFF often says that we, as mothers, are professionals at guilt.  She is right.  I can find anything to feel guilty about.  What I think I need to do is to figure out how to forgive myself for the things I can no longer change.

I just don't think I am ready to accept that Anthony is gone.  I want so badly for him to be here.  To still be pregnant with him.  I want him to get to know his brother and sisters and for them to know him.

And that makes me think of all of our talks about tying to have another baby.  Our family doesn't feel complete.  I feel like there are more babies out there who are meant for us.  But if we are going to take the risks associated with having more babies, I feel like we should have just taken the risks for Anthony.

So many what ifs.  So many should haves.  So many could haves.  So many questions.  So much guilt.

Anthony's Story

“there is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world”

 

M and I got married in August and knew we wanted to have more children.  We started trying right away and in December, we saw two lines on a home pregnancy test.  We were over the moon!  We were going to visit his family for Christmas and decided to tell all of them about our newest addition while we were there.

 

Then, the day after Christmas, I started bleeding.  At first, we thought it might just be normal spotting, but we lost our baby.  We were devastated.

When I hadn’t had a period in January, I figured it was just taking my body time to get back after having a miscarriage.  On January 27, I took a home pregnancy test and again, we saw two lines.  We were cautiously optimistic.

 

We scheduled an appointment with our midwife and on March 12, we met with her and got to hear our sweet baby’s heartbeat for the first time.  She measured my fundus and everything was perfect.  We were starting to feel like we would be taking this baby home!

 

On March 17, I started bleeding a little.  I sent our midwife a text and she said it was probably nothing to be concerned about since we had heard such a strong heartbeat just a few days before, plus I was in the second trimester.  The bleeding was light and didn’t last long at all.

Two nights later, we borrowed a friend’s Doppler and heard our baby’s heartbeat again.  I felt good that everything was fine.  M was still unsure and wanted us to have an ultrasound.  I agreed and we scheduled an appointment for Friday, March 22.

 

We got into the room and saw a perfectly formed baby with a heartbeat and arms and legs and fingers and toes.  Mike and I both breathed a sigh of relief.  Our baby was perfect!

 

Then, the tech asked if I had c-sections with my other babies.  I told her I had a c-section with the first and then vaginal births with the second and third.  I asked her why and she said that she didn’t think the baby was in my uterus.  She asked if she could do a transvaginal ultra sound to get a better look.  I agreed.  We prayed she was wrong, but the transvaginal showed the same thing.

 

She recommended we go immediately to the ER, but we spoke with our midwife, who spoke with an OB, who said it was probably wrong and we should wait until Monday.  It is very very rare for a baby to be measuring on track (which our baby was) and be as far into pregnancy as I was, and not be in the uterus.  We thought it was a good idea to just take it easy over the weekend and have an ultrasound at OU on Monday.  We were feeling very optimistic.

 

On Monday, we had a 1:30 appointment.  Our midwife came with us to the appointment and as soon as the doctor looked on the ultrasound, he agreed that the baby was not in my uterus.  We saw a high risk doctor immediately and I think 5 doctors looked at our ultrasound and all agreed that baby was healthy, but not in my uterus.  After about 2 hours of ultrasounds, they couldn’t tell where the baby was though.

 

They recommended I get admitted to the hospital to have an MRI which would hopefully give them a better idea of where our baby was in my body.  I reluctantly agreed, but was still hopeful that our baby was somewhere that would be safe to carry to term.

 

I had the MRI that evening and the preliminary results were read and they were still unsure of where baby was.

 

After more doctors looked at the MRI, they came to the conclusion that they were still not positive where our baby was, but they were sure baby was not in my uterus.  They thought the baby was either in my Fallopian tube, in my Fallopian tube and the top corner of my uterus, or in my broad ligament.  They explained that in any of those places, my chance of survival was nil.  M and I were devastated.

 

The only option we really had was to end the life of our sweet, perfect, innocent, loved, and very much wanted baby, or risk the life of the mother of our three sweet, perfect, innocent, loved, and very much wanted children at home (and in the ending of my life, our baby’s life would end as well).  This was the hardest decision I have ever had to make.  It took me hours to finally be able to sign the paper agreeing to the surgery. As I was signing, the doctor said “you’re not signing away your life, Jennifer.”  I replied with, “No, but I am signing away my baby’s.”  It was terrible.  I don’t know that I can ever forgive myself for that.

 

I told the doctors that I wanted every opportunity for our baby to be okay.  I asked them if they could look surgically before ending our baby’s life to guarantee that there was no way we could carry to a point of viability.  I think they thought I was crazy and far too optimistic, but they agreed.

 

We talked about the surgical options we had.  If the baby was completely in my tube, they felt that they could take out my tube in its entirety laprascopicaly.  This would be the least invasive.  This is what they were hoping for.  If the baby was in my tube and uterus, they would still try to do the surgery laprascopicaly, but knew it was probable that they would have to go over my c-section scar and take the tube, baby, and part of my uterus out that way.  If the baby was in my broad ligament, the baby would have to be taken out of my body through my c-section incision, but the placenta would have to be left in my body and afterwards, I would be given a chemo drug that would essentially kill the placenta which would then be absorbed by my body.

 

We also talked about the implications of the different surgical procedures on future pregnancies.  As long as they didn’t have to touch my uterus, future pregnancies would not be affected.  If my uterus did have to be cut, all future babies would need to be born by c-section prior to 37 weeks. 

 

As I let all of this news sink in, we waited for surgery.  I was taken downstairs and the nurse verified why I was having surgery.  People kept asking why I was having surgery and it was terrible having to repeat it over and over again.  While I understand that they needed to verify, it was hard to say.  I just said I had an ectopic pregnancy, but even that was hard to say.  I knew that those were my final moments with my baby alive.  The nurse, Pam, was so unsympathetic I felt.  I had signed 3 release forms Monday, in the office incase I ruptured and started hemorrhaging that night.  After they decided exactly what we were doing, I signed the final form authorizing that to take my baby.  It said in detail, what they were doing and the nurse just kept reading when we all made it so obvious that we wanted her to stop.  I felt like she wanted me to hear again that I okayed them killing my child.  Then, she said she needed to do some more paperwork on another computer while we waited and she sat there working on her infant CPR class.  It kept saying “the infant is not breathing!”  “the infant has to heartbeat!”  Absolutely not what I wanted to be listening to in the final moments of my baby’s life. 

 

The surgeon came in and talked to us about what he was going to do.  I told him again that if there was any way to save my baby, please save my baby.  He showed us pictures of the MRI and was very kind in his words.

 

Then, the anesthesiologist assistant came in to get me.  I gave A, our midwife, and M hugs and kisses and walked into the operating room.  As soon as I saw the table, I lost it.  Last time I walked into an operating room and had laid on an operating table, was when I had V.  They gave me something to calm me down and I was out.

 

After surgery, M said they came to get him because I was asking for him.  He said we were all in the recovery room for about an hour before I have any memory of it.  The first thing I remember is asking for M and he was already there.  Then they told me I could see my baby.  M told me we had a son.  I knew he was a boy.  He was still in his amniotic sac and still attached to the part of my uterus they had to take out too.  He was beautiful.  M and A took a few pictures and then I think we went back to my room.

 

I am so thankful for A, for many reasons, but in that moment because M said he had forgotten that I wanted to see our baby and remember it.  She told them I did and I do have slight memories of seeing him that first time.

 

We went back to our room and I don’t remember much but them moving me from one bed to the other, which was excruciating.  At some point that night they moved me to another room on another floor, which I was thankful for.  The Trauma ICU, where S had died a day shy of 21 months before, was right down the hall.  M and I also decided to name our son.  We decided he should be Anthony Nicolas.  M and I always liked Anthony, but I didn’t like men’s names that end in “y”.  Since our son will always be little, Anthony seemed fitting.  Nicolas is the Patron Saint of Children.  Our son is Anthony Nicolas.

 

That first night was traumatic.  It was emotional.  The nurses weren’t understanding of our loss.  They kept telling me not to cry and that there was no reason to cry.  I was glad when our day nurse, Cameron, came in that morning.  She asked us about Anthony.  She talked to us like we were people and like our son was important.  She called pathology to ask them not to “take sections” of our son since he was healthy.

 

That is when we met one of the people on this earth who is truly heaven sent, Crystal.  She was so sympathetic.  She called Anthony our son.  She called him by his name.  She asked if we wanted to see him again.  She offered to let us hold him.  She told us he was ours and what happened to him was up to us.  There is a special place in heaven just for her.

 

She came and got us when we were ready to go see Anthony again.  She brought us to her office and we each got to hold him still in his amniotic sac.  Then, she opened his sac and I was able to hold him.  She said we could take off our gloves if we wanted because he was our son.  We got to hold him against our skin.  We told him how much we love him.  I told him how sorry I am.  He looked like he was smiling and he has his Daddy’s smile for sure.  Crystal gave us a Bible and put Anthony’s footprints and hand prints in it for us.  She promised she would take good care of him for us.  She wrapped him in a blanket and let us sit with him as long as we wanted.  She said he would stay with her until we went home and then she would have him cremated for us.  She wrote down his name and said she will never ever forget him.  She prayed the most beautiful prayer for him and for us.  She gave us her cell phone number and put M in her phone as “Anthony’s Dad”.  I felt like I was leaving my son in the best hands I could.

 

We finally got to go home that night and since then it has been a ride.  M and I have our downs and our really downs.  My recovery has been hard physically and the emotional pain will never go away.  Our baby isn’t here with us.  If we decide we want to have more babies, I will have to have them by c-section.  They will be born early.  My risk of ectopic pregnancy is high and my risk of rupture is higher.  These are risks M and I have to decide if we are willing to take.  There are emotional hurdles I am not sure I can overcome.

 

I have been in an operating room twice in my life.  Both times, I walked in healthy and whole with a healthy whole baby in my belly.  Both times, I was wheeled out broken with a sick baby, or no baby at all.  I left OU Medical on June 27 and left my dead husband there.  21 months to the day later, I left that same hospital and left my dead son there.  I don’t want to leave that place with someone I love there again.  I don’t want any more boxes in my living room.  I don’t know if I have the strength to do this again.

 

I know these are not things I have to decide now.  The doctor said it would be unsafe to get pregnant in the next 6 months and he recommends waiting 18 months before getting pregnant again.  These are just the things that I have been thinking about.

 

It is really scary to think about what could have happened.  The doctors said having that ultrasound, that I didn’t want, saved my life.  They said that without this knowledge, I would have ruptured and death was a sure thing.  M’s trust of modern medical technology saved my life.  Especially since the bleeding had nothing to do with anything that happened.

 

I also want to make a point to say that midwifery care, and homebirth, didn’t make our situation any more dangerous.  The doctors also admitted, that unless an ultrasound was done, no one would have been able to tell anything was abnormal because of where Anthony was in my body.  Midwife or OB wouldn’t have been able to palpitate my belly and tell that anything was abnormal.  And doctors don’t typically do an ultrasound until 20 weeks, so it wouldn’t have been known even if we had been planning a hospital birth with an OB.

 

When things were outside of normal, our midwife let us know that we were out of her area of expertise.  She came with us and stayed with us while we made the choices we had to make.  I am forever grateful for A for walking through all of this with us.  She made me feel informed and educated and helped me to feel like I was making the best choice for our family, even if not for Anthony.

 

I think that is what makes this so hard too.  I felt like I had to choose my three earthly children over the child in my body. These are decisions that no parent should ever have to make.

 

To my sweet baby, Anthony, I am so sorry.  I am so very sorry that I couldn’t do better for you.  My heart hurts that I will never nurse you, never see you walk or run or hear you laugh.  I won’t be able to run my fingers through your soft hair while you snuggle with me.  I won’t see you go to school or ride a bike or get married.  I will never hear your sweet voice.  I am so sorry that you won’t get to do any of those things.  I hope that you are able to forgive me and that one day I will be able to join you in heaven.

 

Your daddy is hurting too.  He misses you terribly.  He wanted to hold you in his arms, not only in his hands.  He wanted to teach you to ride and bike and to play drums.  He loves you.

 

Your brother and sisters are so confused.  They don’t understand why you aren’t here with us. They are too young to understand what happened, but sadly, they understand that you are never coming to live with us.

 

We all miss you so much.  You are so loved.  We are trying to do good because of you.  Mama is trying to pump your milk so another baby can thrive on it.

 

Stephanie Paige Cole said, “I held you every second of your life,” and for that I am forever grateful.  My heart will never heal from the pain of losing my son.  But we will learn to live with him watching over us instead of us watching over him.  We forever have an angel.