10 years ago, I was 29.
10 years ago, I was 5 1/2 months pregnant with a very, very wanted child.
10 years ago, I went into the hospital on Hubs' birthday with a suspected case of food poisoning.
It wasn't food poisoning.
10 years ago today, in the 3 o'clock hour, Hubs and I found out that the much wanted child that I was carrying had died. She would be born in the early morning of January 29.
Today, we remember 10 years ago and the baby that we never got to know.
Because of this day, a leaf still hangs on our wall. A leaf for Bailey.
Showing posts with label Bailey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bailey. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Friday, July 20, 2012
You know, we've gotten a lot of heat over the years.
Hubs and I have gotten some heat over the years since we decided to stay with the 1 1/2 child count. (Bailey, bless her, was a half baked baby.) There are folks who just don't go there because they know the details of what happened with Bailey. There are folks who frankly, just don't consider that.
K- came to us as an incredible blessing. My friend, Holly (the reason for K-'s existence in our family) sent me a link to a blog today. She said that she knew that we were a more than one child family, but thought the posting to be appropriate.
How right she was.
Days before Aunt Donna's death, she told me that, "You could have had more kids, you know." :tip of the head: "I talked with someone about it and they said that you could have had more, you just chose not to have more." :deep breath to contain anger at someone who didn't know me or the circumstances: "Well, we chose to stick with what the doctors and specialists in charge of my care told us to do. When asking the OB in charge of my care at that point what we would do if, God forbid, I would become pregnant again, she said, 'We'd do the best we could and pray.'" Really, there was someone out there telling my aunt that I could have more kids? I understand that my aunt wanted us to adopt more, but it didn't happen. We kept our foster parenting/adoptive license open for 4 years. At the 4 year point, we opted not to renew. That was a choice that took many months and piles of tears to make. It was a choice that we made for us-- for our family. We considered ourselves so blessed. We still do.
So there you have it. In regard to the number of children you have, you need to pray about it and do what is best for you.
To that I say, Amen.
Smiles in my day:
- Being involved in VBS. Though we are at a new church and have decided to go forward for membership, I felt my summer lacking without the hustle and bustle of being deeply entrenched in VBS. I helped to decorate today and have been put in charge of the missions project. My sister will be bringing her kids a few days this week and staying since she lives a ways out, and I am excited for her to check out a new church that may be a good fit for her and her family. We'll be working together as a team (as we normally do) and gathering/counting missions donations together. :)
- Rachael went to the doctor today and found out that her ankle required quite a bit of hardware. She'll be unstapled and casted next week. By my understanding, her healing seems to be on target, though her leg is a bit unsightly at this moment. (By what she says.) That goodness for good insurance and for folks talented enough to fix that stuff.
Have a great weekend!
K- came to us as an incredible blessing. My friend, Holly (the reason for K-'s existence in our family) sent me a link to a blog today. She said that she knew that we were a more than one child family, but thought the posting to be appropriate.
How right she was.
Days before Aunt Donna's death, she told me that, "You could have had more kids, you know." :tip of the head: "I talked with someone about it and they said that you could have had more, you just chose not to have more." :deep breath to contain anger at someone who didn't know me or the circumstances: "Well, we chose to stick with what the doctors and specialists in charge of my care told us to do. When asking the OB in charge of my care at that point what we would do if, God forbid, I would become pregnant again, she said, 'We'd do the best we could and pray.'" Really, there was someone out there telling my aunt that I could have more kids? I understand that my aunt wanted us to adopt more, but it didn't happen. We kept our foster parenting/adoptive license open for 4 years. At the 4 year point, we opted not to renew. That was a choice that took many months and piles of tears to make. It was a choice that we made for us-- for our family. We considered ourselves so blessed. We still do.
So there you have it. In regard to the number of children you have, you need to pray about it and do what is best for you.
To that I say, Amen.
Smiles in my day:
- Being involved in VBS. Though we are at a new church and have decided to go forward for membership, I felt my summer lacking without the hustle and bustle of being deeply entrenched in VBS. I helped to decorate today and have been put in charge of the missions project. My sister will be bringing her kids a few days this week and staying since she lives a ways out, and I am excited for her to check out a new church that may be a good fit for her and her family. We'll be working together as a team (as we normally do) and gathering/counting missions donations together. :)
- Rachael went to the doctor today and found out that her ankle required quite a bit of hardware. She'll be unstapled and casted next week. By my understanding, her healing seems to be on target, though her leg is a bit unsightly at this moment. (By what she says.) That goodness for good insurance and for folks talented enough to fix that stuff.
Have a great weekend!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Losing Bailey.
Most of my regular readers are familiar with our loss of our first daughter Bailey. Yes, it was nearly 8 years ago. There are times when it comes back up.
Don't get me wrong, her loss is always in a way right at the surface. It can creep below the scab for a really long time. It's just when there are occasions that come up that remind of her loss, like this past week, it's like the scab has been ripped clean and the sore begins to weep once again.
First, I'm surrounded by pregnant woman. Don't get me wrong, I love babies. L. O. V. E. babies. The women, the bellies, the pregnancy complaints, the comparative stories and the birth details. [breathing deeply] It's an exercise of keeping me from doing the duck and run. It's not a jealousy thing. Oh, I would never in a million years want to see anyone lose a child. How it hurts. I can't truly explain. [insert welling tears] I just wished that people could be pregnant and magically give birth in one fell swoop.
Frankly, I think that many of the pregnant ladies would agree. (Not all, I know.)
I have two cousins due within a week or so of each other. They are due next month. Christmas Eve dinner was the typical comparative pregnant women talk. Nothing was meant as offensive. When we drove home, Hubs had asked me about it. I'm hoping that I hid my emotions better with everyone else or that he was just better in tune to me. He said, "How thoughtless!" "[Hubs], they are pregnant. They truly meant nothing thoughtless or wrong. Bailey has been gone for almost 8 years. They probably didn't think about it. I do all the time, but I doubt that they even gave it a thought." (Neither one did anything wrong. My cousins would be beside themselves if they knew of my sadness.)
"Well, I did."
So there I am, doing the cringe on my own (silently, of course) and there is Hubs, in the same big Titanicish boat with me. How thoughtless of me not to consider that either.
A couple of days ago, my aunt's health aide came down and they were telling me about how her granddaughter had given early birth to her twin babies. They were at 4 1/2 months along, were born despite efforts to keep them on the bake, they stayed alive for 3 1/2 hours and were gone. Their funeral is tomorrow. She was talking about getting dog tags made with the babies foot prints on them. I was talking with her about having Bailey's foot prints hanging on our bedroom wall. I gave her the name of the memorial company who, when we told them that we were looking to purchase a stone for a baby, told us that they provide those stones at no cost. They had a selection of maybe 10-12 and the gentleman apologized for not having more. I told her that people were giving me a hard time about not having a stone earlier. (It took us about 6 months after she passed to go.) It's just not something that you snap right up and say, "I'm going grave stone shopping today!"
She was telling me about the beautiful photos that the hospital had taken of the babies. Hands and feet, all taken in detail. I told her that we had been provided with a roll of film that I've yet to develop. They were living in the world of pinkish babies. To skip detail, I can tell you that I was not. No thank you, Baby Bailey will be in my memory forever and I can't do the photos. Period.
We talked about how my mom went on the hunt for a dress for bitty Baily to wear. In the end, I do recall that she was buried in a blue flowered dress. I think that it may have been a doll dress and I know that it was provided by someone or something of the hospital or funeral home nature.
I sat in church this morning in tears. It's not often that the loss of Bailey hits me so hard. The water in the church has been tainted with major pregnancy hormones that have three ladies due within a month of each other this coming May. We just had two babies born in the past week. One pregnant mom was a part of the Christmas tea and gave full detail about how she wanted another baby, her husband wasn't on board, she prayed and had a bunch of other people praying about it and last Christmas he gave her a baby name book, they were having a baby and it's all good. (I would want it no other way.)
So I'm in a funk. Rachael would call it a down yo. It's not that Christmas was bad. We had a lovely time. We spent time with family. Christmas was very good. I've just been working up to this funk.
Smiles in my sparsely blogged week:
- K- running from house to house delivering baked goods.
- The true meaning of Christmas, of course! (Not to be trumped by the baked good bit.)
- Being able to get together with family on Christmas Eve and having it be like it was when we were kids.
- My parents getting our white elephant offering and being really thrilled. It was a plug-in mini fridge for the car that we gave them, they decided that they weren't using it, they gave it to Hubs, we weren't using it, I tried to unload it at the yard sale, it didn't go and it was white elephanted. My mom was so thrilled, as my father has said on numerous occasions how they wished that they had it back!
- My father received the owl pellets. Apparently, that will be a passable thing every year now.
- We got the gingerbread house done on Friday. Or was it Thursday? Either way, it is upright and standing firm. See, having Hubs build the structure is a very good thing. No use in it looking like a forgotten foreclosure with candy stuck to it.
- Hubs asked what I wanted for Christmas. I'm in need of nothing, but told him a camera. Mine is old and the delay is just awful. Because I fancy myself as a budding photographer of sorts, he bought me a Nikon. We're generally Kodak people, but since the model that he was looking at was falling apart (FYI Kodak), he bought a lovely Nikon on sale and now I have a spiffy new camera that can apparently hold 10,000 shots or so. Wow. Now if I can just figure out how to work it . . .
- The neighbor replaced my old and gigantic monitor with a new flat screen! It's lovely and he didn't even know that the old one was ailing. He bought Hubs an impact drill set and a few DS games for K-.
- K- is going to play in the snow. I was thinking today. We've had snow continuously covering the ground in some level of measurement for a month. Colds and flus are flying around everywhere and I may very well have to suck it up and open all the windows and doors with the temp only being 39 or so at the end of the week. I need to get us some clean, fresh air to keep us all well.
- The Baker Creek catalog is here and I'll have to be getting with Rachael to see what we'll be swapping this year. (We are swapping, right?)
I've dumped. I feel better. How therapeutic it is to let it out. Thanks!
Don't get me wrong, her loss is always in a way right at the surface. It can creep below the scab for a really long time. It's just when there are occasions that come up that remind of her loss, like this past week, it's like the scab has been ripped clean and the sore begins to weep once again.
First, I'm surrounded by pregnant woman. Don't get me wrong, I love babies. L. O. V. E. babies. The women, the bellies, the pregnancy complaints, the comparative stories and the birth details. [breathing deeply] It's an exercise of keeping me from doing the duck and run. It's not a jealousy thing. Oh, I would never in a million years want to see anyone lose a child. How it hurts. I can't truly explain. [insert welling tears] I just wished that people could be pregnant and magically give birth in one fell swoop.
Frankly, I think that many of the pregnant ladies would agree. (Not all, I know.)
I have two cousins due within a week or so of each other. They are due next month. Christmas Eve dinner was the typical comparative pregnant women talk. Nothing was meant as offensive. When we drove home, Hubs had asked me about it. I'm hoping that I hid my emotions better with everyone else or that he was just better in tune to me. He said, "How thoughtless!" "[Hubs], they are pregnant. They truly meant nothing thoughtless or wrong. Bailey has been gone for almost 8 years. They probably didn't think about it. I do all the time, but I doubt that they even gave it a thought." (Neither one did anything wrong. My cousins would be beside themselves if they knew of my sadness.)
"Well, I did."
So there I am, doing the cringe on my own (silently, of course) and there is Hubs, in the same big Titanicish boat with me. How thoughtless of me not to consider that either.
A couple of days ago, my aunt's health aide came down and they were telling me about how her granddaughter had given early birth to her twin babies. They were at 4 1/2 months along, were born despite efforts to keep them on the bake, they stayed alive for 3 1/2 hours and were gone. Their funeral is tomorrow. She was talking about getting dog tags made with the babies foot prints on them. I was talking with her about having Bailey's foot prints hanging on our bedroom wall. I gave her the name of the memorial company who, when we told them that we were looking to purchase a stone for a baby, told us that they provide those stones at no cost. They had a selection of maybe 10-12 and the gentleman apologized for not having more. I told her that people were giving me a hard time about not having a stone earlier. (It took us about 6 months after she passed to go.) It's just not something that you snap right up and say, "I'm going grave stone shopping today!"
She was telling me about the beautiful photos that the hospital had taken of the babies. Hands and feet, all taken in detail. I told her that we had been provided with a roll of film that I've yet to develop. They were living in the world of pinkish babies. To skip detail, I can tell you that I was not. No thank you, Baby Bailey will be in my memory forever and I can't do the photos. Period.
We talked about how my mom went on the hunt for a dress for bitty Baily to wear. In the end, I do recall that she was buried in a blue flowered dress. I think that it may have been a doll dress and I know that it was provided by someone or something of the hospital or funeral home nature.
I sat in church this morning in tears. It's not often that the loss of Bailey hits me so hard. The water in the church has been tainted with major pregnancy hormones that have three ladies due within a month of each other this coming May. We just had two babies born in the past week. One pregnant mom was a part of the Christmas tea and gave full detail about how she wanted another baby, her husband wasn't on board, she prayed and had a bunch of other people praying about it and last Christmas he gave her a baby name book, they were having a baby and it's all good. (I would want it no other way.)
So I'm in a funk. Rachael would call it a down yo. It's not that Christmas was bad. We had a lovely time. We spent time with family. Christmas was very good. I've just been working up to this funk.
Smiles in my sparsely blogged week:
- K- running from house to house delivering baked goods.
- The true meaning of Christmas, of course! (Not to be trumped by the baked good bit.)
- Being able to get together with family on Christmas Eve and having it be like it was when we were kids.
- My parents getting our white elephant offering and being really thrilled. It was a plug-in mini fridge for the car that we gave them, they decided that they weren't using it, they gave it to Hubs, we weren't using it, I tried to unload it at the yard sale, it didn't go and it was white elephanted. My mom was so thrilled, as my father has said on numerous occasions how they wished that they had it back!
- My father received the owl pellets. Apparently, that will be a passable thing every year now.
- We got the gingerbread house done on Friday. Or was it Thursday? Either way, it is upright and standing firm. See, having Hubs build the structure is a very good thing. No use in it looking like a forgotten foreclosure with candy stuck to it.
- Hubs asked what I wanted for Christmas. I'm in need of nothing, but told him a camera. Mine is old and the delay is just awful. Because I fancy myself as a budding photographer of sorts, he bought me a Nikon. We're generally Kodak people, but since the model that he was looking at was falling apart (FYI Kodak), he bought a lovely Nikon on sale and now I have a spiffy new camera that can apparently hold 10,000 shots or so. Wow. Now if I can just figure out how to work it . . .
- The neighbor replaced my old and gigantic monitor with a new flat screen! It's lovely and he didn't even know that the old one was ailing. He bought Hubs an impact drill set and a few DS games for K-.
- K- is going to play in the snow. I was thinking today. We've had snow continuously covering the ground in some level of measurement for a month. Colds and flus are flying around everywhere and I may very well have to suck it up and open all the windows and doors with the temp only being 39 or so at the end of the week. I need to get us some clean, fresh air to keep us all well.
- The Baker Creek catalog is here and I'll have to be getting with Rachael to see what we'll be swapping this year. (We are swapping, right?)
I've dumped. I feel better. How therapeutic it is to let it out. Thanks!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Works for Me Wednesday: Book on Miscarriage or Stillbirth
The birth of my nephew, Leland, this week has brought me to thoughts of our first daughter. Some of you who have stopped in are aware of the loss of our daughter, Bailey. If you aren't and you are properly outfitted with a box of Kleenex, feel free to read about it here. Please feel free to read the follow-up here and here. The long and short of our loss boils down to my having two blood clotting disorders. The blood clotting disorders that I have are MTHFR and PAI-Type 1, both of which are homozygous. (Meaning, genes from both sides to make the ill effects extra ugly.) These genetic disorders were completely unknown to us in the beginning, but in the end Bailey died as a result of lack of oxygen because of a large blood clot that had formed behind the placenta. This was at 22 1/2 weeks. Because of the blood clotting disorders and the severity of the pre-eclampsia/eclampsia that I did have, the OB/GYN was kind in suggesting that we not take the route to family via birth from me again. (Not how she said it, but how I'm wording it.)So, this brings me around to my actual reason to post. The hospital had a library and insisted that we borrow books on loss from their collection. My husband went down, got the books that they suggested and off home we went. I was off work for a full month and had quite a bit of time to read. We were absolutely horrified that one of the books that they suggested and sent home for me to read was comparing miscarriage, stillbirth and abo*rtion as all the same loss. I certainly can understand miscarriage and stillbirth falling into the same category, but listing abor*tion in there threw me for a loop. If it was a specifically medically necessary abor*tion then I could certainly understand their need for the same category, but that wasn't mentioned. It was a comparison of miscarriage, stillbirth and by choice abor*tion only. It only made me mad. The loss of our daughter was not our choice.
Friends bought me the book Losing You Too Soon, by Bernadette Keaggy. Bernadette really wrote truly from her heart and she didn't hide the way she felt. She dumped it all out there. As Christians, we believe in God's will for our lives. God's will, however, doesn't always mean that we're going to admit that it was something that we signed up for. Certainly birthing a deceased child is never high on someones list. Plainly, it sucks. There was Bernadette left to do it multiple times.
I admit that for several years, I re-read this book a couple of times a year. Generally around the anniversary of Bailey's death (January 27) or around the time that she was due (May 30), I would crack the book out. It is a book that I've suggested to many people. That's why I posted about this subject this week. I highly recommend this book to folks who have suffered loss of an infant due to miscarriage or stillbirth. Sometimes as friends, we want to do something and we don't know what to do or where to go for a friend. Sometimes reading a book like this will give you perspective and a bit of understanding in what your friend or family is going through. (Not that we would ever wish loss on anyone ever.)
Worth noting, my husband went to see Phil Keaggy play somewhere around Youngstown. (He was from around there.) He met him after the concert and told him to please thank his wife for writing her book. Phil had a lovely conversation with him about the loss of Bailey, signed the CD and made sure to include my name on it. Not a stiff and stodgy musician or bigger than his britches, he was down to earth and truly took my husband's compliment to heart.
Also worth noting, my husband and I were so taken by Phil's truly kind heart, what he and Bernadette went through and her writing the book that K-'s middle name is actually from a Phil Keaggy song.
So Phil, if you are out there, you and Bernadette rock! Thanks for reaching out and helping people. Thank you for touching our hearts.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Bailey
In celebration of National Adoption Day on November 15, I thought that I would give y'all a quick run of how we became parents. Yes, tissues are required. We'll start with baby number 1. That would be Bailey.
Hubs and I tried for almost a year to get pregnant. We were so thrilled the day the extra pink line came up on the stick that we could almost not stand it. Then my husband, in very George from Seinfeld fashion announced, "MY BOYS CAN SWIM!" It was a great, great day! For some reason, I remember the day. September 26, 2002. It almost seemed unreal.
Throughout the whole pregnancy, everything went fine. I gained only what I was supposed to. Other than a GIANT craving for pizza, all was well. I only had a few incidents of morning sickness-- maybe two-- so I counted myself extra lucky. I was pregnant and thrilled to be so. The only one thing that was of pain was my back. From about 2 1/2 months, it felt as if someone had lodged an axe into my back. If I laid down on the floor, it took quite some time for me to get back up. I didn't complain. The only three who knew were my husband, mom and midwife. Apparently, everything was tipped backwards causing the pain. It was fine. I figured that it would be gone soon enough.
I started having some heart palpitations, but knew that I would be going to the midwife in a week. I had been running all over work, so I attributed the overstress to the heart palpitations. I had also started swelling a little. My sister swelled horribly at 5 months, so I figured that I was just following suit. It also didn't help that I realized that the Spaghetti O's that I had been craving were just way full of sodium.
On January 24, 2003, we went out to dinner with my in-law's. The next day, my mother-in-law was going to Chicago to visit my sister-in-law and that happened to be Hub's birthday. We moved it up a day. No big deal. I had a pork chop and cole slaw. All was well. That is, until later that night. I ended up vomiting from about midnight or so until 1 PM the next afternoon. Hubs had me call the midwife. She had me go to the hospital to be monitored and be put on an IV. We figured that I had food poisoning. We figured wrong.
Upon arriving at the hospital, my blood pressure was about 155/100. They weren't so pleased. They got me in, had me pee in a cup and put me on an IV. I did bring up to the one resident that I had my legs crossed 15 minutes previous and that I still had a giant dent in my leg. "Oh, that would be from what is growing in your uterus." Okay.
Then the nurse came in. She checked my blood pressure again. 180/110. It was confirmed that I was going nowhere. In fact, not only was I going nowhere, but I had to be shuttled upstairs for re-evaluation by my doctor. I had been seeing the midwife, but at that point she handed me over to the OB of the practice. The little hospital that I was at was too small to deal with the magnitude of my illness. They had to pass me on. They wouldn't even let my husband drive me. They called an ambulance.
I was pre-eclamptic.
When I arrived, a not so gentle resident checked me out. I absolutely thought that she was trying to remove my spine through my more delicate region. I asked that I not be seen by her ever again.
They moved me to a room. They confirmed that I had pre-eclampsia. The plan was for me to remain in the hospital for a month. I was only at 22 weeks at that time, so they were hoping to administer steroids to build up the baby's lungs and deliver in 26 weeks. The plan was to sit. But, I was getting worse.
The first night was the only night that Hubs went home. I remember calling my mom at 4 AM. I knew that she wouldn't be sleeping. We talked and I was telling her how scared I was. The next morning the nurse had come in to take my weight. I had gained six pounds in water weight overnight. When they came to take my temperature, I had to cheat and take breaths. I wasn't getting enough air. I took my socks off because I was afraid that the circulation would be cut off to my feet.
They moved me to another room. Other than it being a private room, I can't figure out why they moved me. This proved to be a good thing, though.
My pastor came to visit. I don't know why we were talking about it, but we got onto the discussion of when he and Mrs. H- lost their first baby. He left and the nurse came in to check baby's heart rate and all that.
She tried.
She tried again.
Then they came in with an ultrasound. Nothing.
Then they wheeled me downstairs to the high risk doctor who confirmed that our baby had passed away. There is nothing more horrible than to hear that your baby died. Awful. But, I knew. I don't know how I knew but I did.
This was January 27, 2003.
The decision was made for me to be wheeled to labor and delivery. I was too high risk for a c-section and had to do it on my own. They gave me several different drugs to get things rolling. This was Monday at about 5 PM.
Tuesday came and my friend refers to it as the worse day. That was the day that my husband broke. My mom said that he was rolled up into a ball on the couch rocking back and forth just crying. Not only had his baby died, but there was a strong chance that I would, too.
The decision was made to give me a central line. My blood pressure was far too high (well beyond the 180/110) and I was heading towards heart damage. They did not have the time to give me anything to numb the area. They had to go in. It felt like they were driving a roofing nail through my neck. I was in and out much of the time, only remembering certain things and having had other things filled in by friends. I do remember the central line, though. My mom was with me as they put it in. (And accidentally doused me in Iodine even though I was listed as allergic.) My friends were outside and said all they could hear was me screaming.
It was finally on Wednesday morning at 1:06 AM, January 29, 2003 that our baby was born. A tiny little thing. 14.6 ounces. 11 inches long. No cry. No wiggle. No big fanfare. It was quiet. I hoped that they would be wrong. I hoped for a cry, but nothing. I remember asking what the baby was, as we didn't find out in advance. It was the little girl that we hoped for. (Though I would have laid money down to say it was a boy.) Bailey Madeline. She was our vacation baby. Her middle name was from the island in Wisconsin that we camped on. Having given birth to Bailey was supposed to be my cure. It was supposed to make me better.
Notsomuch.
I continued to stay in labor and delivery for another day and a half. They had me on magnesium which goofed with my vision horribly. I couldn't see. Apparently, my intense vomiting had broken the blood vessels in my eyes. No one had bothered to tell me that. I felt like a train had run through the back of my head. They ended up moving me to what I termed as the "old ladies hysterectomy ward." My doctor was kind enough not to insist on my being placed on a ward with babies. She asked and I said no thank you.
We noticed one thing as we moved. There was a leaf. A leaf on our door that moved with us from door to door. It turns out that it was a leaf for Bailey. It was to tell the hospital staff that there had been a loss. Even if they didn't read a chart, they would know. Hopefully, it would keep them from saying ignorant things. For the most part, it worked. There were still dumb people who said even dumber things.
After 8 1/2 days in the hospital, I was released to go home. My blood pressure was still out of whack. I had been thinning down from my massive 30 pound gain of water weight. It would take time.
Hubs took off a few weeks to stay home with me. My mother cooked for me. My mom and dad took care of all the memorial service arrangements. My mother-in-law came weekly to clean my house. Quietly, I heard her cry as she went. Like the rest of us, she just didn't know what to do with herself.
While in the hospital, Hubs and I had talked. We had talked again of our decision to adopt. We had decided to adopt long ago. In fact, we had talked about it in the early days of our relationship. We knew that we had been told that pregnancy was not suggested. I had a couple of blood clotting disorders that would most definitely rear their ugly heads again.
We just wanted to be a family. We wanted a little one with us. So, with the help of friends, we started our road to becoming a family.
With this, I will continue on our journey tomorrow.
Hubs and I tried for almost a year to get pregnant. We were so thrilled the day the extra pink line came up on the stick that we could almost not stand it. Then my husband, in very George from Seinfeld fashion announced, "MY BOYS CAN SWIM!" It was a great, great day! For some reason, I remember the day. September 26, 2002. It almost seemed unreal.
Throughout the whole pregnancy, everything went fine. I gained only what I was supposed to. Other than a GIANT craving for pizza, all was well. I only had a few incidents of morning sickness-- maybe two-- so I counted myself extra lucky. I was pregnant and thrilled to be so. The only one thing that was of pain was my back. From about 2 1/2 months, it felt as if someone had lodged an axe into my back. If I laid down on the floor, it took quite some time for me to get back up. I didn't complain. The only three who knew were my husband, mom and midwife. Apparently, everything was tipped backwards causing the pain. It was fine. I figured that it would be gone soon enough.
I started having some heart palpitations, but knew that I would be going to the midwife in a week. I had been running all over work, so I attributed the overstress to the heart palpitations. I had also started swelling a little. My sister swelled horribly at 5 months, so I figured that I was just following suit. It also didn't help that I realized that the Spaghetti O's that I had been craving were just way full of sodium.
On January 24, 2003, we went out to dinner with my in-law's. The next day, my mother-in-law was going to Chicago to visit my sister-in-law and that happened to be Hub's birthday. We moved it up a day. No big deal. I had a pork chop and cole slaw. All was well. That is, until later that night. I ended up vomiting from about midnight or so until 1 PM the next afternoon. Hubs had me call the midwife. She had me go to the hospital to be monitored and be put on an IV. We figured that I had food poisoning. We figured wrong.
Upon arriving at the hospital, my blood pressure was about 155/100. They weren't so pleased. They got me in, had me pee in a cup and put me on an IV. I did bring up to the one resident that I had my legs crossed 15 minutes previous and that I still had a giant dent in my leg. "Oh, that would be from what is growing in your uterus." Okay.
Then the nurse came in. She checked my blood pressure again. 180/110. It was confirmed that I was going nowhere. In fact, not only was I going nowhere, but I had to be shuttled upstairs for re-evaluation by my doctor. I had been seeing the midwife, but at that point she handed me over to the OB of the practice. The little hospital that I was at was too small to deal with the magnitude of my illness. They had to pass me on. They wouldn't even let my husband drive me. They called an ambulance.
I was pre-eclamptic.
When I arrived, a not so gentle resident checked me out. I absolutely thought that she was trying to remove my spine through my more delicate region. I asked that I not be seen by her ever again.
They moved me to a room. They confirmed that I had pre-eclampsia. The plan was for me to remain in the hospital for a month. I was only at 22 weeks at that time, so they were hoping to administer steroids to build up the baby's lungs and deliver in 26 weeks. The plan was to sit. But, I was getting worse.
The first night was the only night that Hubs went home. I remember calling my mom at 4 AM. I knew that she wouldn't be sleeping. We talked and I was telling her how scared I was. The next morning the nurse had come in to take my weight. I had gained six pounds in water weight overnight. When they came to take my temperature, I had to cheat and take breaths. I wasn't getting enough air. I took my socks off because I was afraid that the circulation would be cut off to my feet.
They moved me to another room. Other than it being a private room, I can't figure out why they moved me. This proved to be a good thing, though.
My pastor came to visit. I don't know why we were talking about it, but we got onto the discussion of when he and Mrs. H- lost their first baby. He left and the nurse came in to check baby's heart rate and all that.
She tried.
She tried again.
Then they came in with an ultrasound. Nothing.
Then they wheeled me downstairs to the high risk doctor who confirmed that our baby had passed away. There is nothing more horrible than to hear that your baby died. Awful. But, I knew. I don't know how I knew but I did.
This was January 27, 2003.
The decision was made for me to be wheeled to labor and delivery. I was too high risk for a c-section and had to do it on my own. They gave me several different drugs to get things rolling. This was Monday at about 5 PM.
Tuesday came and my friend refers to it as the worse day. That was the day that my husband broke. My mom said that he was rolled up into a ball on the couch rocking back and forth just crying. Not only had his baby died, but there was a strong chance that I would, too.
The decision was made to give me a central line. My blood pressure was far too high (well beyond the 180/110) and I was heading towards heart damage. They did not have the time to give me anything to numb the area. They had to go in. It felt like they were driving a roofing nail through my neck. I was in and out much of the time, only remembering certain things and having had other things filled in by friends. I do remember the central line, though. My mom was with me as they put it in. (And accidentally doused me in Iodine even though I was listed as allergic.) My friends were outside and said all they could hear was me screaming.
It was finally on Wednesday morning at 1:06 AM, January 29, 2003 that our baby was born. A tiny little thing. 14.6 ounces. 11 inches long. No cry. No wiggle. No big fanfare. It was quiet. I hoped that they would be wrong. I hoped for a cry, but nothing. I remember asking what the baby was, as we didn't find out in advance. It was the little girl that we hoped for. (Though I would have laid money down to say it was a boy.) Bailey Madeline. She was our vacation baby. Her middle name was from the island in Wisconsin that we camped on. Having given birth to Bailey was supposed to be my cure. It was supposed to make me better.
Notsomuch.
I continued to stay in labor and delivery for another day and a half. They had me on magnesium which goofed with my vision horribly. I couldn't see. Apparently, my intense vomiting had broken the blood vessels in my eyes. No one had bothered to tell me that. I felt like a train had run through the back of my head. They ended up moving me to what I termed as the "old ladies hysterectomy ward." My doctor was kind enough not to insist on my being placed on a ward with babies. She asked and I said no thank you.
We noticed one thing as we moved. There was a leaf. A leaf on our door that moved with us from door to door. It turns out that it was a leaf for Bailey. It was to tell the hospital staff that there had been a loss. Even if they didn't read a chart, they would know. Hopefully, it would keep them from saying ignorant things. For the most part, it worked. There were still dumb people who said even dumber things.
After 8 1/2 days in the hospital, I was released to go home. My blood pressure was still out of whack. I had been thinning down from my massive 30 pound gain of water weight. It would take time.
Hubs took off a few weeks to stay home with me. My mother cooked for me. My mom and dad took care of all the memorial service arrangements. My mother-in-law came weekly to clean my house. Quietly, I heard her cry as she went. Like the rest of us, she just didn't know what to do with herself.
While in the hospital, Hubs and I had talked. We had talked again of our decision to adopt. We had decided to adopt long ago. In fact, we had talked about it in the early days of our relationship. We knew that we had been told that pregnancy was not suggested. I had a couple of blood clotting disorders that would most definitely rear their ugly heads again.
We just wanted to be a family. We wanted a little one with us. So, with the help of friends, we started our road to becoming a family.
With this, I will continue on our journey tomorrow.
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