Baby Things

I want to buy baby things. Clothes and diapers and car seats ...new baby things.I was planning then one day it was just over. No warning,just over and I had to stop.But I can't help it I want baby things. I want to keep planning. I want Ruth.
I miss you little one. 60 days empty today.

The Tears Win Again

I'm sad today. I think I'm sad everyday but today the tears are hanging there right behind my eyes ready to spill out if I let them. The sob is right there at the back of my throat and trying to escape but  I won't let it out. I am certain everyone is tiring of hearing me talk about "this" so I will write instead.

  I went back to work in the office yesterday. It made me sick being there without her. I have never been there without her.I miss her.  The last time I was there 7/25 was the day everything started to unravel. It was the last normal morning I had. I went outside and cried on my break  yesterday and when I went inside I hoped no one would notice so I walked with my head down until I reached my desk. I feel like  I have reached the acceptable amount of time people expect you to grieve. I think people assume at this point that I am better  and may not get it if I fall apart. Like somehow it has been  long enough and I should be done crying. So I hold it in until I'm by myself and then I cry and cry and cry because my baby died and it isn't fair.

I got this letter in the mail the other day from some group doing research on what happens when people lose thier babies. My name is out there in the world now as the  mother of a stillborn. A stillborn. That word makes my stomach turn.A word to add to the list of words I hate.Oh here is another, Bicornuate. I hate that one too. Ironically,as I was getting ready to disregard what my former doctor says and follow my own "plan" My appointment with the endocrinologist got moved up 3 weeks. Maybe its a sign that I need to see him before I get pregnant again because things are worse than I think. Maybe. I guess on Friday I will have some idea but I doubt he will tell me much. We will see. Here they come..the tears just won our fight, again.

Well, so much for my reason why. Today the Dr. told me I have a bicorunate uterus and she believes this cause the abruption. Something in my gut says while I may have this problem I do not believe it was the root cause of all of this. I can not explain it. I am not one who has these "gut" feelings but I just have a gut feeling it all goes back to the subchorionic hematoma. Perhaps I am wrong but I am parting ways with this doctor. She set me up with an Endocrinologist  who gave me an appointment in a month! A month? Do these people not realize that every cycle that goes by is  lost time? A month for the consultation then weeks for testing to be done so maybe we can try again next year? Ok, so maybe that's being dramatic but I do not think anyone understands the torture of waiting. I of course do not want to take any chance of this happening again but she already told me with nothing being wrong my chances were at least 20% now they have to reasses my risk,which of course is now higher. This is not supposed to be this complicated. I just want a family. I can't put into words all that runs through my head or exactly how I feel today. I'm just rambling but I need to right now. That's all any of this is but it helps somehow.
It is late. I need to sleep and get away fron google ad wikipedia for awhile,my head is startig to spin.

Life goes on

Friday  September 4th was  a full moon. The last full moon was August 4th, Ruth's birthday. This time the moon wasn't pink like Sarahs picture, a reminder that life goes on. And it has but it seems so wrong. I am supposed to 27 weeks pregnant today but instead I'm 34 days empty today. At least I know  now it wasn't my fault. It was in fact an abruption but not as a result of something I did or didn't do. I got the answer to my "Why". This is all I really needed to know, it was NOT my fault.

 I miss her. I look at her pictures every day and I am amazed  at how teeny tiny and perfect she was. Why am I so sad right now? Why can't I stop crying? I have been doing SO well. It just hits me sometimes that my little girl died,my baby was born sleeping. There are so many of us out there,mommies and daddies of angels. You think stillbirths are uncommon but they happen every single day it is not at all a rare occurance. The Dr. says I have a 20% chance of this happening again because I know have a "history". Willie,being the glass is half full type  sees this as an 80% chance  of things being fine. I can't get myself to think this way though. I have never really been an optimist now optimisim seems even harder to find. I will have to keep searching I guess.

Sometimes I swear I can still feel her moving but of course that's just my imagination. I'm doing better, I think...well at least sometimes. I don't cry as often but the tears still come easily. We had all these plans. Things to do, places to see.Now we have nothing but the memory of this precious little person we didn't get the chance to know.
It will be 3 weeks tomorrow. Time has been passing so so slowly but yet to my heart it feels like yesterday. Willie says someday thoughts of Ruth will make me smile instead of cry. I know he's right but now everytime I think of her I ache in a way I didn't even know was possible. It's all consuming and inescapable. I wish I could hide awhile until the ache fades and I can face people again. I don't mind strangers because they don't know. It's the people who know that I'm afraid of facing. Their faces make it real because they can't help but look at me with that look that says "I'm sorry". In their eyes I can see my sorrow reflected back and I don't want to see it. I don't want to know this is real. If I am alone I can pretend.If I am with strangers I can pretend but with those who know I can't pretend or hide. I have to face it, to see it and it hurts too much. I am not ready. Not yet.

Viability

If we could have just made it this far, Ruth and I. If we could have have just made it this far they would have given her a chance. She would have been "viable". Apparently viability does not happen until 24 weeks,until that point nothing will be done. Oh sure, they will try to stop the contractions with preterm labor but if it doesn't work they won't try to save your baby because she is not "viable". I get it, I do. I know no baby has survived at only 22 weeks but it still makes me angry. Everything seems to make angry these days. If I feel better for awhile I am mad at myself for that, If I fall apart I'm mad about not being able to keep it together. If Willie seems to not be thinking of her enough ,I'm mad about that. I read this is normal. I read alot of things. I read about other women who have gone through a loss like mine. I read about possible causes. I read and read and read and I still feel lost.

I'm supposed to be pregnant. I'm not,instead I'm 14 days empty today.

Why?

I started to do some work from home today. My boss generously offered for me to stay home until the first week of October to allow me time to grieve and hopefully to some extent,heal.
Heal. How will I ever do that? Things do seem less foggy today but I still keep hoping this is dream and tomorrow I will wake up and my belly will be big again not deflated and empty. 8 days empty today. No more little flickers of movement no more heartbeat on the doppler that I checked every morning and every night.
I need an answer, a reason why. Of course they said it was not my fault placental abruptions are just "one of those things". I can't accept that though. I have this tremendous feeling of guilt. There must be something I could have done. What though? What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? I wish someone could tell me. It won't make my heart hurt any less but I just need a reason why.

The littlest Lobo

Tuesday August 4,2009 the tiniest little Lobo was born, 18 weeks too soon. We called her Ruth. No, it's not a pretty name I know this but it's now hers for keeps even though that was not our intention. One night while talking about names Willie and I were going through biblical names and he said Ruth and we joked we could call her Baby Ruth like the candy I had sitting there on the bed side table or maybe for Babe Ruth from Willies beloved Yankees. It was just a joke as I really didn't care for the name little did I know that in the end it would be the only name she ever knew. P


From the start this was not a worry free pregnancy. I found out on 4/11/09 that I was expecting. Two weeks later I started to bleed. They called it a sub chorionic hematoma. I was told not to worry it would "resolve" itself. Placing my trust in the doctors I relaxed and waited for the bleeding to stop which took 4 weeks. In the meantime I quit my job, started a new job at an amazing company and started planning a lifetime with my baby to be.


I felt so blessed, everything I wanted was falling into place life could not have been better. I was hardly sick throughout the 1st trimester just very tired. I got through with few complaints and made it to week 19 thinking being pregnant was pretty easy. Then came the call at work on 7/14/09 that one of my test came back and there was a fear now that my little one may have Spinda Bifida. I lost it. They sent me in right away for an Ultrasound to once again tell me all is ok, don't worry...oh and it's a girl. A girl. I wanted a girl. Now I was feeling even MORE blessed. It was girl and she was ok. So I trusted the doctors went to work and went about life as usual.


Then on 7/25/09 I woke up bleeding. I told myself not to panic I bought a Doppler so I could check the heartbeat at home a few weeks before so I knew she was ok. There was no pain not much blood until I got to work. Sitting at my desk I hemorrhaged. I drove myself to the ER where the checked my little girl via ultrasound and said again don't worry she is ok.


I went to perinatologist on Monday. My Birthday.They said my cervix was "funneling" I had no idea what that meant but they were worried. The sent me to Labor and Delivery for monitoring and they next thing I know the doctor is saying that I am contracting, I was in preterm labor. They admitted me and  gave me medication to halt the contractions. I was there totally bed ridden for 2 days. The contractions stopped. The ultrasound on 7/29/09 showed no more funneling, my cervix was closed and I was safe to go home...on bed rest. It was hard for me to stay in bed. By Friday I cheated and I moved around more than I was supposed to. Maybe that's where things went wrong.


Friday night I started to bleed again. Saturday I had contractions but I didn't know that's what they were. I was convinced this was it, I was having a miscarriage. They told me in the hospital that there was little else they could do at this stage to stop any more  contractions as the meds thay gave me can only be given for 48 hours. If I was going to lose her I wanted to be at home. We made it to Monday and my check up with the OB. She said I was contracting again and 1 cm dilated. We went right to the hospital. The perinatologist and US tech waited for me to arrive...they were both supposed to be headed home. The tech started the scan and stopped immediately to call the Dr. in. I knew this was bad. They looked and looked and looked. They said they was blood between the amnion and chorion. These membranes should have fused by week 15 but had not. Was this due to the bleed I had at 8 weeks? To this I still have no answer.


When they were done and explained that I was at risk for infection because my cervix was opening and closing for over a week now so I would need blood levels checked ASAP for elevated white cell count. If I had an infection depending on how bad they would need to treat aggressively which would not be good for Ruth. If they did not treat it I would become septic. What the hell was happening??? I should have known when the tech kissed my check before leaving and said she would say a prayer for me ,that things were much worse than they let on.


My Dr called me later to explain what the perinatologist saw back at her office after examining the pictures from my scan. There was a tear, a small one, on my placenta. I would be in the hospital "awhile" while we hoped this would heal. I was now on mag sulfate for the contractions I couldn't even feel. It made me sick so I sent Willie home. I felt safe because I was in the hospital. I knew that until 24 weeks Ruth did not have a chance of survival outside my womb but I really truly thought we would make it now that I was back in the hospital.


At 12:18 I called Sarah. I was feeling better enough to chat. Just before 1:00 am we hung up because my nurse was due in at 1:00am to take my blood. At 1:05 I stated having cramps. They were painful but I could talk through them. The nurse came at 1:15 and I was in more pain then. I explained where it hurt and she moved the TOCO monitor down as there was no contractions registering on the monitor. Then she saw them, she saw I was in fact contracting about every 2.5 minutes. She took my blood to see if they could up the mag sulfate. I started to vomit the pain too much to bear.


I don't know at what point it got so bad I could no longer talk but it did. I started to sweat and curse in the short time in between. I don't think anyone knew at the time but I was fully in labor.


They finally gave me something for the pain and for a moment I didn't feel the pain but it seemed almost instantly it was back. Then I felt it. I felt the urge to push. I screamed at the nurse before she could even react Ruth was born.


The rest is blurry. My Dr came in they wheeled me to the operating room and told me I was going to sleep. I woke up. Willie was there. Ruth was gone. How could this be?





A few hours later they brought her, Baby Ruth, to Willie and I. All wrapped up swaddled just so. She was perfect. Her hands her lips her ears her chin her feet her strong looking arms. All so teeny tiny and perfect she looked just like a Lobo. We then had to say goodbye to our little girl before we even got to say hello.