Today is my beautiful Alexia Dawn's due date. Today should be a day for a new mom to wake up exhausted from having been up all night with a newborn who needs to be nursed every 2 hours around the clock. Today should be filled with tiny diapers and the smell of a new baby. Instead, today is filled with an indescribable ache and longing. It is filled with an exhausted mom who sat up all night crying for her little girl girl who was here and gone way, way too soon. It is filled with tears and loss.
On May 22, I found out I was pregnant with our 7th child. I'll admit, my first reaction was not pure excitement but, as the days passed, my excitement grew every day.
I saw the Dr for the first time on June 16. Everything looked great. I was 7 weeks. I am diabetic and the stress was doing a number on my blood sugars so my OB referred me to a specialist and I was to see him every other week. At 9w we had a bleeding scare. I went to the ER where they did an ultrasound. Everything looked fantastic! No idea what caused the bleeding, but no real reason for concern. I continued to see my OB and we got my blood sugar under control. I had some special testing done at 13 weeks which included a blood test that could tell me with 100% accuracy the gender of the baby without any risk. Of course, I wanted to know! I got the results back 2 weeks later. We were having our 5th little girl, Alexia Dawn.
I went in for my 16w OB appointment and shared the excitement of knowing the gender and name. Again, everything was perfect and my blood sugars were doing great. 2 weeks later, on September 1, I should have been 18w exactly. My best friend also had a dr appointment that day in the City so she was running with me. I asked her if she wanted to come back and hear Lexi's heartbeat which of course she did. We went back, did the preliminary stuff and Dr pulled out the doppler. He couldn't find anything. Not a big deal, this had happened before because we were still so small with so much room to move. He brought back the portable ultrasound. After about forever, he said he wasn't seeing everything he wanted to see and needed to call in a colleague. At this point I was scared! She came in and looked again. That's when I heard the words I had been fearing. He said my daughter had no heartbeat. I broke down. I refused to believe it so he got the Ultrasound clinic to see me immediately. Truthfully, I knew it wasn't a mistake, but I wanted it to be so bad. They confirmed that she had stopped growing at 17w3d. She had already been gone 4 days and I didn't even know it!
I had to go home and tell my kids their little sister would never come home. Their tears and pain were almost too much to bear.
September 3 at 845pm, I checked into the hospital for my induction. It was terrible. I sat for at least 30 minutes in the waiting area watching other women come in, round, pregnant, in labor, and happy. I hated them all. I finally got back to my room. My Dr was not on call. The Dr who was was awful. She asked me if I would rather have a D&E since it would be easier on me. I told her I wanted to be able to see and hold my little girl. She responded with "That's what Dr. S said, but you could end up needing a csection, and there is really no point in having major surgery for a dead baby." It was all I could do not to lose it! I assured her again, I wanted to be induced, that I knew the risks.
Labor was a slow process because as far as my body was concerned I was still pregnant. My best friend was right by my side the whole time. Finally, about 3am the contractions started getting bad. At 843am on 9/4/15 my beautiful baby was born sleeping measuring 6.34oz and 7.5 inches. Because it had been more than a week since she passed, she changed very fast but I held her as long as I could. My Dr was there by the time she was born. He tried to answer any questions and help me make the best choices about how to handle things from there forward. I chose not to have an autopsy because he couldn't promise it would give us answers. The likely cause was placental abruption based on what he saw when I delivered but even that was not certain.
I went home later that day, trying to pretend everything was fine for my kids. I have continued to try every day since. Some days are better, some are worse. I cleaned every single baby thing I could find out of the house, because there will never be a rainbow after this storm. I think that makes the loss more profound in some ways because I am grieving not just the loss of my little girl, but of that entire part of my life. Never again will I rock a newborn to sleep or watch first steps.
I try to hold on to my faith that I will see her again one day, but it is so hard and honestly I am so angry about the wait. I see women in the news every day who do horrible things to babies they never wanted. I wanted my little girl so much. I love her so much, and I miss her so much. I walk past her memorial shelf every day, several times a day in fact. I touch her urn a lot. I long to hold her just one more time. I wish I had held her longer when I had the chance. But, I did get to hold an angel, a body that belonged to a spirit too beautiful to need to endure the trials of this earth. I try to keep that in mind and let it help temper my grief.
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