George Mary part I

I started piecing things together over the week between Christmas and New Year's...

"Hey look! I can still button my jeans!"

"You know, I just don't feel as anemic anymore...and I am taking 50mg less iron daily than I was."

"I don't know where these headaches are coming from."

"My appetite sure seems to have leveled off from a couple weeks ago."

"I don't think I'm feeling him poke as much as I used to..."

Add to that my reluctance (that I couldn't explain) to seek out maternity clothes, or to schedule the 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound. 

Something just wasn't adding up. But what the hey, I had a doppler! It had been nearly 2 weeks since we last heard that beautiful little heart thumping away. I knew the baby would be easier to locate with the doppler than he had been before and yet again I'd find that heartbeat after a while, get teary eyed and feel stupid for doubting that everything was okay. I couldn't listen that Saturday night. The two littles were sleeping in my room and my husband was dozing. I wasn't going to let my silly doubts wake them up.

Sunday morning, I whipped it out as soon as they were all up and out of the room. I looked for a long time. I heard the placenta whooshing away, and my heartbeat, sometimes beating so fast I had to make sure it was me and not the baby. Lying flat. Elevating hips. Hang legs off the bed. Turn to left. Turn to right. I turned and twisted...things I had to do in the past to find little "Pigbert." He had always been difficult to locate, but this time it was different. I heard no movement. Even when I never got heartbeats in the past, I always got movement noises. I put the doppler away. Pigbert was getting bigger. He was going to have periods of rest and periods of activity. He was just resting, probably behind the placenta, and so I didn't hear his heartbeat or movement. I always listened in the evening, and he was generally busy moving around then. I'd try that night.

So I did. There was my placenta. There was my heartbeat. Nothing else. Okay. Baby is still playing hard to get at almost 17 weeks. He's tiny and well...I had all these fat layers to go through. I'll listen tomorrow.

Monday evening. Tried again for one last obnoxiously long time to hear something, anything, that wasn't my terrified heart and a tornadic sounding placenta. Nothing. The lack of heartbeat didn't scare me. The lack of movement said more than I wanted to know. I texted the midwife, asking if she could stop by with her doppler when she was in the area again. She graciously said she'd be by first thing in the morning. 

Tuesday morning. Kelly arrives and we chatted a minute. Then she prayed with me, a very beautiful prayer from her heart, not that we would hear a heartbeat, but that the Father's Will would be accomplished in me and that we could accept whatever that will included. Then we listened. We heard no different than I heard in the two previous days. I either had the most chilled out baby ever hiding behind a loud placenta, or I was carrying a dead baby. We really knew which one it was, though. All of the pieces just fell into place. I curled up on the couch and cried. I didn't want to bury a baby. Kelly made some calls for me and scheduled the ultrasound for that afternoon and we headed out an hour away to Centreville, amazed we were getting a same-day appointment on New Years Eve.

The people at Fairfax Radiology were wonderful and efficient. I was into my ultrasound right on-time and the woman was very kind to us. I told her that I knew she couldn't answer my questions but that if she'd let me see, I'd be able to tell if there was a heartbeat or not. She flat out told me that she'd let me know if she saw one, and she didn't have the wand on my belly for two seconds when she confirmed the lack of heartbeat. We weren't expecting good news, but it ripped our hearts out to look at our little lifeless baby, just floating there, still. The tech snapped a bunch of pictures to see if maybe the radiologist could see a reason for the baby's death, but he could not. I was in such disbelief that I completely forgot to ask for a picture. We went home and broke the news to the children. It wasn't pretty.

Now I needed to come up with a plan. Having been through this multiple times with my best friend, I knew what I wanted for this baby. I wanted him born intact, and to be given a proper burial, so as to honor his little life as best as I could. The question was, would I find someone willing to accommodate my plans? There were others... wait for it to happen naturally, or induce? Home or hospital? I did the thing that most people do in this situation, that they probably should never do. I googled. This was the worst thing I could have done, and what set the stage for a return to insomnia and panic attacks. 

Waiting...going septic? Almost died? Okay...induction... Cytotec? What do you mean Cytotec? The medication I heavily caution my clients about that even carries the warning not to be used on pregnant women? Women asking for epidurals...passing out from pain... hemorrhage... going in for D&C post-birth because of retained placentas... The stories were endless, and none of them good. NONE of them. I never wanted to be knocked out so badly and to have gotten it over with with a D&C. It sure seemed like an easy way out, but one that would have never given me peace. 

Wednesday was New Year's Day. Nobody was open, so I had no appointment this day and couldn't schedule one until Thursday. I cried my way through Mass, and after Mass that morning. My best friend passed on the pregnancy loss shawl that had been passed on to her. I think I'm the fourth woman to wear this shawl. When I saw the bag with the shawl, I just melted into a puddle. We went home and things really started to go awry from there.

My husband wanted to take the children to see The Hobbit, which I was all for. He went and got the tickets while I made myself some soup. I felt horrendous but really wanted the soup. They left for the movie, and I ate my lunch with the little boys. I didn't feel so well. I felt very dizzy. It was difficult getting up and down the stairs. I thought a nap would do me good, so I put on a movie for the boys and snuggled with Gil on the couch to take a nap. I slept fine, but I probably should have refrained from sleeping with the hot water bottle behind me. I think I messed up my temperature regulation, so when I got up and my temperature started rising, all I could think was "Here we go...sepsis..." I called a midwife who suggested I might want to get checked out, to rule out infection and to get on the doctor's radar sooner than I might have been able to do otherwise. I agreed, so after they got back from the movies, off we went to the ER, meeting my KADB (Kick-Ass Doula Bestie) there. Countless times I had been to the ER with her, and now our roles were reversed. 

In short, my foggy-headedness and fever eventually cleared up. KADB made sure I was able to get some chuckles in by "illustrating" the pain scale faces on the dry-erase board, among other things. I had no infection. This was a relief. My hormonal levels were so darn good they made me go through a repeat ultrasound to confirm the baby was indeed not alive. This was NOT a relief, but they would not contact the OB without the ultrasound. The OB did not come to see me, which I was not happy about, but he did say to call his office and he would take me on as a patient. I knew a couple of the doctors in that practice were good, but this one I had no experience with and I was terribly nervous. Well, okay, everything had me terribly nervous. Really, all I thought about was everything that could possibly go wrong until I was safely on the other side of birthing this little baby, who still needed a better name than "Pigbert." We returned home that night to some sleeping kiddies and some still awake, and I went right to bed, trying to distract myself with yarn and The Bob Newhart Show, which I think my poor husband was quite fed up with by this time. Although I was distracting myself, I was not taking care to keep my nerves in check, and this would come home to roost very soon. This would be the last normal night of sleep I got.

Stay tuned for Part II. This is about as much as I can recall right now without having to play with yarn for a bit and distract myself with something funny.