We have 5 beautiful children. Our first is a boy, who is now 14 and then we have 4 girls. Ages 12, 11, 8 and 5. We’ve had a few miscarriages over the years that always occurred just around 4 ½ to 5 weeks along. My first miscarriage was after I had my third (or fourth child, I can’t quite remember), and then we had 2 more miscarriages after our 5th child. These last 2 miscarriages were a year apart or so, not because we couldn’t get pregnant but just because we waited awhile to try for another. We finally got pregnant again and the pregnancy stuck! We were so happy! Everything is this pregnancy was going great! I was healthy and so was the baby. At 16 weeks we found out we would be having a boy!! Just what we wanted!! Aaron, our 14 year would no longer be the only boy. He would have a brother and Adam could live vicariously through another boy for another 18 years. I was happy to finally be having our final baby. I remember even saying “it’s too good to be true”. It was hard to believe that what we wanted was actually happening. We got our last baby and it was a boy! We even had it verified at our 20 week ultra sound that it was still a boy. Lol. There was so much hope for the future and dreams of what it would be like and what he would be like. We love him so much!
A day before I was supposed to go in for our 24 week check up I felt worried. But I often felt worried about something going wrong with the pregnancy (like I did with my other pregnancies). I checked for the heartbeat like I did occasionally. I do think I was feeling a little extra worried than normal. Now let me back track because I forgot something. The day before, I got really mad at one of our children. Probably madder then I have gotten in quite some time. I yelled! I am ashamed of it, but I REALLY yelled!! My face felt hot and red and like my eyes were going to pop out. I realized I needed to calm it way down. I knew it wasn’t good for the baby, I had that thought as I was yelling. I believe it was shortly after that that I felt one good movement from the baby. I believe that was the last movement I felt from him. The next morning, I still hadn’t felt any movement. I thought maybe it was because my placenta was located at the front of my stomach (instead of the back) which caused me to feel him less. That’s when I decided to check for a heartbeat, I couldn’t find one. I had a cheap doppler so I thought, maybe? Maybe he was ok? I called first thing that morning and got in to see my midwife. I had my 2 youngest girls with me, Lyla and Alison. When I got there, I could feel a panic attack starting to come on. I checked in and sat down. Feeling kind of frantic. I called my mom and told her to come and get the girls from me. I felt like something wasn’t right. I didn’t want them to see me going through this panic. I didn’t know what was going to happen in my appointment but I needed her to come and get them. I also called Adam who had just gotten to work and told him he needed to come to the midwifes office. I just needed him and felt like something wasn’t right, or maybe it was just a panic attack for no reason. All I knew was that I needed him there with me and my mom needed to take the girls. The girls played in the toy room while I was weighed and had my blood pressure checked like normal, all while I was trying to keep my panic attack somewhat calm. I sat in the doctors room after, waiting for my midwife to come and trying to stay calm. The nurses were so great at watching my girls for me until my mom got there. My got there and came in to see me. I shared me worries with her. She went and got my kids after that and took them to her house. Poor Lyla was so worried for me. Adam showed up before the midwife came in. Actually, now that I think about it. I was meeting whoever was available that morning, which happened to be an OB and not one of the midwifes I had been seeing.
(Now finishing the story 5 years later)
The doctor checked for the baby’s heart beat and couldn’t find one. That’s when he let us know our baby had died. I remember breaking down in loud sobs as I lay there on the table. I had my hands over my face as I cried my heart out. Adam was standing by my side, I’m sure feeling strong emotions himself. I realize now we never talked about that exact moment for him. I know he was devastated as well. We were told we needed to go to go home and I think wait to find out when we needed to head to the hospital. I remember sitting there on the couch next to Adam at home after the doctor’s office and thinking that I was holding my sweet babies lifeless body in my stomach. It felt a little morbid and a little hard to grasp. I tried to look at the bright side and I felt honored to hold my sweet sons body in such a way. We went to the hospital later that night, and after a long labor birthed our sons body where we got to hold him and be with him. A sweet woman at the hospital crochets sweet baby outfits for those that pass and makes molds of the baby’s feet for remembrance. We were privileged to receive such gifts for our son. She also took pictures of him, and him with Adam and I, and mailed then to us later on. I remember having one bad experience while we were there at the hospital. I can’t remember if it was as I was waiting for our baby to be born or if it was after, but my midwife came in at some point and talked to us about maybe why it happened. She mentioned maybe it was because my blood sugar was high. I asked her if she thought his death was my fault and she said that I could have been healthier, so it’s possible. That made me so mad. I couldn’t believe she said such a thing during such a hard time. We did find out later that it had nothing to do with me and that he had been declining in health over the last four days. We know that because we had an appointment just 4 days before and everything with him was fine. After we birthed him they could see that his umbilical cord ended up having something wrong with it (tweaked in some way I think) and he wasn’t receiving nutrients anymore. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I believe that death is a huge thing and it doesn’t happen unless it’s supposed to. The hospital gave us build-a-bears for each one of our kids as well. I appreciate that they thought of our children during a time of lose. His was born December 20, 2018.
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