The day had finally come! I was to deliver my first
child at 40 weeks and was scheduled to arrive the night before the morning of
my inducement. My husband and I were
nervous, but terribly excited to meet our baby girl. We had met her when we had our 4D scan at the
OB/GYNs office and watched her wiggle around and suck her thumb for the
camera. Little did I know that would be so important to us later.
9 months prior…
I had just married a wonderful man and since we were
no spring chickens – in our thirties – we decided it would be best to start a
family as soon as God thought it was time for us. We knew of many friends who struggled with
infertility problems, and we didn’t know if we would, so we decided it best to
let nature take its course. What we didn’t know was that Mother Nature would
come for a visit on our honeymoon!
Yes, that first week of marriage we conceived our
child and after we got over the initial shock, we were ecstatic. Why wait? We desperately wanted a family to
fill our home.
Being a pediatric RN, I followed the baby books and
instructions closely. No alcohol, no over-the-counter drugs, no smoking, not
too much exercise - but enough to keep healthy, and watched what I ate (OK,
sometimes I had to have Taco Bell, but the baby was demanding it!). The baby
was growing at a perfect rate.
The only problem was I was retaining a LOT of fluid
in my last trimester. My abdomen was gigantic and my cankles were like Frodo in
the Lord of the Rings, with a little bit less hair. When retaining this much extra water, medical
advice is to drink more water to flush out the extra. But guess what? I was a chipmunkesque whale, storing fluid
for the drought.
My OB did every test imaginable to see what was
wrong, but all tests came back negative. My blood glucose levels, BUN and
creatinine, and my blood pressure stayed well within the normal range. Plus, the baby was growing appropriately.
When my resting heart rate skyrocketed, I began to
worry. Even if I was lying down watching dolphins swimming my heart rate, which
for a normal person ranges from 60-80 beats per minute, was running around 130
bpm. I felt as if I was on speed all the
time.
My obstetrician sent me to a cardiologist who ran
multiple heart tests finding a healthy heart, which happened to be racing a 5K
at all times. They said they didn’t need
to do anything on their end and they didn’t think it should hurt the baby.
So I tried to keep my feet up and not overexert
myself the last few weeks of pregnancy. I had weekly appointments to see the OB
(maybe more, I can’t remember) and she would check my blood pressure and the
baby’s heart rate. They were fine. My heart rate…CRAZY! But still sent me home.
Ten days before I was to deliver, I was at home
getting the house ready. Of course, my husband and I decided to remodel the
kitchen during my pregnancy. I went upstairs to lie down in bed because I had
been standing too long, was hungry and angry that no one was feeding me, plus
there was NO KITCHEN WITH FOOD!!
As soon as I got into bed, a hormonal whoosh like
none other came over me. It is indescribable. Except to say that the largest
tears poured down my face and I didn’t think I would ever be able to stop. My husband came in to check on me and found
me in this state and was scared. I told him I was just hungry. But I also knew that I hadn’t felt the baby
kick in a few hours.
He brought me back some food and juice to give the
baby some sugar to jolt her back into moving around, and I called the doctor’s
office. They said to give sugar or
caffeine and to see if it made her start kicking again. Thankfully, as I was
rolling over, I felt her move and tears of joy helped soothe me a bit.
Three days later, one week before my scheduled
delivery, I went to the obstetrician, and she listened to the baby’s heartbeat.
I remember saying, “That doesn’t sound like her.” But the kind OB patted my hand and reassured
the stressed-out first-time mom that the baby’s heartbeat was 135 bpm and that
was where she should be.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! went my heart monitor as I lie in
the hospital bed with quiet hubby smiling beside me. The nurse was doing her
normal small talk as she kept readjusting the heart monitor band around my
belly to pick up the baby’s heartbeat.
“Maybe you need to get another belt?” I politely
suggested. Not trying to be pushy, but I was very pregnant, nervous, and
annoyed that I got the newbie nurse.
When she left, I told my husband if she couldn’t get
it right with the next belt, I’m calling in the nurse manager for somebody
competent.
The same nurse entered with the “backup nurse” and
they both attempted to get the new belt to work. No luck.
“Could you please send in the nurse manager?” I
asked suppressing agitation.
The second nurse in the room answered, “I’m the
nurse manager. We are having difficulty with our machine, so we are going to
call in an outside radiology tech to do a special test. Unfortunately, since it’s night, it might
take her awhile to get here.”
Then
everything went blurry and my life turned into vignettes of time:
- “I’m so
sorry. Your baby didn’t make it. You will need to deliver the baby in the
morning,” said some random doctor.
- Crying with
frustration, “Can I still have an epidural and extra drugs now since it
won’t hurt the baby?”
- Calling our
parents on the phone and matter-of-factly telling them their grandbaby was
dead.
- Seeing all
four of my bridesmaids show up unannounced to help me deliver my precious
baby.
- Sitting in
a supply closet in the middle of the night after giving “birth” to my baby,
I rocked behind the nurses’ station; holding her, cleaning her face and
hands, and sobbing uncontrollably for hours.
Planning a funeral for your child is a necessary
part of healing for a parent, but I sure can’t remember that one. I know who attended
only because of the sign-in book. However, once a year, with a tear-stained
face, I read those hundreds of names and am thankful for their gift of showing
support to us.
We are facing what would have been Emily’s 10th
birthday. A lot has happened since then. I gave birth to 2 other precious girls,
14 months apart…the following year!
And…I had to quit my job as a pediatric nurse. I
gave the excuse I wanted to spend more time with my girls. That was part of it,
but grieving is a powerful beast and can be all consuming. Mixed with
post-partum hormones and two new babies, I just couldn’t handle it all.
I needed to find the joy in my life again. I wanted
to laugh like I had before Emily ascended to heaven, leaving God and me weeping.
So one day when my babies were asleep, I started a blog. I called it, “Nurse Mommy Laughs.” Now I
would have a sense of hope, promise and a daily reason to laugh. I had to. It was my job.
Thankfully, my blog no longer feels like a job. Nurse Mommy Laughs saved my life, my
family and my marriage many times. My blog’s tagline of “cause laughter is the
best medicine” was true for me and hopefully for others.
Through much counseling, anti-depressants,
anti-anxiety medications and talking about Emily as much as I could were the
main things which helped me heal. I will always be Emily’s mom and I will
always cry when I smell a Star Lily, but every year gets easier for the new me.
March 30, 2004, my former self died, but I’m happy to
say I’m starting to like the new me – a mother of three girls, two here on earth
and one in heaven.
Stacey is a former musical theatre starlet and pediatric RN, who turned her love of laughter and theatrics into her favorite career yet. You can connect with her on her award-winning blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
