I am a little over 2 weeks away from my planned delivery of our third sweet girl. So far we haven't had too many problems but more than I would have liked this pregnancy. For some reason I felt like God owed me the best pregnancy of my life after my first being sick all forty weeks (including a little sickness right before delivery!!) and a cracked rib (which Avery is still grounded for!) to Ashlyn's pregnancy ending with her in his hands and not mine. Of course I know he owes me nothing and it really was just me wishing that's how it worked, I wouldn't consider this the best but up until now its been somewhat uneventful.
Some of the problems this time around have been bleeding in the first trimester due to placenta previa, breech until a few weeks ago and as we found out Friday, high level of amniotic fluid and the cord has a little more compression than it is suppose to. This part is where it seems to get a bit eventful. They want me to come back early Monday to test everything again and see how my levels on an ultrasound are and how many contractions I am having on an NST and than we will make some decisions on what we need to do. I will admit I am a bit nervous, we are very close to the time of pregnancy in which Ashlyn was stillborn so the thoughts are running through my head. I have faith that this one will be okay but I do have reservations and try not to get over the top excited about my upcoming due date. Honestly though I think anyone who has lost a child from stillbirth understands this feeling and I would like to think its perfectly normal to have reservations like this. When I hear statistics on how likely a stillbirth could happen again, or how having high amniotic fluids can cause problem, I just laugh. In both my pregnancies I fell into statistics that were less than 1% of pregnancies (Avery being conceived while I was consistently taking the pill and Ashlyn being stillborn). Nothing will ease my fears until the day we hold her in arms and hopefully get to see her beautiful eyes and hear a wonderful scream of her saying what the heck, I liked that place!!
So as I sit here at 12:30 on Saturday night, wide awake baking brownies (yep that's right brownies, all that stuff will be long gone in a few weeks so I have to indulge a bit now...right?) I think about Ashlyn, the day we delivered and how I think I am ready to share my story. The story of how I knew something was wrong and the day that proceeded it and the life that it has led to.
The weekend after Thanksgiving 2008 put me right at 36 weeks pregnant. I was excited for the Christmas season and wondering if we would be spending Christmas day in a hospital with a new present to take home. I wanted this year to be perfect, with Avery turning two in a few months she was starting to understand Christmas more. I didn't care how uncomfortable and ready to be done with the pregnancy, I set out to decorate as perfectly as I could. The day before we went to get our Christmas tree I decided it was time to clean the carpets and rearrange the furniture. As much as B hated doing it he helped me move furniture around, clean the carpets and get it all rearranged. I remember at around 11 o'clock that night we finished getting it done and I sat down in one of our chairs. At that time I felt the hardest kick I ever felt. It was one that made me think "man I think she just fixed my scoliosis", it rattled my back that hard. I thought nothing of it, was exhausted and probably in pain so I headed off to bed. The next day we went and got our tree, set it up and had the house all decorated for the Christmas season, we even put up a fourth stocking on the fireplace for Ashlyn. It was fun to think in a few short weeks we will have a fourth member in our family.
Monday whirled around and I remember having a pretty stressful day. I wont go into details on it but I just remember crying a whole lot that day and getting myself all worked up. I laid in bed, looked down at my tummy and said Ashlyn please come out soon, I am an emotional wreak and your sweet face would make it all better. I went to sleep but something woke me up around 12:00am. I just couldn't fall back a asleep, something felt wrong. I sat in bed praying for my water to break or something to happen so I wasn't that crazy girl going to the hospital for no reason. After much worrying and praying I decided to get up and take a shower. I remember begging and pleading with Ashlyn please come out now, please just start me in labor so if something is wrong we can figure it out. The one feeling I will never forget... I could move my stomach with no resistance at all. I didn't know what this was about but I starting crying and just stood in the shower for a bit of time. I finally got out of the shower very exhausted and fell asleep immediately on the bed. B got up around 7 and I guess I was so worn out I didn't even wake up to tell him bye. At 8:30 I finally woke up and saw I had a message on my computer asking if we need anything for the baby. B's work wanted to do something for us and he wanted to know. I replied back with just this simple response, I think something is wrong. I went in and got my heart monitor and couldn't find a heartbeat. I knew in my heart Ashlyn was gone but I thought maybe just maybe I am wrong. I called the doctors office and told them, "I cant find a heartbeat I think my baby is dead." The nurse was so sweet and told me that sometimes those dopplers don't always work right and just head to the hospital to check.
As harsh as all of that sounds I think it really was me just trying to deal with what I knew. I called B told him what was going on and that he had to meet me at the hospital. I than called my mom and for some reason she had decided to take the day off. I said to her in the most matter of fact way, "I need to go to the hospital I don't think Ashlyn is alive anymore." I think she was in shock and thought it wasn't possible but rushed over to the house to take me. When we arrived they said to sit in the waiting area someone will be with us in a minute. We sat and all I could think was, I guess no need to rush, I know what they are going to say. This started what was a day forever changed our lives.
Finally a nurse came out and took us back to a birthing room. As we walked I told her what I thought was going on and she said sometimes the baby starts to descend and its hard to find a heartbeat on the doppler that I had. She hooked me up to a monitor and we saw a 165 heartbeat show up on the screen. I was shocked, I was wrong. She said see, it happens all the time don't worry. We will monitor you for a bit. I started to send my mom a text that everything was okay but than I watched the nurse and could tell something was wrong. She looked at me and said well your heart rate and blood pressure are going a bit crazy so we need to figure out what is wrong with you. I think at that moment she realized the heartbeat her monitor was picking up was mine so she called in the on call ob. She did an ultrasound on a very old machine and saw a flicker of something that she thought was a heartbeat. She said that the she thought it was going slow and was going to get a better machine in and depending what it said we might have to rush to a c-section.
Before they brought in the new machine, I let them know I has a lot of pressure on my chest and was having trouble breathing. She rushed out the door called a "code blue" and started hooking all these machines up to me. She turned on the lights over me which at the moment I thought might possible be the light everyone says you see when you die and I had about 50 people rush into my room. At that point they had the good ultrasound machine, I was covered with machines and tubes and didn't know what was going on but my eyes were fixed on the nurse who was doing the ultrasound. She said nothing but at that moment I knew all that hope I had 5 minutes ago was for nothing. I looked at the nurse holding my breathing machine on and said, she is dead isn't she. She grabbed my hands and said I am so sorry and she cried with me. I cant explain how much her holding my hand gave me an overwhelming sense of comfort in the worst moment of my life. After a few minutes of me being stable on the machines, everyone except Brian and the nurse where in the room. We cried and held each other still in shock that this was happening to us. My parents and Avery were than allowed to come in the room and we all cried together. Everyone of us lost someone so special to us that we needed a moment to just cry. The hospital staff left us alone in the room for a good time to just come to grips with the reality of the situation. The head nurse took Avery around the hospital so we could process everything without her being upset with everyone crying, they were truly amazing. We called the rest of the family and waited on what we were to do next. I was still carrying Ashlyn in my stomach and labor was started to being on its own.
After I cried a bit I felt an overwhelming sense that I had to be strong, I wanted to be strong to get through what was happening. If I couldn't handle the rest of the day how was anyone else suppose to. My doctor was in a surgery so the ob on call from my office came in to talk with us. She was amazingly nice and gave us all of our options. We decided on inducing Ashlyn that day and just see how it went. Within four hours of inducing I felt the sudden urge to push. I had no idea if I would have the strength or will to push her out but it happened. Within about 10 minutes of pushing and a little help from a nurse pushing on my pelvic bones to help get her shoulders through, Ashlyn was born.
After Ashlyn was cleaned up and I was stable, Brian and I spent some time alone with our precious angel. As much as we prayed for a miracle, that some how she would cry when she came out, she did not. All we could do at that moment was hold our beautiful, silent, still little girl and weep together.
The love I felt for my husband at that moment made me realize how blessed I was that God gave me him . At that moment we had strength together to hold and love our little girl. After this experience, whenever I get upset or angry with him, I think of that moment and my anger goes away and I remember we got through a moment that I would have never ever imagined, we have a love strengthened by an incredible loss.
Since this post is getting very long, I will write very soon on how the rest of the day went and getting through a week of dealing with going home without a baby, visiting the funeral home and having the memorial service.
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