The Road to Bryton - Day 4

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Again this morning there is no movement.  I am frustrated as this baby always was moving and extra busy in the mornings.  I lay on my side hoping she will move for me to give me some peace, but she never does. 

Something feels different this morning.  I am so tired and I feel emotionally, physically and spiritually drained; like I had just been in a battle for my life.  When my husband wakes up I tell him about my strange night and how I just feel different.  He asked if I thought we needed to go into the hospital and I said no I felt off.  All morning though I could not put my finger on what is different, it was as if I was walking through a fog. 

I pushed my worries aside, get ready for work and attempted to get the baby to move.  A couple of hours into my work day I text Chris that I am about to head into the hospital as this baby will not move.  Right after I send the text I suddenly feel a few little flutters and text him never mind and force myself to order a few baby girl items, as I have nothing for a newborn baby girl to wear.

Before heading home I search more ways to make the baby move, I don’t find any new information and talk myself into it being normal. I decide to really pay attention between 7 pm to 10 pm when every website said babies are the most active.  But I can’t seem to find peace. I continue to tell myself everything is fine and I am just being a paranoid pregnant mom, even though this is my 5^th pregnancy and I have never been like this before.

7 pm comes and I start to pay attention, nothing.  I try not to panic and start to think maybe I am feeling slight movement but I still keep trying all the tricks to make this baby move.  By 10 pm I tell Chris we might need to head into the hospital when I suddenly feel three little light movements on my left side and feel like I can go to bed.

Looking back we learned that the early hours of May 14, 2015 are most likely when Bryton passed away.  The movements I am feeling are ghost movements, some caused by a type of indigestion mothers develop after a baby passes away inside their womb often preventing a mother from knowing the baby is no longer living.  I have struggled with that I did not know or feel an urgency to go into the hospital, but the reality is (according to my OBGYN) you only have 10 minutes to get a baby out and resuscitated after their final movement, if you know it was their final movement.  There is nothing I could have done.  

The 14^th is often one of the hardest days for me each month.  Even today, during sacrament meeting in church, I suddenly wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear, but I do what I can to hold myself together and save falling apart for later.