Hoping for a Rainbow

Before I write about the experiences of planning a funeral instead of a baby blessing, I feel that I should take a timeout and write about what is happening now.

Immediately after having Bryton I felt that I could never go through another pregnancy.  Bryton was already my bonus baby and I swore I was done after 4 and she was our 5^th. When I hit the 6 week postpartum mark and went into my doctor I decided to tentatively ask, “what if we try again?”  I told my doctor to tell me the real truth about how long would be the best to wait and what the risks would be. I did not want to be coddled and told, “Whenever you are ready,” I knew my body still had some recovering to do. I suffered from postpartum preeclampsia and a prolapsed uterus after Bryton which was slowing my body’s physical healing process.

My doctor first said to wait at least a year, but realized that would put me closer to 35 or older by delivery so she suggested waiting 6 months before trying again. At this point I was not sure if I would ever consider having another baby but decided I would give myself 6 months before deciding. Now if I could only get everyone else to give me 6 months…

People are well intended but almost immediately after our loss I started getting asked if I would have another. Even worse, people would make the comment, “you will have another right?” This put so much pressure on me making me feel like I was letting others down because I was not ready. I was walking around every day with a huge piece of me missing. Many have the false belief that if you have kids and lose one somehow your living children make the loss less significant, which is not the truth.

Others believe the longer you have a child the greater the loss, again not the truth. This is like saying I love my 16 year old more than my 4 year old, and I bet most would assume the opposite if they see me with my kids as my 4 year old needs me more. A loss of a child is a loss of a child, no matter the age or stage of life they are in. You don’t grieve because of time you had with someone you grieve because of the loss of time with someone and the love you feel for them. You long to be with them. There are various degrees of trauma associated with different types of loss too. But that is a whole other topic.

After much soul searching and turning to my Heavenly Father I did get a strong answer that there was another child for us to have. My husband though, was not ready. We both agreed that there was another, but we were not ready.  I would bounce back and forth about if I was ready or not almost on an hourly basis.  Before we had been ready there was a pregnancy scare. I say scare because of the anxiety that I felt which confirmed I was not ready. After a seemingly constant panic attack it was such a relief when I found out I was not pregnant.

A couple of months later at our son’s 4^th birthday party my husband and I were watching him play and having fun. Later the next day my husband shared that he now felt ready to start possibly trying for another baby. A couple weeks later my husband was getting ready to leave town. I woke up really early and suddenly realized I was late. I calmly took a pregnancy test and waited as it turned positive (6.5 months after delivering Bryton I was pregnant). I did not panic, but instead felt completely calm. I hid the test and went about my day. While my husband was gone I figured out a way to tell him. I would put the pregnancy test and a note in the baby stocking we used for announcing Bryton’s gender the year before.

When he got home, a couple of days later, I had the stocking sitting on our bed and he instantly asked if I was pregnant. Surprisingly he was calm too. We decided not to tell our kids, until after we knew everything looked OK. Even after our first ultrasound (which I was a nervous wreck for) we decided to wait a little longer to tell our kids as we just did not feel ready to talk about the pregnancy with others.

Finally we told our kids, then eventually our parents and then everyone. Everything about being pregnant reminds me of Bryton and I have found the further along I get, the more anxiety I have. While I am at high risk for preeclampsia and other issues, everything seems OK at this point. I am already on no vacuuming, sweeping or mopping in addition to the normal no lifting (including Boston, but I forget).

I have had questions like, “Why are you high risk? It’s not like it will happen again.” I want to say, “Um my healthy baby died, inside me, nothing makes you more high risk than that.” But I don’t. There are so many ignorant things people say and ask (I have to make the constant choice not to be offended). Somehow I try to find ways to answer and then I often go home and crawl up into the fetal position and cry (it might sound more like whaling if you ask my kids or husband). I hope by being real and not sugar coating every little thing we have been through that others might know they are not alone when they have down times in their lives. Even with all the sadness I do still have times of great joy, they are often short lived because of the pregnancy hormones I have running through me, but they are still there.

As I go through this journey of caring a rainbow baby (child born after loss) I hope others will be sensitive to the fact that this child is not Bryton nor are we having another child to replace Bryton. I do not expect this child to heal my heart, nor do I feel I should place that responsibility on their tiny shoulders. I am meant to be their mother, no matter the shape I am in, so that is what I will do. It will not be easy but I will do it. However, we do hope by adding this child to our family we will be able to end our experience of having children on a happier note. This is something I am fully aware all too many couples do not get to do. I feel guilt for that. There is great guilt in being able to conceive and carry our own children to term when I know so many can’t.

While I carry grief, guilt and anxiety we are very excited at the same time. We look forward to August and pray it will bring us a living child who is warm and safe in our arms.

Baby loss terms:

Angel Baby (some that do not believe in God or angels do not prefer this term, be sensitive to that) – A baby that passed away in or outside the womb.

Sunshine – Child born before a loss.

Rainbow Baby – Child born after a loss.

The Road to Bryton - Day 6

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Today is now Saturday!  I can finally focus on getting the baby’s room ready.  We cleaned and went to Wal-Mart where I felt like I ran into everyone I had known since I was a kid.  My husband hung up the baby’s curtains, assembled the stroller and car seat while I ironed her bedding that had just arrived.  I made sure my bag and camera were packed and ready to go.  It was time to get real about having this baby, I am now 37 weeks and 3 days. With my track record this baby would arrive shortly, and it did not seem real.

All day I kept trying to focus on feeling the baby move, but the fog around my mind was too thick, I would get busy with getting ready for the baby and planning my church lesson.  I completed making the artwork that would hang above the baby’s crib.  I had three frames and the middle one I made a B for her name Bryton. At one point I was sitting in the baby’s room and Boston sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to my belly.

As the day went on, I told myself at 7 pm I would eat and really focus on this baby’s movements.  After all every website said a baby moves the most between 7 to 10 pm.  As 7 pm came around I ate, and then laid with my feet up and waited, nothing.  8 pm came and I now was starting to worry but still telling myself I am just crazy. I started to once again look up ways to make your baby move and found a new one.  To lay on your stomach for a very short time and that it would force your baby to push back.  So I went into my room and and laid on my stomach with some pillows and felt nothing.  I started to cry. 

My husband came into our room and looked worried, he asked if I felt like we needed to go into the hospital.  I looked at him and said, “I don’t know.  I feel like I don’t want to go.  I just want to go to bed and deal with this in the morning. I feel so alone.”  This sent him into the mode of quickly getting things arranged with the kids so we could leave. I text my dad and step mom asking if we could stop by and have my dad and Chris give me a priesthood blessing on our way to the hospital.

I started to feel really cold and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. I knew from others losing babies this was not a good sign.  We grabbed our things and started to head out. Our oldest saw us and looked a little worried but none of our 4 kids knew what was going on. We just told them we needed to go check on the baby and that we will probably be back. 

As we drove to my dad’s I kept telling myself, “my dad can fix this, my dad can fix this,” I am now a little girl just wanting daddy to make all her problems go away.  As my dad began to give me the priesthood blessing he suddenly stopped, it sounded like he could not speak.  This scared me.  He then said in the blessing that my Heavenly Father loves me and that everything will be OK.  After the blessing my dad shared that when he went to give me the blessing that it was strange. He suddenly didn’t know if he should be blessing me or the baby. He then said it was as if he was carried away and allowed to feel a glimpse of the overwhelming love my Heavenly Father has for me and that he knew everything would be OK, but he did not know what that meant. This gave my husband Chris peace. For myself I was even more worried.

As we pulled into the hospital parking lot I could not stop shaking and I felt like I just wanted to turn around and go home.  It took all my strength to walk in the door. I remember a lady sitting inside the waiting room as we entered, that Chris doesn’t remember being there. As we buzzed to be let in I felt dumb for being there as on Monday when I came everything ended up being fine, I should just go home.  But I didn’t. 

I laugh when I get nervous, I am pretty sure I laughed as we explained what was going on and that everything was probably fine but I can’t get the baby to move at all, and that I can’t remember the last time I actually felt a real strong movement.  This time they had me get changed and checked me in.  Then the nurse went to hook up the monitors.

While the nurse looked for the heartbeat I did not initially panic, but then as she kept looking I saw her facial expression go from happy to hyper focused.  Then she grabbed my hand.  This is when I knew.  She kept looking for a heartbeat for what felt like an hour, but I am sure was only minutes. I looked over at my husband who was sitting with his head in his hands.  I then started to say I was sorry.  I don’t know if I said it out loud or in my head, but I just felt sorry.  Sorry I had not come in sooner and that our daughter was in danger.  But I had not given up completely.  The nurse then told me, “I normally can find a heartbeat by now.  Nothing is confirmed yet. Your doctor was just here, we will have her come back and order an ultrasound.” There was no need for me to fight to have my doctor, a small relief as I try to keep from completely falling apart.

At this moment, I feel helpless and out of control. The only thing I could think to do was to have Chris text everyone we could think of to pray, pray for a heartbeat, this is just a mistake. Oddly we have experienced a broken monitor before, so I was secretly hoping this was just a big mistake.

As I sat there waiting, shivering and teeth chattering I felt completely alone.  I felt so empty. I felt like I just wanted to get up and run away. This was not going as planned. I was ready for bed, not ready to deal with this. Then my doctor came in pulling what I am sure was the first ultrasound machine she could quickly find. I told her I could not look as I covered my face and she turned the screen away from me. Then she and the nurse began the ultrasound.  I heard them say the placenta looked good, the umbilical cord looked good and other things to themselves. I kept my arm draped over my face and hoped any second they would turn on the sound and I would hear a heartbeat.

Then the ultrasound tech came in with another machine and my doctor looked at me and said she was going to let the tech do the ultrasound now, but that my doctor did not see any movement.  She was telling me my baby was dead without telling me. I believe I cried as the tech too did an ultrasound with her machine and again I heard bits and pieces that everything looked fine, but there was no movement; my baby had passed away and from the ultrasound they could not see a cause. My baby looked perfect.

As I am absorbing everything I looked right at my doctor and said, “I cannot do this, I am NEVER doing this again.” I can only imagine how I was looking at her; I know I felt like she should be able to fix this. She has saved my babies before. She looked at me calmly and said, “Well we are not making any major decisions tonight.” I asked if this means I need to deliver and she said yes. At some point I looked at Chris and said, “Our Heavenly Father has confused us with someone else, I am not strong enough to do this.” 

As our parents started to arrive we were trying to figure out how to tell our kids and getting them to the hospital. My doctor then told me if I wanted she would let me go home, sleep and deliver in the morning. But I said no, as there was no way I could make myself walk back into the hospital. Plus our son’s birthday is May 18^th and if I wait until the next day I ran a greater risk of delivering on the 18^th; I felt if I could prevent that I should.

We decide to wait until after we got some time with our kids to start my induction. When our kids arrived they were at first fine, not knowing that anything was going on except that we were going to have a baby. I can’t even remember which one of us said what to the kids. But we were honest with them. I felt like sheltering them from what was going on what not right. We told them that the baby had died and that we needed to deliver her. A few of the kids crawled up onto the bed with me and cried.

We answered any questions they had, many of which we did not have answers to but we were honest with them about that too. We left it up to them if they wanted to stay at the hospital or not. We also told them once she was born we were not going to make them see her or hold her if they did not want to, everything was up to them and we as their parents were not going to be upset with how they decided to handle this. However, we did make it clear this would probably be the only chance they would get to hold the baby.

We had family going to get the baby’s blanket that we had for her and I was asked if I had anything I wanted Bryton to wear once she arrived. At this point we had gone from referring to the baby as her or she to using her name Bryton. I realized all I had was a sleeper but nothing newborn sized at home yet as the clothes I had finally ordered were not going to arrive for a few days. My nurses brought in dresses for us to choose from and bracelets. Everything we picked had purple on it. The dress was white with purple ribbon, white booties with purple ribbon and a set of matching purple bracelets for Bryton and I.  After each of the kids figured out what they wanted to do I told my nurse I was ready (or as ready as I could be).

No Heartbeat

Because of a condition I had developed, I had to see my doctor a little more frequently during the 1st trimester with baby #4.  At the first appointment we were not too concerned when the heart beat could not be found. My uterus is folded into my back and tilted which can make it somewhat difficult for doctors to find a fetal heartbeat without doing an ultrasound.

At my 12 week appointment I remember my doctor closing his eyes and focusing as hard as he could while searching, determined to find a heartbeat.  He then told me maybe this baby is extra far into my back and that he was ordering an ultrasound.  I remember being a little scared but calm as I told Chris I was driving from Springville to Payson to get an ultrasound as other places did not have room for me.  My husband headed down from SLC to Payson and met me there.  I remember the relief I felt when a healthy heartbeat was found. 

This would not be the last time that I was sent for a ultrasound or a missing heartbeat as it happened at the 16 week and the at 20 week appointments. The 20 week appointment was the last time during this pregnancy I would have to face the experience of no heartbeat.  This experience desensitized me.  I was prepared when pregnant with Bryton for the struggle of a missing heartbeat, but it was always there, even at 8 weeks, without any problem.   It was such a relief to never have watch my doctor search for a heartbeat.

Then at 37 weeks and 4 days it was gone.  I remember thinking I have been through this before, they will find it.  Then the realization that I was full-term and the likely hood of this all being a mistake was very unlikely.  But I still had a sliver of hope as we waited for an ultrasound and asked anyone we could think of to pray.