Made In Loving Memory of Courtney
Dec. 24, 1996

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Our Christmas Eve Angel
Courtney Marie Cornelius
Dec. 24, 1996   5:14pm
5lbs 15ozs     19.25ins long
 
 
HI! My name is Stephanie Cornelius and my husbands
name is David. We would like to share with you our
story about our baby who was stillborn Christmas Eve.
I found out I was pregnant May 1, 1996. We were
pretty excited, but not expecting it at all. We were
planning our wedding which was planned for June 8,1996.
I took a home pregnancy test and I was pretty sure it was
positive, but it wasn't a full plus so I decided to go ahead
and go take one at the clinic. Sure enough, it was positive.
My first sonogram was June 17th. Everything looked
great. The sono man told us there was just one baby...
thank goodness. You see, twins run in my family.
The first time I felt the baby move was July 27th.
That was the most awesome feeling in the world,
and that's when it hit me that there was a baby growing
inside me. Sept. 16, I had another sonogram. It was really
cool, on this sono we saw the head, belly, hands,
legs and spine. He asked if we wanted to know the sex
Of the baby and of course we said yes. I couldn't stand it.
He said he would guess her to be a girl. That made my day!
I was so thrilled; I've always wanted a baby girl! We
started picking up baby clothes here and there when we
would go shopping. They had such cute baby girl clothes.
Of course I had some neutral clothes also...just in case.
Dec.8, I had a scare. I hadn't felt Courtney move
all day. My mom called my doctor and he sent me to
the hospital to do a non-stress test on the baby. Well thank
goodness nothing was wrong. She moved 4times while
I was on the monitor. So home we went. I was really
starting to get scared. Two friends of mine had babies
and they had passed away. I couldn't go to either of the
funerals. I just remember thinking that I couldn't
imagine having to bury my newborn baby. If I had only
knew that in a few weeks I would bury mine. My last dr's
appointment was Dec. 23. He listened to her heartbeat..
nice and strong  145-150  as usual. He said everything
looked and sounded good and he wanted to see me in a
week. I remember the night of the 23rd, my mom,
sister, and brother all played card games(kid games) 
and laughed so hard!!  We joked about me going into
labor from laughing so hard.  I woke up at 7:30am
Christmas Eve morning.  I was having contractions. 
David called work and told them he wouldn't be in today. 
His boss told him Good Luck!  My contractions were
every two minutes and lasting 20-30secs.  I called my
mom(she lived next door) and she came over.  She told
me to walk around a little bit and to go take a shower to
see if my contractions would stop. At 10:15 I was
starting to hurt pretty badly. They were still every two
mins and 20-30secs long. We called my dr. and he told
us to go to the hospital. David put the car seat and diaper
bag in the car, I told him he didn't need to because
we would probably be coming home later. We got
to the hospital and they hooked me up to the heart
monitor and asked me about my contractions.
Her heartbeat was still anywhere from 145-150,
just like it had been from the very beginning. They
checked to see if I was dilated. I wasn't. Later my
mom had asked the nurse what she thought and she told
my mom that it was probably just false labor and
that I would be going home. The only reason they didn't
send me home was because I was running a temp
and they started an IV, or who knows what would
have happened. I couldn't imagine. We noticed
Courtney's heartbeat was down. We said something to
the nurse because we had learned in Lamaze that if the
heartbeat is below 120 the baby could have a bowel
movement and then there would be trouble. The nurse
just said that that was "normal" under the stress. Of
course we didn't think it was normal, but what did we
know, she was the nurse. I guess we should have
really complained!! At about 2 or so, the heart monitor
read 0. When the nurse came in she thought maybe
the baby had moved and just wasn't picking up the beat.
She messed around with the monitor and went and
got a hand held doppler to try and listen for one.
Another nurse came in and tried doing the same thing. After
15 or so minutes of trying to find one, they went and
called my dr. They never looked at the heart monitor
strip and seen that her heartbeat had been dropping all
along. David was messing around with the monitor trying
to see if he could find one, when my dr walked in. No
nurse's were in my room at that time. It was shift change...
big deal. My baby had no heartbeat and they were
changing shifts. My dr tried messing around with the
monitor, and tried listening with the hand held Doppler
and he decided to do a sono to see what was going on.
At this time, I was in severe pain, and was pretty sure
something terrible was wrong. They called in another dr to
assist my dr with looking at the sonogram. They saw
blood flow from the placenta, but they couldn't tell for
sure if it was going to the baby or not. At least that's
what they told me. They decided to do an emergency
c-sec at this time. At in the hall they had told my
mom that they were pretty sure that the baby was already
dead, but they wanted to go ahead and do the
section just in case there was any chance she might
be alive. My mom tried telling David this, but he just
kept telling her that everything was going to be all right.
She was just trying to prepare him for this, but he
wouldn't listen. Nobody told me that they thought
my baby was dead! At 5:14pm they had my baby girl out.
We didn't hear a cry or anything. My dr took her off into
another room to look her over, while the
other Dr.'s sewed me up. Nobody told us that she was
gone. They kept saying "she this" "she that" so finally
David asked if it was a girl and they said yes. We both
were so excited! Still not knowing she wasn't alive. A few
minutes went by and the guy that did my epidural came
over and gave me something in my IV. David asked what
that was for and he told him to keep me calm down. He
was telling us that her lungs were full of fluid and blah
blah blah. David asked "did she make it" and he
said "no". That was the most terrible 2-letter word that
I ever want to hear at a time like that. I started crying so
hard. They kept telling me to calm down, because my
blood pressure was REALLY high. How could they
expect me to calm down when they just told
me my baby was dead! In the recovery room they
brought Courtney to see me, but I didn't want to look at
her. Later that night, they brought her into our room
and we had her baptized. I didn't hold her that long, I
wish now I would have, but its too late now. We never
took any pics of her with us. I also wish we had done that,
even took some video of her. I have two pics of her. One's
the hospital took but she looks not good in, and then my
mom took some of her at the funeral home. I am
thankful she did that because that is the best picture we
have of her. I did get feet prints from her but they
are terrible. They did a really bad job, you would think
they would of took more time since that was the only one
we would be able to do or look at. I think that if
Courtney would have had something wrong with her; it
would be a little easier for me to deal with. I know it
would still hurt and I would still miss her the same, but
when someone tells you that you should have your baby
other than the nurse wasn't doing her job that day.... that
is so hard to handle. We did have a lawsuit and the
hospital settled out of court. I am glad for that because
I know it would have been really hard to get up and
re live that day all over. I'm sure I would have been able
to do it, but it would have been tough. I stayed in the
hospital three days. David and my parents and his parents
planned Courtney's funeral. I never even got to do that! I
remember the next day after Courtney died my nurse I
had when she died had the nerve to come in my room.
My IV had gone off and she had to come in and change it.
I was asleep thank goodness...David was not happy at all.
He said the nerve of her. The day I came home without
my baby was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
I mean, I had to have my stomach cut open and had
nothing to show for the pain I was in from that. That was
the longest 8miles I have ever rode in my life! David
really doesn't show any sadness. I remember waking up
one night and he wasn't in bed. I got up to go find him
and he was in Courtney's bedroom holding this Kansas
City Chiefs cheerleading outfit we had bought for her,
and he was crying!!! It was so sad! One
other time I woke up and he was sitting in the front room
holding her picture and crying. He tries to hide his
feelings from me and then he just breaks down. It is so
hard to see a big guy like him crying!! We started
trying to have another baby a few months after
Courtney died. I wanted a baby so bad. Well I ended up
having to have a D&C, because I wouldn't ever have a
normal period. After that, it didn't take long and I was
pregnant. We had our 2nd baby July 2, 1998,
Kylee Marie. She means the world to me
and keeps me going everyday!!

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