My husband, Gabriel, and I, Stephanie, were married in August of 2003. All we wanted was to start a family. I wanted to hold a tiny baby in my arms and comfort it, and care for it, and love it. Only a month had past before we discovered that we were expecting in June. We were so excited. I was going to be a mommy!!
We wanted to have a natural birth at home, possibly even a water birth. By the twelfth week we had discovered our midwife Susan, who very fortunately lived only 15 minutes away! She was wonderful, so helpful and experienced. Our prenatal visits always went well. I will never forget the first time I heard the baby's heart beat. I could have sat there for hours; just listening to it beat, knowing for sure that there was this person inside of me. Everything was progressing through the pregnancy normally and everything was average. Week by week would pass. I loved this baby so much and not a day would pass that I didn't tell him so.
The nineteenth week had come along. Tuesday I noticed more discharge than I had the days before, but I did not think very much of it. It didn't appear as if I had an infection. I also was experiencing cramps, which I did not find out until later were contractions. I had felt them on Monday and slightly on Sunday, but they weren't much to speak of. As the day progressed, I noticed they were becoming more uncomfortable and more frequent. At 5:30 in the evening I started to become concerned. As I stood up to get the phone to call Susan, I could feel a small gush. I went to the bathroom to find that it was not discharge but blood. I knew something was very, very wrong. I began to panic. I didn't know what to do. I had never been pregnant before. Gabriel was working over an hour away and wasn't supposed to home until 8:30. I tried calling Susan, but she was not home. I left messages on both her home and cell. I called my mother-in-law, Carol, who helped to calm me down and told me to just sit down and try to relax. After about 20-30 minutes I tried calling Susan back. She was home this time and told me to go to the ER immediately. She had thought that I might have an incompetent cervix. I tried getting a hold of Gabriel. He wasn't answering his cell. So I called Carol back and she came down to take me to the hospital, which was only 20 minutes or so away. They took me up to OB where the baby and I were monitored. Again everything appeared normal. The baby was fine. Gabriel called me back and would be here as soon as he could. They decided to do an ultrasound and Gabriel met us as soon as they wheeled me out. The ultrasound showed that I was already 7 cm dilated and part of the bag of waters was protruding out. They tried lowering my head, hoping that gravity might push some of the bag back in. They were discussing flying me by helicopter to a hospital an hour away to see if they could save the pregnancy and put a cerclage in. But after consulting with experts in the other hospital, they came to the conclusion that there was nothing to do. My baby would be born before daybreak. And at nineteen weeks the baby didn't have the lung tissue to survive. Our child wasn't going to live.
I didn't know what to think. Everything was fine just 3½ hours ago. I felt overwhelmed. This couldn't be happening. I would never get to do or see hundreds of things that I had been waiting four months for. Labor progressed through the night and Gabriel kept track of the contractions. At 11:30 my water broke. I felt like it was my fault. We could hear babies crying in the nursery next to us. I knew that I would never be able to hear our child cry. I could never comfort him. I could never rock him. I wanted to so badly. Gabriel broke down also as was realizing the same things. We were supposed to have a new baby in June; not this. I could feel him move and knew that it was probably for the last time. I wanted my baby. After the water broke my contractions stopped. The doctor tried to remove the baby, but the cervix and perineum had tightened. The baby was breech, so his body was in the birth canal and his head was in the cervix. The doctor managed to pull one of his feet out. It was still bright red, suggesting that he was still alive. We baptized our son. They tried giving me relaxants, but those didn't work. They called in the anesthesiologist and I was put under a general anesthesia. At 1:55 am Wednesday January 28th, 2004, our son Daniel Zachary was born. After I had come to, all I could think, all I could say was I missed it. I missed the birth and I didn't want to miss it. There was so much that I missed, that was just gone. And there was nothing that I could do to stop it, nothing I could do to prevent it. I had been thinking prior to this that I was going to be a mommy in June. I had not realized that I had been all along. Here I held my son that would never open his eyes. He was so beautiful. He was 9 oz and 9 inches long. He had the most perfect feet and toes. His little fingers could wrap around my fingertip. The angels took his soul to heaven. Now he happy forever in heaven with God and the angels. I will try my hardest to get to heaven so that one day I can rock my baby again.
Please, Daniel, watch over us. Mommy and Daddy love you so much.
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