Double Tragedy With a Tint of Hope

By Kim

Our First Child

On the night of April 1, I started feeling cramping, but I thought it was just gas. At this point, I was just about to turn 30 weeks. They slowly started to get worse, so I called my midwife and she told me to get to the hospital. At this point, it was 3 AM. I was checked and told that I was 4 cm dilated. I had previously informed my midwife and informed the on call doctor that when I was 16, I had laser surgery on my cervix. They said that this was not due to that because if it were, it would have shown up sooner.  They thought I may have an infection somewhere in my system, but days later showed no sign of that. They said that these things "just happen". They did stop my contractions and were going to send me home on bedrest. I got up to go change and my water broke. On April 4, 1998, our son, Rory Jacob came into the world at 30 weeks. He weighed 2 lbs, 13 oz and spent four weeks in NICU. I had to have a D&C three days later because of heavy bleeding due to retained placenta

Our Second Child

When Rory was about a year and a half, we got pregnant again. This time, we had moved back home to New Orleans and I was seeing the same doctor who did my procedure when I was 16. I told him about what happened with Rory and had my records sent to him. I asked him if he thought it was related to my procedure and he said the same, that it would have turned up earlier than 30 weeks. He did agree to do internals during each monthly visit just to be sure. At 20 weeks, I had an ultrasound. Ended up my dates were off, so I was really 18 weeks. At that point, he said he could not make out the sex. I did have a strong feeling that it was a girl. I had another appointment two weeks later and with my internal, everything looked normal. A week later, on my way to work, I started feeling major contractions. I got to Rory's daycare and it subsided enough for me to get Rory into daycare and get to work. Once I entered work, they came back stronger than ever. I immediately called my doctor and had a friend bring me to the doctor. When I got to the doctor, he examined me and flat out said, "You're going to lose your baby today." At this point, I was 21 weeks. His office is right next to the hospital. While we were waiting for a wheelchair, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "We should have done a cerclage, we'll do it next time." A little after 10 pm on November 10, 1999, our daughter, Violet Ismey was stillborn. With this pregnancy as well, I had retained placenta, but it was not discovered for three months when I got a high fever. I stayed in the hospital for a week for a D&C and IV antibiotics.

Our third child

We got pregnant again in August of 2000. We had just moved to Orlando that previous April, so I had to find a new doctor. On my first visit, we explained our history and he said we'd get a cerclage at 13 weeks. And that is what happened. The cerclage procedure wasn't all that bad. The needle for the spinal was the worst part. A few days later, I was back to normal.  Around 15 weeks, I started having spotting. I went to Urgent Care and and U/S revealed I had partial placenta previa. This is where part of the placenta is covering the opening of the cervix. I was put on bedrest.  The spotting lasted for about three weeks and then stopped. At this point, I was having ultrasounds every two weeks to check he length of my cervix for funneling. By 18 weeks, the placenta had moved away from the opening. I remained on bedrest the rest of the pregnancy until 4 am on April 9, 2001, my water broke. Caillou Arture was born at 10:48 pm weighing 4 lbs, 15 oz. He was doing great, but needed to stay in the step down nursery for a few days.  Shortly after he was born, I started to have problems. I wouldn't stop bleeding and my pressure was dipping. At one point it went down to 50/30.  They thought that they would have to do an emergency hysterectomy, but were able to stop the bleeding with a D&C. I had retained placenta in my uterus, AGAIN!

Caillou ended up being in the hospital for one week just to grow a little and learn how to eat. I'm not sure exactly how big he had gotten, but I know he was in size 2 diapers, so he was probably over 12 lbs. We called him our little "chunky monkey". He was our miracle baby.

Sunday night was just perfect. I gave both our boys a bath. Rory who is 3 was first, then Caillou. All four of us took part in giving him the bath, even big brother, Rory. I breast fed Caillou and he fell asleep. I unlatched him and he was still sucking as if he was still eating and I held him for a few minutes more. I laid him down to sleep in his crib. Then we all went to bed.

I was awoken at 6:45 am. Jake needed to get up to go to work and I realized the baby hadn't woken up yet. I sent him in to check on him and thank God that I did. The next thing I heard over the monitor was Jake saying "Oh God! No!" I ran into his room and he was blue, lifeless. I just screamed "NO! NO!" I called 911 and Jake tried CPR. I don't even know when Rory got up, but later Jake told me that he leaned over the crib and saw Caillou.

My perfect baby was gone. SIDS had taken him on July 16, 2001. Some reason, God wanted him for some other purpose. Or maybe, God gave us him as a gift to spend those three months with him. I will never know until I am reunited with him in heaven.

A Fourth Child?

I just got word from my doctor today that I can go ahead and try again.  At first he said that it would be a good idea for me to call it quits, but this was at my 6 week check up before Caillou had passed away. I know what I will have to go through and hopefully this time, things will work out. I know I CAN have a successful cerclage, so that is my "Tint of Hope". Maybe we'll end up with twins!!!

I have a web site set up for Caillou. You can tell people to email me if they want to see it. You can see the address at the bottom of my signature.

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