When The Heartache Is Too Much To Bare

It’s sunday, and probably a good month since I last posted. It has been for good reason though, because we had our big move into our new home, we have been so disorganized and focusing on getting orders out the door.

This post isn’t going to be happy, and I highly recommend that you not read it if you’re pregnant. It will be honest and the bare bone truth.

I’m the kind of girl who needs to wear my heart on my sleeve. I can’t sit in a room and cry my sorrows away, that makes me feel even more depressed & more empty.

It all started on thursday afternoon. I headed on over to my midwife appointment and I chatted with my sweet Midwife, Yarrow, about the past month. Brinley was getting increasingly cranky as it was prime nap time, so Yarrow decided to check the heartbeat first.

I laid on the bed and and pulled my belly band down so she could get right to work. I’ve never had a problem with anyone finding the heartbeat. Ever. She stood there for what seemed like 20 minutes trying to find the heartbeat, and couldn’t. Finally we sent Brinley & Glen outside to the car so Brin could be confined because she was exhausted.

Yarrow got me to stand up, jiggle, do some squats and try to get baby to move.

I laid back down and she tried for another 15 minutes to find the heartbeat.

Absolutely nothing.

At this point, I was pretty alarmed. This had never happened to me. I’ve never had any complications in birth & never had a problem. I was supposed to be 17 weeks along, but baby was measuring smaller at 14.5 weeks.

Yarrow decided to book a emergency ultrasound for me just so make sure everything was okay.

Two hours later I headed into the hospital to get my ultrasound. The fear was eating me up. An older, middle eastern man called me into his room. He was cold. He had no expression.

I asked him if everything looked okay. He didn’t respond.

He kept checking on baby. 10 minutes went by and he didn’t speak one word. Our conversation looked like this

 

“Can my husband come in to see baby?”

“No. No he can’t”

“Is my baby okay?”

“I refuse to say”

“Why can’t you just tell me?”

“I can’t say”

…and with that, he left the room, cold and heartless.

 

We rushed home and Glen ran inside to call Yarrow, our midwife. He tried every number we had for her.

Finally he got in touch. He was upstairs for what seemed like hours, but I’m sure it was only 10 minutes.

For some reason, part of me thought everything was going to be okay, so when Glen came downstairs and said “I’m so sorry hon, the baby is gone”, I didn’t believe him. He had to tell me again.

Immediately tears burned my cheeks. My throat filled up with sadness or that feeling when you cry and I was uncontrollable.

The boys came into the room and said “What’s wrong mommy?”

Glen told them to leave, but I wanted them to know. They were so excited to meet their baby. Hudson wanted another baby sister, and Cai wanted a baby brother. They were so excited to play with their future “baby”.

I took their little hands and told them that Baby was no longer breathing and had died. This is so hard for a child to understand. I tried to explain that baby was in heaven, but they didn’t understand why baby was still in my tummy. Luckily, kids catch on fast and I told them that their sweet little brother’s soul was with Jesus and his earthly body was in mommy still.

The boys handled it like champs. I could see their hearts hurt. But we’ve given them special attention in the last few days and loved them so much harder.

Thursday night was unbearable. I couldn’t stop crying. I was paralyzed by fear and sadness.

Friday, our specialist, Dr. Duckett called and told me my options. I could have a D&C, but would have to go to Victoria for it as I was too far along, and she couldn’t preform it as it was too risky and could cause many complications down the road. Or, I could be induced in the hospital.

I decided to get induced in the hospital as soon as possible. She booked me in for Saturday morning at 8 am.

Saturday morning came. I got my first two pills that would dilate me at 9 AM. I had a vision that this would happen fast as I had Cai and Brinley in under an hour. But what I didn’t realize was this wasn’t going to be like a full term delivery at all.

I was too scared to eat, so I didn’t. I finally decided to eat two hard boiled eggs at 11 AM that the nurses brought me because I knew I needed energy.

I started having contractions and aches around 11:30 AM. I have a pretty good pain tolerance, so I don’t know how to explain the pain to you if you’re reading this and going through this yourself.

But basically, I just felt a lot of tightening in my uterus and strong period cramps.

Around 2:30, I asked for some T3’s as the pain was getting more intense. But when she brought in the T3’s I threw it up as there wasn’t a coding on them so it got stuck in my throat. We tried a few things like mashing them up in applesauce ( which tastes disgusting ) and we finally decided the best option was just to get a shot of Morphine.

I got the morphine and it almost instantly helped. I didn’t feel like it took any of the pain away, but it makes your head so heavy and sleepy that I was able to not think/care about the pain. I actually slept!

I dozed in and out for 2.5 hours, and then at 5. My husband brought me dinner. I sat up to eat it and immediately felt a gush. I knew that it had to be baby time soon so I shovelled as much food as I could into my mouth and then got up to pee.

Immediately I felt something. I told Glen to call for the Nurses immediately and I got back into bed.

They checked me and sure enough, baby was coming.

I laid back on the bed and they told me to push whenever I felt he urge. I didn’t really feel a urge, so I just bared down and pushed. With one push my baby boy came out still in his amniotic sac.

I immediately sat up. Tears streaming down my face. Even still in the sac, he was so perfect. he had little baby hands, little baby toes and a sweet round little belly. His eyes were half open as well.

The nurse broke open the sac so I could hold my baby, he was was bigger than my hand. He was supposed to be 14.5 weeks, but looked much bigger/older when I compared him to other babies on the internet.

For a long time we just stared at him and cried, we didn’t know what to call him as we thought he was a girl and we didn’t know what to say or do. He was so tiny, so helpless. If he would of held on a month or two longer, we might of been able to save him. It just hurt so bad to say goodbye.

We ended up naming him “Nolan Daniel”. It was a name that I loved, but it sounded silly with Hudson… But since Nolan is in Heaven, we thought it was a perfect name for him.

He had 10 fingers and toes, he had a cute little tummy, a perfect round little head, with his dads shape. His eyes were half open, and his cord was attached to the placenta and he looked so at peace.

When you have a baby that you expect to live to full term, and they suddenly die. It feels like a peace of your heart is missing. It feels like a dark empty hole inside of you. It is such a dark pain that I never expected to feel, but many have, and many walk alone in it.

I decided to share our pain with our friends and family and I’m so glad I did as Gods peace has been washing over us like rain. We are still in such pain, but it will get easier over time and we are so thankful for our 3 beautiful kids that we already have and everyone who is surrounding us with love and help right now.

 

Thank you so much for listening. This is my heart right now. I’ll share more in a week or two once I can comprehend more.