I was recently posed the question "Why is your grief still so raw?" I am not mad about this question as it was asked in a way of wanting to understand where I am at, why I am feeling what I am feeling, and it was asked by someone that has never experienced the loss of a baby. I have time to answer that question now.
I want to share the answer to that question here because I know that there are probably many that are like "It's been 6months...should she really be grieving this hard still. Maybe she isn't thankful enough for what she has...all she is thinking about is her dead baby....Can't she just go on living?" And while some of these thoughts may come from judgmental people I choose to believe that the majority of people that may think this way towards me actually just come from a place of wanting to understand, I really have no ill will towards them and I want to offer my perspective...starting at a place where I have only shared with a few people. So to understand why I still feel the way I feel, I think first you need to know the story behind it.
On July 29th, I had an appointment with my midwife to discuss whether or not we should still pursue with a vbac (vaginal birth after c-cesarean). I had an ultrasound the day before measuring my beautiful Katherine at the maximum weight of 10.5pds...because Katherine was so big my midwife consulted with an OB in the practice and it was decided that a c-section would probably be the best route to take. We did not object but was disappointed as I was completley healthy and ACOG states that a repeat c-section for a big baby alone is not reason enough to do a repeat c-section. But I didn't want to argue as I was 39weeks pregnant and tired and so desired to hold my precious Katherine. My midwife came back and said that I would need to meet with the OB on Thursday (the 31st) too schedule the c-section...and also stated as she was leaving the room that "who knows maybe you will go into labor by then and you won't have to have the surgery." I share this with you only to make it understood that in no way were we told that having VBAC was going to put Katherine's and my life in danger and under no circumstances should it be pursued. I won't go into all the reasons why we thought a VBAC was going to be best, there are studies after studies that have shown why c-sections are not the best way to bring a baby into the world but this is not the post for that.
Anyways, we went home on the 29th hoping for labor to begin before the 31st so I would not have to have a repeat c-section. I consulted my doula (birth assistant) about what my midwife had said, the planned repeat c-section, and together we decided that trying some natural inductions would probably be a good thing at this point...and I would just like to say that had Katherine been born alive everyone would probably applaud all of our decisions. So on the 30th I woke up and took some castor oil, and at about 3:00 that afternoon I took a small dose of co-hosh herb that has been known to cause contractions and start labor (which is why it is not recommended for pregnant woman) but seeing that we wanted labor to start we saw it as a good thing to take.
At about 5:30pm I started to experience some mild contractions...I texted my husband at 6 that he should come home and for whatever reason he wasn't able to leave work until 6:30. At this point we were trying to stick to my birth plan which was for me to relax and labor at home for a little bit before going to the hospital. Carl got home around 7:30 and we called a friend to come and pick up our kiddos. By the time the kiddos were out the door it was about 8:30. At which points the contractions were really intense and I was starting to sense that something wasn't going right. We called our doula and I wasn't able to talk and Carl thought that it was just really intense contractions but that I may not really be in actual labor and that it may have just been the stuff that I took. My doula said she was on her way to our house all in all the phone conversation ended at about 9:00pm between 9 and 9:20 for whatever reason I just decided (though I was feeling okay) that I wanted to go to the hospital and to forget the birth plan. My doula arrived and it was about somewhere between 9:30 and 9:45 when I was able to make it to the car and we were able to get on the road to the hospital.
It was in the car that labor really picked and things started to go wrong. I was experiencing the worst pain I had ever felt in my life, and the bumpy road surely wasn't helping. Still Carl and my doula were hoping it was just labor but my instincts were telling me that the contractions and pain that I was feeling just wasn't normal. I began to get scared and sensing that something was deeply wrong I hollered for my husband to pull the car over about 10mins into our trip towards the hospital...we managed to pull into a burger king parking lot where I demanded that an ambulance be called and take me the rest of the way to the hospital. In the time we were waiting for the ambulance I felt something pop and then what I thought was just Katherine moving...and then the contractions just stopped...and then the burning began. It is a burning that I can only describe as someone taking a lighter or a match and setting fire to the insides of my abdominal wall. We didn't know it then but the popping was my uterus splitting open and Katherine moving was her coming out and into the abdominal wall...she was most likely already dead at this point.
It felt like an eternity for the ambulance to arrive and then I got into the ambulance and was on the way to the closest hospital...the whole way there I was screaming for a c-section. I arrived and being a small hospital we had to wait for the on call doctor to get there...the whole entire waiting period was probably only like 10mins but again it felt like an eternity and I remember at one looking into my doula's eyes and thinking that I was a dead and she must be an angel (because she has the prettiest blue eyes I have ever seen) it wasn't until she started talking to me that I realized I wasn't dead yet. I literally had the thought "I don't want her to be the last person I ever see again, where is my husband? I need to tell him I love him."
Apparently, this whole time I was just so immersed in pain that I was tossing and turning and it took several people to hold me down in order to get IV's started and to do the ultrasound that would reveal that Katherine was gone. When the doctor arrived and told us Katherine was dead in that moment I thought "I am going to die then too." I kept hollering for a c-section and believe it or not ultrasounds don't reveal uterine ruptures so at this point everyone was still thinking I was just a panicked laboring woman but I knew, I knew what must have happened, and I knew that if I didn't get to surgery soon I was going to die too. when I finally got rolled back to surgery I just kept asking that they try to bring Katherine back to life. And then I remember saying "It burns, It burns, It burns" and I remember the anesthesiologist stroking my forehead and telling me that he was going to make it stop and then I was out. At some point shortly after being put under I stopped breathing and needed to be resuscitated it was found later that I had gone septic because of all the birth fluid that had slowly been leaking into my system. I lost a lot of blood and would have been given a blood transfusion if it wasn't for the fact that the transfusion itself may had killed me. So basically we had to hope and pray that my body would heal itself.
When I came out it was somewhere after 2:00am and I was told that Katherine was removed from my abdomen at 12:10...she was the first thing I asked about and I was crushed to know that she was still dead. The days that followed were devastating...We had to watch our kiddos be crushed when the little sister they had been hoping and longing for would not get to come home with them. We had to pick out a casket, pick out music, we had to try to get pictures taken, answer questions of what happened, and why did you do this, why didn't you do that, all the while I was healing from a major surgery.
So you see...I didn't just experience a loss I experienced a very real life changing trauma, and if you ask any trauma expert trauma isn't just miraculously recovered from it takes time to heal the wounds that are inflicted on a persons heart when trauma is experienced. I will go into some of those wounds in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment