A Mourning Mom

August 12, 2005

I woke up that morning, took care of Hailey, baked cookies for her to give to her mom and drove to the hospital to drop her off.  

Here is Hailey at the hospital

The plan that day was after dropping Hailey off I was going to work and then I had an appointment with the perinatologist later that afternoon.  I didn’t feel quite right so I decided not to go to work and just hang out at the hospital.  I went to Willys for lunch with my good friend Tina.

I sat in the waiting room of the perinatologist with my husband.   Our average wait time at that office was at least an hour.   I could not sit still.  I kept getting up and pacing.  We were supposed to be going on a trip to visit my family later that night.  My grandmother was sick and our nephew was having his first birthday party.

Finally, we were called back to a room.  The usual drill – get undressed, put on a white cloth skirt and sit on the table.  The nurse began to examine me.  She did not make her usual casual conversation.  Suddenly, she was calling other people into the room.  I heard people frantically talking.  All I could make out was something about not being able to find my cervix.

I was then shuttled into another room and given a shot.  The room started to spin and my heart began to race so fast I am sure it was going to leap out of my chest.   I was whisked away and my husband was told to go to admissions. 

I was wheeled to a room right next to the operating room and hooked up to a machine that measured my contractions – which were 3 minutes apart.  I had apparently been in labor for days.  I thought to myself – how could I have missed that?   I had heard of braxton hicks but I did not think it was possible to be in real labor at 26 weeks. This was not supposed to be happening.

The fluid in our baby’s abdomen did not go away.  It increased, putting pressure on his heart and he went into distress which caused me to go into labor.  The doctors now explained to us that our baby had hydrops. Basically, his body could not process fluid. This would be the first of many medical terms I did not know existed until my children were diagnosed with them.

The plan was now to hope and pray that the fluid would decrease.  If it did not decrease our baby would be delivered that weekend.    If it did decrease I would stay in the hospital until my contractions were under control.  I was given the shot to help our baby’s lungs in case he was delivered.

Shortly after the trisomy 21 diagnosis we started singing and reading from a book of psalms to our baby.  So, we sang and read.  We cried, prayed and waited.