Second Trimester Cont.

So I just found out that my baby passed away and it hasn't really hit me yet what was to come.....

They admitted me from triage to a regular room and brought me a wheelchair to take me where I was going. On my way there, I saw my Dr in the hallway and he came up to me, gave me a hug and said "well, we fought the good fight, it just wasn't meant to be"......I was like WHAT? I love my Dr to death but this just wasn't something I wanted to hear. I asked the Dr what caused this and he said he didn't know. With the quad screen coming back positive it could've been a chromosomal issue OR the umbillical cord could've gotten around the neck. He didn't know...

John had to call his parents and tell them what was going on and his mom didn't know what to think or say. The came over as soon as they could. When it came down to "who should we tell" my response was....tell EVERYONE. The more people who find out from someone else, the better. I just didn't want people coming up to me asking me questions about how my pregnancy was going or if we knew what we were having. So yes, please tell everyone, so no one asks me about it.

I got in my room and they didn't need to hook me up to any monitors since there was nothing to hear. But my mom never left my side. Nor did John. So what they were going to do, since I needed to start the laboring process, they inserted a pill into me every 3 to 5 hours making it to where my body would start labor all on it's own. They told me what they could do was insert the first pill and let me go home and just come back every few hours to have them check me and insert another one if need be. I looked at them and told them that I WOULD NOT leave the hospital with this child still in me. I will wait till everything is said and done and that was that.

Please keep in mind that NOT ONCE did I blame God or wonder why he would do this to me. I knew that it wasn't his fault. I knew that nothing like this comes from a loving, kind and merciful God. All I knew at the time was that I was angry. Angry that I had waited so long for this child and now was having it taken away....Angry that both my sisters were pregnant and I was going to have to watch them go through the rest of their pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby....Angry that I was going to go home with signs of just giving birth but have no baby. My milk is gonna come in and I have no baby. I just gave birth but have no baby. I have the medical bills....but no baby.  I was angry!

At the time I was in choir at my church and the music director Sam had asked me to sing at the service we hold on Christmas Eve...I was really excited to get to do this bc we had just gotten involved again after a break so it had been awhile since I sang in front of people. So I called Sam to tell him that I could not sing and when he answered his phone, I said hey I need to tell you something...and the words he said to me I am SURE are words he wish he could've taken back. I said "I need to tell you something" and he said " You died?" ok now in any other cercumstance, I would've taken that as a joke. Obviously if I'm calling you I'm not dead. I just simply said "no, but my baby did" I immediately heard the disappointment in his voice and he apologized. Not his fault, he didn't know but felt really bad about saying that. I wasn't upset, just thought it was ironic that that is the phrase he chose....

Anyways....so my mom started calling family to let them know what was going on and I remember when she called my Aunt Sharon (who also had a daughter that was 2 or 3 months pregnant) and got her voicemail. She started to leave a message and started to cry when she got to the part that the baby died...I just remmeber looking at her and saying " just say it and hang up" at this point I still had not cried and I just felt that I had to be strong for everyone else. I've always been the one to cry first but in this situation, it was total opposite. I felt like if I started crying that everyone would fall apart. So I had to be strong for the family.

What the dr's had decided to do was let me labor to the point that I was ready to push. Usually, you push a baby through the birth canal because it's tramatising for the baby to be in the canal. (thus pushing) However in my case, it didn't matter so they let the baby labor all the way down the birth canal before making me push. So while we're waiting I recall the contractions getting stronger and stronger so I asked for an epideral. Once the epideral was in, it was smooth sailing from there.

Every few hours the dr's would come in and check me and make sure it wasn't time to start pushing and at one point it was just me and my mom sitting in the dark and the dr came in, pulled up a stool and sat there with us. Asked us if we had any questions as to what was going to happen, if we needed help with anything and it was comforting to me, that a Dr would care so much.

The next day, my room was full of family and friends bc if you know me, I LOVE being surrounded by people. It helped me get throught it by laughing and talking with people instead of sitting in an empty room alone with my thoughts and feelings. That would've killed me I think. While everyone was talking and telling stories, I heard a pop and then a flood of fluid. I looked at my mom and told he I thought my water had just broke. Sure enough, it did! Wouldn't be long from that point,

Around 5 or so that evening, the dr (and by dr I mean resident) came in and checked me and said to me in a very soothing and calming voice "you're ready to start pushing" and all that came over me was fear. He left to get my OB and as he left, I had finally reached the point of overwhelmed. (as I'm typing this I am crying even now 4 years later) I started bawling...uncontrollable. I was scared at what we were gonna see, scared about holding this child, scared about everything that was unknown. Was this child gonna have a 3rd arm, or will this be a perfectly healthy baby? The fear of the unknown.....So as I'm crying everyone who was there just gathered around my bed and started to cry with me. John was out of the room at this point and someone had gone to get him and when he came in he just came to the bedside, and held me. What more could he do?

Everyone left the room for the birth of our baby, and it was, for the first time, just John and I alone with the doctors and nurses.  When the baby was born, our FIRST question was, what is it? A boy or a girl? Dr. Hamilton just looked at us and said he didn't know....HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW?? The quad screen was right...there WAS a birth defect as well as downs syndrome.  However, the baby died due to getting the umbillical cord wrapped around it's neck twice. Sometimes when this happens it can be a loose noose or a tight one and in this case it was tight. When they handed him to me, I'm not sure I was ready...So I asked them to take him and clean him up and then give him back. So they did and once they cleaned him off, Dr Hamilton looked again and said he thought that it was a boy. FINALLY a boy!! What we were waiting on 6 long months. Jonathon Allen Barth 11 inches 11 oz

Meanwhile in the hallway where everyone was sitting, they rolled the clear bassinett past eveyone to bring it in our room and that's when everyone else began to cry. Knowing what was going in that bassinett. It wasn't for a living healthy baby. It was a child that the world would never get to know.

I had them let the family in as soon as possible because I needed them to be in there with us. As soon as everyone got in the room and had surrounded my bed, I just sat there holding him and looked at my family and simply said "Don't be sad and don't cry because this was truley a blessing for us" What do I mean when I say blessing?? I mean, God took the decision away from John and I, as to abort a perfectly healthy baby. That is something we would've had to live with the rest of our lives. More so than that, we expected a healthy baby. If he was born alive, it would've been nothing but hospitals and doctors and surgery's and medicine the rest of his life. God took that burden from us. I am sooo greatful he did.

to be continued....