Friday the 13th

Looking back on yesterday, our Friday the 13th was filled with events that should be straight out of a horror movie. As my last post explained, yesterday I was supposed to have my D&C done early in the morning. So Thursday night, I took my medication just as my doctor said to do. This purpose of the medication was to soften my cervix so they could better perform the procedure the next day. But to my horror my body reacted to the medication much better than it was supposed to.

I barely slept all of Thursday night. 2 hours here, 2 hours there. My stomach was cramping as it was supposed to from the meds. My alarm sounded at 5am, but I didn't get out of bed until 5:45am. Straight to the shower I went. After my shower (about 6am), I put my towel around me and noticed blood. I got a little scared but thought it was a normal side effect of the medication. Then more blood, then a gush of fluid. My water broke in my bathroom. I screamed and grabbed some tissue to wipe everything up. More bleeding. I sat on the toilet and went through more tissue with the blood. Then another gush of fluid. Then to my absolute horror, I peeked down and my baby was hanging upside down from my body, still attached by the umbilical cord. I can't remember a more traumatizing moment in my life. I screamed bloody murder and was crying at the same time. I screamed to Adam that the baby came out and he immediately called 911. I didn't know what to do. My baby was just there. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. I grabbed some tissue paper and neatly folded it. Then I scooped my baby up and held it. Seconds later I had to put it down and Adam said he was being told my the 911 person to have me lie down. I yelled that I needed clothes as some strangers were soon to be at my house. So I grabbed a shirt and panties and layed down in the tub with a towel over me. My hair was still wet, no time to get ready or even brush my teeth. This was so unexpected.

About 10 minutes later, I heard the sirens. The fire crew & ambulance arrived and about 5 men walked into my bathroom. They were really great and calmly asked me questions and took care of me. 2 of the guys went to get the baby and I was instructed to get my robe (no pants) and get on the stretcher. I scrambled to grab my purse and some socks and I was escorted via stretcher into the ambulance. We were off to Northside Atlanta by 6:45am. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic and we got there rather quickly. Adam followed the ambulance in our car. I was given an IV and pumped with fluids. My blood pressure was checked every 15 minutes. I was still bleeding and having contractions. It hurt.

Then we wheeled into the hospital & I was taken immediately into a room. I had to go to the bathroom as soon as I arrived, and it was then when I passed the placenta. My body was getting rid of everything on it's own so the D&C at this point looked unnecessary. I had to fill out forms and was being monitored. I couldn't eat, drink or take any pain meds since there was a possibility that I would have to have the D&C procedure done. The contractions came and went, and the bleeding came & went. I had an ultrasound to see if there were remains that needed to come out through the D&C, and it was inconclusive. There were spots there, but my doctor thought it might have been blood clots that my body would reject. My doctor examined me and said he didn't think I needed the D&C, but he gave me the option to proceed if I wanted. By this time I had been in the hospital for many hours and just wanted food, drink, meds & to go home. So I decided to decline the D&C. If I change my mind I could always have it done next week.

The creepy part was that they brought our baby into the room so we could hold it and see it. They placed it on a small baby cloth. We elected to have pictures of the baby taken and they put together a memory box for us to keep. They included a teddy bear (which was holding the baby in the photo shoot), the baby cloth that it was on, a card from the nurses and another card which contained the baby's information. It weighed .4 oz, it was 2.5 inches long, the head was 1.5 inches, and it was "born" 6/13/08 at 6:15am. I don't like to think of this as a birthday. There was nothing happy about this day.

The baby is being submitted for genetic testing, then it will be cremated at the hospital. They even gave me the option of taking it home for us to bury, but we declined. That's too much for me to handle. I had no idea there would be this many options.

And we could not tell the sex of the baby at the time, but after the genetic tests come back we should know. I want to know. I think I would always wonder whether I had a little boy or a little girl in heaven waiting on me to arrive. We should know the results in about 4 weeks.