Two months to the day since we’d found out about our baby boy’s condition. I went to work in the morning to set my affairs in order. I told my boss what had happened and that I’d be off work for awhile, though I didn’t know yet how long. He was very supportive and just asked me to keep him informed. I talked to our HR lady and she helped me figure out all I needed to do to get ready for short-term leave. And I got my work organized so my two co-workers could carry it on while I was out. I only stayed a couple of hours after letting my friends know as well. Then I headed home to Scott.
At 11:30 we went to the doctor for our ultrasound. We went to the back of the building where the ultrasound office is and the tech asked if we were scheduled for an ultrasound. I told her yes, so she tried to find our work order – apparently we weren’t on the schedule. After a few minutes, she came out of the office and had me fill out some paperwork, then had us come in for the ultrasound.
I had the distinct feeling that she still had no idea why we were there, and by this point I was so tired of explaining our situation to every new tech that saw us, I decided not to say anything to her and I lay on the bed. She did the ultrasound and didn’t say much. I wondered if she was freaking out inside because she could see that the baby didn’t have a heartbeat and didn’t know if she should tell us or not! Again, because a part of me was sadistically amused, I remained silent. Scott and I were familiar enough with ultrasounds by now, that we could see there wasn’t a heartbeat. She didn’t need to tell us.
After she finished – it only took her 5-7 minutes – she said she’d give the scans to the radiologist and they would get back to us later that day. I thanked her, used the bathroom because my bladder was ready to explode, and we headed down the hall to my doctor’s office. Luckily it was lunchtime so he was sitting at his desk. I peeked in and knocked on the door. He said, “Hello! So, what did they say?” I kind of smiled and said, “She didn’t say anything except they’d give it to the radiologist and get back to us later today.” He smiled and said to come in his office and have a seat and he’d go talk to her. We sat down and a minute later he came back in and said the ultrasound confirmed what he’d thought – our baby was gone.
Our next step was to decide on how and when to deliver. This was a little tough for us to face and if you keep reading, you’ll see why. Dr. Brown began by telling us he wasn’t particularly thrilled about delivering a non-viable baby via c-section because of the risks involved for me. However, he also told us what would most likely happen if we tried to deliver him vaginally. He wasn’t sure, but he said due to how large the cystic hygroma on baby’s neck had grown, there was a high risk that he would get stuck in the birth canal during labor. If this happened, they would next try and drain the fluid out of the cystic hygroma. However, when Dr. Brown was looking at the scans from the most recent ultrasound, he saw there was also mass within the hygroma, not just fluid, so draining might not help much. He continued on to say that in this situation, the baby most likely would not be delivered intact. Meaning he’d be delivered in pieces.
I about died when he told me that, and honestly I was a little shocked. He left the decision up to us. We told him we’d think about it for the rest of the day and get back to them as soon as possible. He wanted us to sign some forms for a c-section just in case we went that route so they could get going quicker with everything. He also said he’d schedule a c-section for me on Thursday morning – first surgery of the day so I wouldn’t have to starve all day – just in case.
Well, we left the doctor’s office and immediately started discussing our options. Scott was worried about doing a c-section because he didn’t want to put me at risk. I can’t remember why we went there because I was kind of dazed, but we went to Wal-Mart for something. Scott’s mom called to see how everything went and he told her everything the doctor told us. I think she was pretty upset he’d even mentioned trying a vaginal birth with the risks it posed. She calmed Scott down about a c-section and we both decided that was the best route for us to take.
I couldn’t bear to do anything that might harm our little boy. I’m not stupid. I knew he was already gone and that nothing at this point could cause him physical pain. But I’d carried my precious boy for about 6 months and gosh darn if anything was going to stop me from holding and loving on him. I wouldn’t risk harm coming to his body if I could help it.
It turned out we’d forgotten to sign those c-section forms before we left, so since we were still out and about, we headed back to the doctor and told them we’d decided to have a c-section. We got the appropriate forms filled out and Dr. Brown informed us of the usual risks involved etc. He further explained that a c-section would most likely limit how many kids I could have. He feared that due to the fact the baby was only 28 weeks along, they’d have to do a vertical cut on my uterus, making it impossible for me to ever have a vaginal delivery in the future. And women can only have so many c-sections. It made this a pretty big decision because I’d always imagined having a large family. But we still felt this was right for us.
Then Deb came in and talked to us for a few minutes, which I really appreciated! She said as a mother who has had 5 c-sections, they all went wonderfully for her and she thinks we made the right choice. We actually went into some spiritual matters as we talked and it was a really wonderful experience. It helped calm me down. She gave me a few more instructions about figuring out when we needed to be at the hospital and how to contact them, wished us luck and we went on our way.
On our way home we stopped at Smith’s for a very important item. I wanted donuts. I’d been craving them for weeks but never acted upon it. Scott had some at work earlier in the week and so I finally decided with everything we were dealing with, I deserved some donuts! So we bought a dozen. And as it turns out, a dozen donuts are quite a lot for only two people to eat…but we didn’t care. I was rather amused really! And yes, the donuts tasted amazing.
Later that evening I called our Bishop to tell him the news. Before he came over I wanted to tidy up a bit. Remember how earlier our heat went out? Well, it had stopped working again, so we were borrowing a space heater from a neighbor. We had the space heater going in the living room and I plugged the vacuum in the hallway socket, thinking that because they were on different walls in different rooms, surely it wouldn’t cause a power surge. Well, I vacuumed for approximately 30 seconds before the power went out in half our apartment.
As I’ve stated before, we lived in the Avenues in the basement of a house – we rented from Scott’s uncle. There’s an older gentleman who lived above us. So here we were trying to clean up before our Bishop came over to discuss the loss of our baby, it was freezing because our only source of heat had gone out, now half the lights were out, and we discovered we only had access to half the breakers for the house – the other half and the ones we needed were upstairs in our neighbor’s apartment, who wasn’t home at the time. Luckily I found plugs in our living room that still worked, so I plugged in our Christmas tree and a lamp so we had some lights on in case our Bishop arrived before we could get things sorted out. Scott called his uncle and spent the next 30-45 minutes figuring things out. While Scott’s uncle was on his way up, he called our upstairs neighbor and found out he would be home any minute so he could help. Once our neighbor arrived home he asked Scott if we could wait until tomorrow for them to come fix the breakers. For some reason he couldn't figure out how to fix the breakers himself. Scott told him flat-out no, which seemed to make our neighbor mad and he kind of threw a fit...but we weren't willing to sit with half the power until tomorrow.
Eventually Scott's uncle arrived and we did get it all sorted out. Our Bishop arrived sometime in between and we were able to have a nice chat with him and start getting things figured out with our baby's funeral plans. It was kind of a crazy night, but it helped calm us down to talk to the Bishop and have someone guiding us. It was a new experience for all of us but its always easier taking the unknown path with someone at your side.
28 Weeks, 2 Days
No comments:
Post a Comment