Monday, December 14th, 2020
This day was long. It has a lot of little details. Some I feel might be missing because they are already forgotten, but the most important pieces are still remembered. We started after a night of very little, if any, sleep. At 7:30am my new nurse, Debi, and new midwife, Katelyn, came in. I think my balloon was evaluated first, apparently worked decently, and then was removed so we could start the next steps. My IV line had already been put into my arm sometime last night. So we were ready to hook me up to the Pitocin (a natural hormone that causes the uterus to contract used to induce labor). It started working relatively quickly and so the contractions did as well, mild at first and growing in intensity as the day went on. Every 30 minutes my nurse would come in and up my Pitocin to the next level. I’d already had some blood drawn the previous evening too so they could look at that to see if there were any issues that would have caused this heartbreak. Of course, at this point we still had no clue in the world what happened to our sweet baby. Throughout the day we had to consider and make crazy decisions like “Did we want to do an autopsy?” or “Did we want to do chromosomal testing?” Nothing we felt we could fully decide until we actually saw baby . We hoped to have some easy answers right away. I knew, of course, that I would yearn for answers and if we didn’t get them or try to get them, how would that impact the grieving process? But I hated what the autopsy would include… having our baby go across town to the U of M, with know knows who, having her body go through the process of being examined, and all without the guarantee we would even get an answer. I prayed we would get the closure we needed. Other things we had to consider throughout the day… Which funeral home to use? Burial or cremation? Funeral or no funeral? Where to bury baby? We were not prepared for any of that. Luckily the nurses had a great relationship and trust with Mackenzie of McBride Funeral Homes in Norwood Young America. We trusted their recommendation and knew that was the route we would choose. I didn’t want to burn my baby. So I knew we were going to do a funeral and a burial. But where the heck are we supposed to find a burial plot? FYI – cemeteries don’t have the most up to date websites making them easy to find and/or contact. All of these decisions were swirling through Ryan’s and my brain all the while I was in labor to deliver a baby who I didn’t get to take home. I prayed I would be able to deliver this baby without complication. I prayed nothing would go wrong because I was still a mom to 2 children at home. I prayed I would get to complete this vaginal delivery, something I mourned never getting to experience (and I never thought I would get the chance to, since I was supposed to have a 3rdC-section). These prayers were answered. Sometime around 2pm they broke my water. For some reason, it was excruciatingly painful. I tried breathing the nitrous oxide, but it did little to relieve the discomfort. I started sobbing once it was complete, not only because it was very uncomfortable, but because I was SO SAD! Everything hit me again like a ton of bricks in that moment. “I’m sorry,” I apologized to Katelyn, “It wasn’t that bad, I’m just crying because this is so sad.” After my water was broken, my contractions became next level. I couldn’t recover after that. My nurse kept suggesting the epidural and I kept delaying. Finally I gave in. I was trying to delay as long as I could manage because in the past my epidurals wore off after 2 hours or so… and I was hoping to make that 2 hours last to the point I needed it the most. Once the anesthesiologist arrived, we were able to get my epidural going between contractions. I didn’t know right away, but I just received the best epidural of my life that would work so well right up to and past birth of baby. This was another answered prayer, as I had prayed “Please let this epidural work so I can continue this process without the physical pain.” I got to rest and relax for 2 hours in no pain at all, as my contractions did what they needed to do. Around 4pm I had dilated all the way to a 10! The first time I ever accomplished that in 3 births! So… it was time. Baby’s head was in position and it was time to learn how to push, which was something else I never got to experience. My midwife said it might take a bit to figure out how to push exactly, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Earlier we asked the midwife to announce the gender to us after baby was born. This whole time, keep in mind, we still didn’t know if baby was a boy or girl! 4:21pm – “Good job mama. It’s a girl!” This next moment was single-handedly the worst moment of my entire life. I don’t think I can properly explain to you what it feels like to see your lifeless baby born. Her body was so completely still. There were no muscles moving little limbs or even keeping her body taut, there was just a lax body. Her mouth was gaping open… and worst of all, there was no cry coming from this mouth. She had a little cone head from delivery, one that wouldn’t resolve itself after hours, or days. Her stomach was all bruised. Her face and head seemed bruised. Her eyes were stuck shut. In all bluntness, it was not a pretty sight. It was traumatic. I held her. I cried. I kept repeating, “Oh baby. Poor baby. Poor, poor baby. What happened? What happened to you? I’m so sorry!” Ryan held her. He cried. After holding her for a while immediately after birth we were ready for her to go get examined. They weighed her and measured her. 2lbs and 15.5 inches, pretty much exactly what a 29-week-old baby would be. They took her into another room to take a graft off her thigh in case we were going to do chromosome testing. But when my midwife came back, Katelyn said, “I think we have an answer. Her cord was wound so tightly it looks like it occluded by her belly button cutting off her oxygen and nutrients.” So our perfect baby had an accident. An accident inside the one place I thought she was perfectly safe, the place she wasthe safest in life. How could this happen? Who knew this could happen? Poor little stinker seemed to have always turned one direction… never the other. That’s what I imagine. She only turned left… but couldn’t she have just turned right every now and then to unwind her cord? I was relieved in a way to know that we didn’t create a baby who had something wrong. But it didn’t change the fact that my baby was dead. Baby girl came back dressed in a white hat with a little pink star, a cute little button up shirt with pink and green dots, and some little embroidered flowers, and she had the tiniest little diaper on – one with a safety pin! Then they took her footprints. So many footprints. We noticed right away when admiring her hands and feet that she had the longest feet you could imagine! This is a special memory we will always have. Then we held her again. And now I could see past the death and I saw my beautiful, amazing baby girl. I saw she looked just like her brother and sister. I know those long feet she had were from her mama. She had little wisps of blond hair like her dada. She would have had those chunky cheeks my other babies had. She was a complete and full baby and had she been born this early she would have survived. She was adorable. We got some pictures with her. We kissed her. I touched her lips, lips that I ached to nurse. I touched her little toothless gums. I held her hands. After this we had to decide on her name still. We had 2 names picked out for if we had a girl… a first pick and a backup. Which one would we use? We still chose our favorite. Maisie Martha Ofsthun. To be honest I struggled a bit giving her this name at first. I love this name. It was my favorite and it is so cute. But in this moment it seemed I was maybe wasting the name? What if we had another girl and I would miss this name? But… what if we didn’t and I held on to this name for no reason. It was the name we were preparing for if we had a girl… it belonged to our Maisie. Of course it was the right decision and I have no regrets. As for her middle name, Martha was my grandma’s name (on my mom’s side). All of our children have the middle name of a grandparent/great-grandparent. Meanwhile, during all of this we were still waiting for my placenta to come out. Placentas aren’t as ready to detach and come out at 30 weeks… so it was taking a while. We started to reach the end of the 4-hour time frame they were allowing for it to come out on its own. So it was time to intervene with the last option. The doctor was going to have to come in and get up in there to get it out. So I got another hit to my epidural and my bottom half was completely gone again. Good considering what was supposed to happen next. But right after the dose, my placenta decided to come out! Praise the Lord – my final prayer was answered. Then my blood pressure started dropping. Three different times I became nauseous and kind of out of it. I got dosed with medicine to bring it back up… but it got weird there for a little bit. Nevertheless, we got through. My next nurse, Ashlea, came in for the overnight shift. She had picked out some clothes for Maisie. An adorable little gown for her to put on tomorrow after we gave her a bath. And an outfit for burial, a dress made from a donated wedding dress created for little angel babies, along with a hat and blanket. It was precious. Then we finally tucked ourselves in for bed for the night… with a “sleeping” baby by our side.
1 Comment
Ashley
1/16/2021 09:01:23 pm
What a story. I cried. Your perfect baby is with Jesus waiting for you. And yes, God is with you! He never leaves you. 💖
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMother. Jesus Lover. Mourner of my stillborn Maisie Martha Ofsthun. Archives
October 2021
Categories
All
|