I found this article through a link here. I have been meaning to do a blogroll… … I did not find a lot of blogs in the early days after my loss but eventually, after finding one, it leads to many others. But I also did not have a lot of time to read online. And it’s not just the time, it’s the energy it takes to read those words, because it is not like reading an instruction manual to screw in the lightbulb. Sterile words that direct you to do something and after that you can forget about it and go to sleep straight. NO. When you go to these blogs every word can bring back floods of memories and rivers of tears and at ten in the morning you want to just crawl back into bed and call it a day already. So, I needed to know those blogs are out there and yet no strength to read a lot. Still, I will do a blogroll. Yes, one day.
So, anyway, this article. Wow, a lot of information, and of course I start to imagine what I am going to write if we succeed in trying and have a live baby again. It is a good article I do not want to lose, so I paste it below. The original link is here.
Hope with a Heartbeat
With worry a constant companion, the author embarks on another pregnancy, post-stillbirth
Sunday, March 25, 2007
It can’t happen again.
That’s what my doctor told me. She said stillbirth is such a rare occurrence that it never happens twice.
I knew she was wrong. I’d seen the stories of women with multiple losses on online message boards. I’d read studies showing women who have had one stillbirth are at an increased risk for another.
Besides, if subsequent losses weren’t possible, why designate women with a prior stillbirth as high risk or recommend increased fetal monitoring? Is it because no doctor wants to be blamed for overlooking something a second time around? Or is it because women with a loss begin to question the gap in knowledge in a system they trusted with the lives of their babies?
I didn’t say anything to her. I didn’t know how.
I knew my doctor said it to reassure me that this time my baby would live. She didn’t want me to worry.
What she didn’t realize, and what every parent who has lost a child knows to be the only hard-and-fast rule of a subsequent pregnancy, is that worry and doubt are as constant a companion as prenatal vitamins. Nothing a doctor says or does causes the worry.
It has been there since the first time I thought about getting pregnant again.
It will be there until I hold a living, breathing baby in my arms.
Nine months is a long time to wait to find out if this time it’ll be different. It’s hell. But hell with hope and a heartbeat.
There was no doubt I wanted to get pregnant again after my son Avery was stillborn in March 2005. Losing him was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, but the six months he was in my womb were also the most precious. His brief and unexpected visit changed the haphazard course of my life and gave it a resolute focus.I needed to have a baby. It didn’t matter that I was 36, single and without a clue as to how I was going to make it happen.
My friend Stas encouraged me to wait a year and a day after Avery’s death. Studies showed her advice had merit: Women who wait a year or longer to get pregnant after a loss experience less anxiety and depression. But as many as 60 percent of women become pregnant within a year of their loss. Most of the couples I met waited only a few months before trying again.
I wish I could say I decided to wait a year because I wanted to give myself a chance to heal.
[ Back Story PODCAST: Suzanne shares the stories of other parents who are dealing with their own loss: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=5&entry_id=14609 ]
I spent the months after Avery’s death honoring his life. I attended support group meetings, went to candlelight vigils and talked about him to anyone who would listen. I tried to find out as much as I could about stillbirth — despite a distinct lack of research and awareness — and wrote a story about my experience in this magazine.
But the mother in me was just biding time until I could get pregnant again. I tracked my menstrual cycle like a mad scientist, asked my friend, Steve, to be a donor, read up on home-insemination methods and researched prenatal testing.
While doctors never figured out why Avery died, there were a few conditions that could have been contributing factors: circumvallate placenta and a peripheral cord insertion. Neither of them, the doctors said, usually resulted in a negative outcome and there was no reason to believe they would recur. The blood clot they found on my placenta might have been the result of a fall or from another condition.
Without knowing the cause of death, I found little comfort in my doctor’s reassurance that I wouldn’t have another stillbirth. Research on pregnancies after a loss wasn’t comforting, either. One study found that only 25 percent of the subsequent pregnancies of women who had a loss after 10 weeks gestation resulted in a surviving infant. Another showed that women who had a stillbirth were five times more likely to have a subsequent stillbirth — the recurrence of stillbirth almost tripled in black women compared to white women. But a small Australian study from 2001 found there was no increased risk of subsequent stillbirths. And while I had met many women with multiple miscarriages, none of the bereaved couples I met had more than one stillbirth.
Before I tried to get pregnant again, I asked for every blood test available to check certain protein and hormone levels — including the one for thrombophilia, a blood-clotting disorder that has been linked to stillbirth. I requested a prescription of progesterone to take for two months once I got pregnant, because low levels of the hormone may lead to miscarriage. My doctor prescribed all of them without blinking. One test came back with a slightly elevated anti-phospholipid antibody, which if high enough could cause thrombophilia. My levels were low enough that the high-risk perinatologist I consulted thought treating it with aspirin was sufficient.
He was confident I had no reason to worry and I should go out and “make a baby.”
Most bereaved parents have spent considerable time trying to find out what might have caused their loss. They take nothing for granted and don’t assume everything will be different the second time.
“I was hell bent on having things go right,” said Sherry Page, whose daughter, dubbed MP (Mysterious Person), was stillborn with a true knot in her umbilical cord. “I was the most conscientious pregnant woman ever. … I felt responsible for making sure nothing went wrong, which was a burden to some extent.”
At 23 weeks pregnant, Tarra Lyons was on a trip with her husband, Dave Miles, when she noticed she had been leaking fluid for a few days. Lyons visited a local hospital and was examined and monitored for four hours. She was told it wasn’t amniotic fluid and was sent home. By the time they got back to Berkeley, Lyons had a fever. Doctors discovered she had no amniotic fluid left. There was no way they could save her son Morgan. He was born alive at 1 pound and died less than two hours later.
“I was a high-risk pregnancy and I wasn’t treated as such,” Lyons said of the doctors at the first hospital she visited. She was later diagnosed with an incompetent cervix. After spending months researching her options and talking with other parents through online support groups, the 41-year-old believed getting a stitch called a cerclage to keep her cervix closed was her best course of action.
When she learned she was having twins, she was even more convinced it was the right thing to do. But her OB told her the procedure was unnecessary. She sought a second opinion and got a similar response.
“He had a preconceived idea that incompetent cervix was extremely rare and could not be the cause of the loss,” Lyons said.
She started to doubt the doctors and the treatment she was getting. “I felt like they didn’t care, like I was the only one who cared,” Lyons said. “When I would point out the research, the doctors would say, ‘Oh someone has been doing their homework.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, but you’re not.’”
Seeking a third opinion, she went to a well-known high-risk perinatologist in San Francisco who finally advocated the cerclage. He told her that common practice is to perform it only after at least two losses. He said while 25 percent of the cerclages performed might turn out to be unnecessary, he would rather do one that is unnecessary than not do one that is.
After doing the cerclage, the doctor told Lyons he was 100 percent convinced she had needed the procedure: Her cervix had already dilated, and “looked like I had had several kids.”
“I had to trust my judgment, I had to listen to my intuition,” Lyons said. “I am so glad I changed doctors and asked for another opinion.” Her twins, Fiona and Pearson, were born healthy at 37 weeks in January.
Dr. Sarah Kye Price, a professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work, said mothers tend to become experts in whatever may have caused their loss.
Price found that 25 percent of women in the United States had one or more fetal deaths before having a live birth. “It is important for women to be self advocating. Ask a lot of questions and take charge of their experience and not see it as a weakness.”
According to Richard K. Olsen, founder of the National Stillbirth Society, many potential pregnancy-saving procedures are not discussed with patients. Sometimes because doctors may not believe they will work; other times it’s because insurance companies refuse to cover them. Olsen, whose daughter Camille was stillborn full-term with no known cause of death in 2000, claims that many stillbirths could be avoided if women were taught how to monitor their baby’s activity and if ultrasound and non-stress testing were more widely made available to all women — not just those deemed to have high-risk pregnancies.
“In the end it is the mothers of America coming together, not the medical community or the government, that is going to help us conquer stillbirth and start to reverse the appalling loss of life that devastates so many families,” he said.
In April 2006, after taking every precaution I can imagine — and waiting a year after Avery’s death — I made my third home-insemination attempt.
And it worked. As soon as the two blue lines showed up on the test strip, I called the dozen or so friends and family that make up my tribe, gushing excitedly at my luck.
But within days a nagging fear bubbled up. I worried that everything I did would end the pregnancy. Did the trash weigh less than 10 pounds or did I need a forklift to carry it? Could I re-paint the spare room or would I give the fetus a birth defect? Could I fly?
I worried that my worry would somehow hurt the pregnancy. I couldn’t bring myself to call the cells multiplying inside me a baby, because I didn’t want to jinx it. So I called it the Bean.
I had read multiple studies that show a correlation between pregnancy loss and higher levels of anxiety and depression during subsequent pregnancies. So I knew I was normal. There was even research, including a study by Price, which said it wouldn’t affect my ability to bond with the baby once it was born.
“We know that there is increased anxiety, but it speaks to the resilience that makes parents able to attach and parent once the baby is born,” said Price. “Older studies decades ago were critical of parents feeling depressed or anxious after a loss and that it would be harmful but they were based only on theory and isolated case studies.”
I felt guilty that I wasn’t enjoying the pregnancy. I felt bad that I was cheating the Bean of the love and excitement I felt when I was carrying Avery. The main thing I felt was desperation. I was convinced I was going to miscarry. I found myself begging the Bean to hold on. I finally reached week eight and Stas came with me to the OB’s office for my first prenatal visit. The last time I was in that room was to see why Avery wasn’t moving. I told Stas I was fine, but a part of me wasn’t.
When my doctor, Dr. Jane Fang, walked in, the first thing she said was, “I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable for you. I know that the last time you were in here was when Avery died.” She seemed to understand this was a dual pregnancy for me: One filled with fervent hope and the other with persistent regret.
She prepped me for the ultrasound and I turned away from the screen.
“I need you to look first to make sure everything is OK,” I said, through the lump in my throat.
She turned on the monitor and within seconds said, “Yup, there’s a baby in there. Everything looks great.” Tears of relief dripped on the table as I turned back to see the proof for myself.
A fuzzy little bean with a heartbeat.
Getting through the uncertainty of the first trimester was a brutal test of endurance. I started going to a monthly support group for subsequent pregnancies. It felt like there were unexpected landmines and bittersweet reminders of what I lost and what I could still lose every day.
“It’s about the intersection of grieving one baby while growing another baby and how confusing that can be,” said Cherie Golant, a licensed clinical social worker who facilitates the Pregnancy After a Loss support group at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Golant, whose first child, Julia, was stillborn at 35 weeks, started the group after her subsequent child, Rose, was born. “Parents are afraid of losing another baby from the same thing happening and they may have learned about other ways for babies to die that they become afraid of. Many parents are afraid to have hope that their new baby will come home.”
After Angelica Zab’s first child, Daniel, was born alive, she lost three subsequent pregnancies in the first trimester. When her fourth pregnancy with her daughter Isabel, now 4 months old, made it into the second trimester, Zab was a wreck.
“I remember throwing the first ultrasound picture in the trash,” the 41-year-old Berkeley mom said. “I didn’t want to love her because of my fear of losing her, or anything going wrong. Being pregnant with Isabel felt to me like ‘March of the Penguins.’ I identified with what they go through to have their babies, so precarious, so hard and so many times, so tragic.”
One doctor told Zab, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Lightening doesn’t strike twice in the same place.”
“I thought to myself, ‘Well, I think lightning has stricken many times already in the same place,’ ” Zab said. “She didn’t understand what I was going through and that was painful and frustrating.”
Price said that most women have mixed feelings about being pregnant again.
“They want to say ‘I’m pregnant,’ but they know it doesn’t mean that they are going to have a live baby,” Price said. “And that produces a lot of anxiety. Most women feel like they will overburden their doctors and their worry will cause problems for the baby. Once bitten twice shy. They want to protect themselves and not get too attached or too hopeful, but they want to enjoy it, too. To get past that milestone of loss in the last pregnancy.”
Amy Abbey found solace in support groups and needed to talk about the ups and downs of being pregnant again. After losing her first baby, Solomon, at 19.5 weeks, as well as losing her second pregnancy, Abbey said she “was in the loss world and trying to climb back to normality, not realizing the normality I knew would never be mine again.”
When she got pregnant for the third time, she didn’t want to trust it.
“Emotionally I was a wreck, very low functioning yet still getting through my days,” Abbey said. “I did not believe — until I heard Alison cry — that I would give birth to a living child.”
Abbey had another son, Adam, and decided to compile a book of subsequent pregnancy stories called, “Journeys: Pregnancy After Loss,” to give others hope that “there is a light at the end of this tunnel, even if you can’t see it.”
“I will never be the same,” said Abbey. “Alison and Adam, and life in general, have restored happiness and wonder for me. But deep in my core, there is a level of joy I am still too cautious to experience.” Page said that people like to believe that because you’ve had another child, “you’ve gotten over it.”
“It takes a long time to heal,” Page said. “Other children do not replace the missing one. MP is still very present, albeit in a softer, more distant way than she was in the early years. She is still a part of the family and will always be.”
Somehow I made it past the miscarriage “danger zone” and into week 14. It became a little easier to breathe. I marked a month off the calendar until the 19-week ultrasound. My friend Anna called dibs on the appointment before I was even pregnant. She had come with me to Avery’s midterm sonogram, and wanted to be there for the Bean’s.
“That’s the sex one, right?” she asked. She wanted to be the first one of the tribe to know the Bean’s gender.
I saw Dr. Peter Callen, the same radiologist that examined Avery. He had discovered the circumvallate placenta and peripheral cord insertion but as per hospital policy, he could only tell my doctor. Because they weren’t usually associated with a negative outcome, my doctor didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to worry me unnecessarily.
This time I made sure he was allowed to tell me everything on the spot — good, bad and ugly.
It was a brief conversation.
“Everything looks good,” he said.
And the Bean was a boy.
I was showing halfway through the second trimester and started getting “The Question” from strangers.
“Is this your first?”
“No,” I told them. “My first was stillborn.”
Some said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Others just said, “Oh.”
Many more than I expected said nothing at all.
I was stuck. The baby that was nothing but ashes in a small cobalt bottle on my mantel was more real and alive for me than the baby in my belly.
“Just because you love this baby doesn’t mean you don’t love Avery,” Dr. Donna Wiggins said to me during a monthly check up. She was the doctor on call who delivered Avery and called him an angel. “When my second child was born, it didn’t mean I loved my first one any less.”
A few weeks before the point in my pregnancy when I lost Avery, Stas took me into a Pottery Barn Kids and said we should register. I thought it was too early to buy anything. She didn’t want me to cheat myself out of the experience and joy of being pregnant.
I never shopped for Avery. He died before anyone could plan a shower for him. I wasn’t ready to make a list of baby things. I wasn’t convinced the Bean was ever going to need them.
But some part of me wanted to believe, wanted to be normal. A week later at a Giants game, I made my first purchase: Black and orange booties.
When the week finally arrived when I lost Avery, I found myself at a Support After Neonatal Death (SAND) group meeting. I had agreed to go with a co-worker who had just hit her two-year anniversary of the stillbirth of her son, Matthew — something she hadn’t told any of her new friends or peers about.
Even after two years, her tears flowed fast and frequently as we listened to stories of other parents whose losses were more recent, yet seemingly no less raw, than hers.
When it was my turn, I felt guilty talking about being pregnant — especially as several couples in the room faced fertility challenges getting pregnant with the children they lost. So I avoided talking about it, instead focusing on Avery. I talked about the year after his death and the gift bags that a few other SAND couples and I made for newly bereaved parents. We filled them with disposable cameras, small hand knit hats and suggestions for how to say goodbye to their babies before leaving the hospital.
The couple across from me said they got one of the bags when their son was stillborn just a few weeks earlier. Without it, they said, they would never have thought to hold him or take pictures. They were grateful.
But I was grateful that Avery’s death helped another couple get through the hardest day of their lives.
Before I knew it, I was in the third trimester and uncharted territory. The Bean’s movements were more pronounced. The four dimensional images of his face made him look like a real baby, not just a bony alien. I suddenly found myself wanting desperately to hold him and beginning to believe it was possible.
At 29 weeks, I traveled to New Orleans to see Dr. Jason Collins with the Pregnancy Institute. He has been conducting a study on the presence of cord-related anomalies in subsequent pregnancies of women who had some kind of cord-related complication in their previous losses. In his first test group, 21 of the 25 women presented with some kind of cord issue at 28 weeks. All delivered by 37 weeks, 14 of them with the presence of a cord anomaly and two that resulted in emergency C-sections. While stillbirth advocates laud his work, members of the medical community are more critical of his findings because he hasn’t used a control group — something he said he is in the process of doing now.
At first I thought flying to New Orleans a year after Katrina and drinking the water presented more of a risk to the pregnancy than the condition of the cord. Everything had been perfect so far. This time I knew my doctors hadn’t knowingly kept anything from me.
Halfway through the exam after a half an hour of fetal monitoring, Collins looked at the strip and said, “I think you will be surprised at what I have found.” Using an ultrasound, he showed me where the umbilical cord was wrapped around the Bean’s neck. A pattern that looked like a “w” on the strip indicated to him that the cord was being compressed. The ultrasound showed him why.
Collins wasn’t worried because everything else looked fine. He showed me how to use the home-monitoring equipment so I could view the Bean’s heart rate and my contractions and how to send the readouts to his BlackBerry.
At first I didn’t know what to do with this information. I had thought everything was perfect. My friend Kala, who was the labor and delivery nurse for Avery’s birth, reassured me that nuchal cords are common in healthy births and she didn’t want me to worry. I knew she was right, but I had also met countless parents who had been told that their babies died because of a cord accident.
“Without Dr. Collins and the home fetal monitor, I don’t know if I would have made it through the pregnancy,” said Dana Fang, whose first child, Olivia, was stillborn with a longer than normal cord wrapped four times around the baby’s leg with a true knot. Although the OB nurse from San Diego knew she wanted to try again, she didn’t realize how emotionally challenging it would be to be pregnant just three months after her loss. “Not only did I fear she would die, I was still grieving the stillbirth of my first child,” Fang said. When she was 28 weeks pregnant, Fang traveled to New Orleans to be evaluated by Collins. He found the cord was wrapped around her subsequent baby’s neck and the cord had a marginal insertion, near the edge of the placenta instead of in the middle where it normally would be. “I couldn’t believe it, considering my first baby died from a cord accident,” she said. “But I felt at ease knowing that Dr. Collins was evaluating (the strip) every night.”
When she was 34 weeks, Collins told her she would need to be delivered soon. She was having frequent contractions and cord-compression variables. “I was in pain and I just didn’t like what was going on. As an OB nurse, I new what I was seeing,” said Fang. While her treating physician listened to her concerns, doctors wouldn’t deliver her without a reason to believe it was necessary.
“Within a week, my fluid level dropped from 19 to 0 and I needed an urgent Cesarean section,” Fang said. Her daughter Camille was born healthy in October.
I found myself asking anyone who would listen: If we can see cord complications like Fang’s and mine at 28 weeks when a baby is considered viable — if we can monitor pregnancies with these potential danger signs — why aren’t later-term ultrasounds standard medical procedure? Couldn’t the majority of deaths related to cord accidents be avoided if there was more monitoring?
Collins thinks so. “We have to change the way we treat the third trimester,” he said. “We look for club foot and cleft palate, which each affect 1 in 1,000 babies and aren’t fatal. But we don’t look for cord problems, which account for as many as 20 percent of fetal deaths.”
But Dr. Julian Parer of the University of California San Francisco said that because there has been so little research on the role of umbilical cords in fetal deaths, there is no evidence that umbilical anomalies are the cause of death. Thirty percent of all babies are born healthy, despite having the cord wrapped around the neck or some other squeezable place.
“There is a prevalence of doctors using the cord around the neck as a reason for the death, which is erroneous at best since we can’t actually tell if that was the cause unless the babies are being monitored at the time of death,” said Parer, an OB-GYN who specializes in maternal-fetal medicine and high-risk pregnancies.
So if the Page and Fang babies didn’t die from a cord accident, what did they die from?
Parer grants that there have been no studies to prove that cord anomalies are not the cause of death, either.
A five-year, $15 million research project co-led by Dr. Uma Reddy with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health is attempting to address the lack of research into the causes of stillbirth. The presence of cord entanglements or anomalies will be documented, but Reddy said the deaths won’t be attributed to a cord accident, “unless there is evidence of cessation of blood flow or lack of oxygen in the brain.”
At a conference of the Society of Fetal Maternal Medicine in San Francisco last month, Reddy reported that a recent study showed that women with a prior stillbirth were five times more likely to have a subsequent stillbirth. Unfortunately, she said, current research and testing are still far from making conclusive recommendations for prevention.
“The hope is that in the future we can combine various (risk) markers together to be able to better understand, to help evaluate all pregnancies and tell which babies are at risk,” she said.
How can some doctors tell their patients that recurrent stillbirths don’t happen when there isn’t research that says they don’t and more than a few studies indicating that there is an increased possibility that some women will have a subsequent loss?
Dr. Robert Silver of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, said the recurrence risk for fetal deaths has not been well studied, and reliable numbers are often unavailable. But a study he co-authored in September 2004 showed that out of 230 women who had at least two pregnancies — one resulting in a loss at 10 weeks gestation or longer — fewer than 25 percent of their next pregnancies resulted in a live birth. Both Sliver and Collins believe their studies point out glaring gaps in knowledge in obstetric medicine. And they concur that the way the third trimester is monitored — in all women — should be re-evaluated.
Parer said an increased scrutiny in otherwise normal pregnancies could have a negative effect. Once a nuchal cord or similar condition is spotted in a baby with no other negative symptoms, then doctors are obligated to act on the information by more closely monitoring the pregnancy.
“That can lead to an increase in interventions like early inductions or C-sections in otherwise healthy pregnancies,” Parer said. “Anytime we intervene there is an increased risk of something going wrong. And we don’t know in how many of them the intervention is worthwhile and how many were unnecessary. We have a responsibility to the patient with a loss, but we have a responsibility to normal women as well.”
A postal survey of Australian obstetricians in August 2006 showed that 87 percent prescribed additional third trimester ultrasounds for patients with a loss. Even without complications in subsequent pregnancies, the babies were more like to be delivered early. Elective induction was recommended by 93 percent of the respondents, and elective Cesarean deliveries by 35 percent.
If recurrent stillbirth rates are so low as to be too insignificant to raise alarm, could it be because the subsequent pregnancies are so closely monitored that increased interventions prevent fetal demise?
All three doctors agree that is one possible explanation.
Parer grants that some, like Collins, believe that if even one baby is saved by the increased monitoring that the risk is worth it. But Parer believes more research needs to be done.
“I think the research Dr. Collins is doing is fantastic,” Parer said, “but he’s putting advocacy before the data.”
Golant said that most parents with a loss will choose, if they are able, to have more monitoring in the subsequent pregnancies. “They have an increased need for information and a perception of having control even if it is possible it will increase their anxiety levels,” she said. “But ultimately parents are relieved to know as much as they can about their baby in utero.”
The reporter in me understands the importance of critically evaluating research that suggests making major changes in medical protocol. And yet the informed mother in me feels as if much of what is standard practice hasn’t always been based on research. Collins is asking the very questions those of us who have lost children have asked. Why not use the technology available to find out all we can about our pregnancies and allow us to decide what to do with it before we lose our babies?
To me, being able to see the Bean’s heart beating every night was worth the risk of causing an unnecessary intervention. Especially as it could alert me when an intervention might be necessary.
With each strip, I became more confident that he would make it — despite his nuchal cord.
Maybe it was his constant tossing around in my womb. I’d been counting his kicks since I hit 27 weeks, and they were regular and strong.
According to the Maternal Observations and Memories of Stillbirth study in 2005 of approximately 5,000 women, 50 percent felt a gradual decrease in fetal movement several days before their babies died, and 56 percent reported that it was their first reason to think something was wrong. One of the study’s authors, Dr. Frederick Froen, said that reduced movement is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in both high- and low-risk pregnancies. I felt a dramatic decrease in Avery’s movements for several days before he died. I just thought he was going through a resting phase and no one had mentioned kick counting because it was too early. At 24 weeks there wasn’t anything they could do to save him. (To read more about kick counting, visit www.sfgate.com.)
Luckily, the Bean continued to do gymnastics in my belly.
Slowly, my worry shifted to the more mundane things that other pregnant women obsess about: How do I get ready for a baby?
He was going to need clothes and diapers and a crib and breast milk.
I didn’t have any idea how to go from being pregnant to giving birth and having a baby. After taking everything one day at a time and taking nothing for granted, now I had to believe that my son would be born. Weeks that dragged at a snail’s pace in the beginning were now speeding by too fast.
In November, my friends hosted a shower, and parents of eight stillborn babies shared their best wishes for his safe arrival. In December, 12 of my close female friends gathered for a blessing ritual to help prepare me to go through labor. I told them his name.
Quinn.
I visualized Quinn’s birth. I saw his head come out — without the cord around his neck. The doctor put him on my chest. I saw his hand around my fingers. I felt his head under my chin. He was perfect.
Collins wanted me to induce at 36 weeks. There were days when I felt as if my womb was not the safest place for him to be and that bringing him out sooner would be better.
But the weekly non-stress tests — where a nurse monitors his movements and heart rate for a half an hour — and the home monitor I strapped on more than once to calm a midday panic attack, made the last month a more calm experience than the entire pregnancy.
The closer I got to 36 weeks, the more I didn’t want to be induced. He was doing fine and there were no indications of distress. I told Collins I wanted to wait.
After finding out Quinn was 6 pounds at 34 weeks, Fang worried his large size might cause his shoulder to get caught on my pubic bone during delivery. With a nuchal cord, the potential complication could be even more serious. She suggested inducing at 37 weeks. Despite all the technical reassurances that he was fine, I couldn’t help asking, “What if deciding to wait kills him?”
We set the induction for Dec. 12, a few days before Quinn reached 38 weeks. “This is going to be a very different birth than Avery’s, Suzanne,” said Sam, my friend and labor coach. “This time you will have a living baby working with you to be born. You need to talk to him and tell him what you are afraid of and tell him what’s happening so he can help you.”
We were supposed to arrive at the hospital at 6 p.m. on Mon., Dec. 11, for a course of cervidel to soften my cervix before the next day’s induction. But OB triage was packed, and they told me there were no beds for me.
It was two weeks before Christmas, the baby was an immaculate conception and there was no room at the inn. The universe has a sense of humor.
A large room finally opened up and a caravan of six shepherds settled in for the night.
At 1 a.m., a nurse administered the cervidel and the small pre-labor contractions I’d been having for a week picked up speed and intensity. Stas and Sam, both of whom had coached me through Avery’s delivery, were with me through every one.
I walked through most of the early labor. I passed the nursery, a place I avoided at all costs when I walked through my labor with Avery. Right near the window was a small newborn under a heat lamp. I watched his chest rise and fall.
Despite the months of telling myself not to get my hopes up, to not get duped again, I realized that my desire to have a baby had been strong enough to get me through the worst nightmares of what could happen. My dream was so close to finally coming true.
After 20 or so hours of labor, my doctor said, “OK, you are ready to push.”
All of a sudden the room erupted. My mom and her partner Jen bolted out of bed, Quinn’s dads, Steve and his partner Pablo, came back in a rush with coffee, Sam moved furniture out of the way, Anna, Rosa and my roommate Kai, all flipped open their cell phones to update the rest of the tribe. Within half an hour, there were 13 people around the bed.
I could start pushing. That meant he was coming.
Everything happened so fast as the contractions picked up intensity. “Sing something, something everybody knows,” I shouted between contractions.
Steve started singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” and the whole room joined in for several rounds. Then he pulled out his laptop and played “The Mighty Quinn.”
“Everybody’s in despair, every girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody’s gonna jump for joy
Come all without, come all within
You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn”
I pushed as hard as I could past illogical pain and I saw and felt his head slip free. I heard the “oohhhhs” from the tribe and with one more push his body slid out — with no cord around his neck.
Immediately, Fang handed me my beautiful baby and I put him on my chest. I felt his hand on my fingers, his wet head under my chin. Seconds of silence pass before his cries filled the room. He was alive and breathing and perfect. Just like I imagined — and so much more amazing than I ever let myself believe.
The room let out a sigh of relief as someone led the crowd in a round of “Happy Birthday.”
Quinn Adam Pullen was born at 9:20 a.m., Wed., Dec. 13, at 8 pounds, 20 1/2 inches. In the few quiet moments I found myself alone, I thanked his older brother Avery for making him possible and for making me a better mother.
The past nine months, and the year before it, were part of an agonizing and hopeful journey I’m not sure I was ready to take; but am not sorry I did. This time I got the prize at the end and didn’t have to give him back.
The FactsTwenty-five percent of mothers in 2001 in the United States had one or more fetal deaths before having a live birth. (Price, Maternal and Child Health Journal, Nov. 2006)
In the United States, 15 to 20 percent of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage and one in every 150 births results in a stillbirth. Most researchers believe these numbers would be higher if not for inconsistencies in data reporting and collection. (Centers for Disease Control)
Women who have had a stillbirth have a five times greater risk of a subsequent stillbirth; recurrence of stillbirth is almost tripled in blacks as compared to whites. (Sharma, et al, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Feb. 2006 )
Of women who had a fetal death of 10 weeks gestation or longer, fewer than 25 percent of their next pregnancies ended in a live birth; 44 percent miscarried. (Frias, et al, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Sept. 2004)
In more than half of recurrent stillbirths, the cause of death was the same. (Maternal Observations and Memories of Stillbirth study, Robson et al; 2005)
Women who have had a stillbirth experience higher levels of depression and anxiety during pregnancy. (Hughes, et al, British Medical Journal, June 1999)
RESOURCES
Support groups
SPALS – Subsequent Pregnancy After a Loss Support – An online member support and resource group, www.spals.com
PAM – Pregnancy After Miscarriage – Chat rooms, forums and mailing lists for those who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant or have had a baby after a loss; www.pamsupport.org.
Pregnancy After Loss – San Francisco support group. Call Cherie Golant; (415) 600-2229, e-mail cpmcnewborn@sutterhealth.org.
SHARE – Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support Group – Online and local support after a loss, including monthly meetings for subsequent pregnancies; www.nationalshareoffice.com. In Sacramento; www.sharingparents.org.
HAND — Helping After Neonatal Death – Newsletter, bulletin boards and links for local and statewide support groups and resources; www.handonline.org.
Compassionate Friends – www.compassionatefriends.com.
A Heartbreaking Choice – Resources, stories and support for those who have terminated pregnancies due to genetic abnormalities; www.heartbreakingchoice.com.
PLIDA (Pregnancy loss and infant death alliance) – A nationwide, collective community of parents and health care professionals. www.plida.org
Organizations
National Stillbirth Society – Nonprofit parent-based group focused on raising awareness and preventing stillbirths through advocacy, education and activism; www.stillnomore.org.
International Stillbirth Alliance – Nonprofit coalition of stillbirth groups focused on research and awareness; www.stillbirthalliance.org.
First Candle/SIDS Alliance – National network of healthcare providers, parents, caregivers and researchers working on infant mortality. Online resources, links to research and bereavement guidelines; (800) 221-7437, www.firstcandle.org.
M.I.S.S. Foundation/Missing Angels Bill – International nonprofit organization offering support, educational programs and legislative action; (888)455-6477, www.missfoundation.org. Nationwide campaign to pass the Missing Angels Bill, a state-by-state push to issue modified birth certificates for stillbirths; www.missingangelsbill.org.
Missing Grace Foundation – Resources and support for pregnancy loss, infant loss, infertility or adoption; (763) 497-0709, www.missinggrace.org.
BabyKick Alliance – Kick counting information, resources and newsletter; www.babykickalliance.org.
The Centering Corporation – Grief resources, books and materials; (402) 553-1200, www.centering.org.
E-mail Suzanne Pullen at spullen@sfchronicle.com.
My daughter lost her first to miscariage last year and her second to full term stillborn April 16, 2008. Olivia was bouncing around and busy the night before.. Dr was going to induce the evening of the 16th and she went into labor that morning. Mentioned to me on the way to the hospital that Liv hadn’t been moving since early morning and I said not to worry neither did your brothers or you once I went into labor. One hour later with her vitals wonderful the nurse couldn’t find Liv’s heartbeat. She delivered 12 hours later and Liv had the cord so horriably tight twice around her neck that Dr had to cut it snip by tiny snip. We celebrate my Livvy every day with tears of pain from the grief always right there. How can a healthy little baby be lost so quickly? Meghan had u/s two times per week for the last two months with no noted concerns. In fact she had one two days prior to Liv’s birth. The hospital staff were absoutely wonderful and my daughter and our family had 24 hours with Liv and bonded so closely with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.org photog coming in and taking candid pictures of us with Liv at no cost. Please check out their website.
Grammy misses you baby girl
Dear Cindy,
I am so terribly sorry for your monumental loss. It is devastating to lose a baby when all signs point to a well, living baby. There has been discussion of this being a SIDS in utero. Unfortunately, not all of us gets an answer and it is always horrible. My deepest condolences to you and Meghan.
Love, Janis
I am just so sorry…
I was reading your story and I could not stop crying.
See, I just lost my baby, Alicia at 29 weeks. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck 3 times. It’s just heartbreaking, on May2nd 2008 I had ultrasound& everything seemed to be going well. Just two day later on my regular appointment the doctor could not find Alicia’s heartbeat. It is hard to go on but we must believe that one day we will meet our Angels in Heaven.
Love,Ania
thank you for sharing all of this valuable information. you are a brave woman & i admire your dedication to having a family. it is helpful to know that people do go on to have healthy babies after such a loss.
11 weeks ago i lost my first child at 36 weeks due to a nuchal cord accident. On Monday, i had an ultrasound & he was awarded an “8 out of 8!” score. the next day, decreased fetal movement. the next day, i delivered him stillborn. 7.9lbs, 21.5 inches with his daddy’s eyes. we miss him so much.
Ania,
that is just devastating! It breaks my heart to read of that. It IS hard to go on, somehow or other we do, even if in the most clumsy heart-wrenching way. My thoughts are with you and Alicia.
xo,
Janis
maetera (Erica?),
I am so sorry. That sudden turn of event is always so cruel, and so impossible to comprehend.
Wishing you strength and healing,
Janis
I, too, lost my baby boy at 32 weeks. Nuchal cord (2) and true knot. I hate that this has happened to other women and now read all I can about stillbirths. Life is not fair, after infertility issues and finally pregnancy after IUI we got pregnant. But, I would not trade the experience for anything in the world. We created life and I felt life growing in my womb. I will forever be grateful for that. Also, I was able to hold my baby and kiss him. I miss him so much. I send positive thoughts and strength to all the men and women who have experience such monumental losses.
I am so sorry for your loss, Blanca. ((hugs))
I am so very sorry to hear about all your losses. It just breaks my heart over and over again. I too had a stillbirth at 30 weeks, cause unknown.
It has been really hard to go on with life, and you just get the feeling that it was something you did or didn’t do.
I pray daily for strength for myself and for others who are going through the same experience.
My first baby is now 5 years old and every day i look at her it gives me hope that one day again i will conceive and be able to give her a brother or sister.
Keep the faith my sisters as we go through this together.
Wishing you all strength and healing.
dianne
I thought I was really doing better, but recently I have regressed. I feel all of your pain – every day since my 3rd daughter, Shelbey Cara was stillborn on her due date, July 7, 2008. The doctors believe I am correct when I say she died July 4 late in the evening. I had no symptoms of the acute placental abruption (over 50%) they believe robbed us of her. I have 2 beautiful girls, ages 4 and 5 years, therefore, I feel almost guilty for feeling so lost without Shelbey. But she is my third daughter – Riley and Cassidy’s little sister, the sister they were so in love with and sang to evey night and helped me ready the nursery for and watch somersault around in my belly. Instead of seeing her and holding her the morning after I went into labor, the girls had to figure out how to handle the news that she had died. They had to hold their little sister at the funeral home instead of in the warmth of our home. They had to watch Mommy cry and sob every night and morning for weeks after Shelbey’s birth. This is the hardest part for me.
My husband and I will try to conceive another baby, we knew that right away. But now that the doctors have run all their tests, and have given us the ok to start next month, it is real. “IT” is the possibility that this happens again. We (my husband, the girls, and I) fall so deeply in love with someone so wonderful, so much a part of our family, only to loose that little friend for some unexplained reason. And I also fear the guilt of having a healthy baby, and loving that baby, and that baby isn’t Shelbey. I do have hope, and I do believe that Shelbey is with me always, and that whatever is meant to be will be.
I do keep the faith – and remind my girls to do the same.
Wishing you all peace in your hearts.
Cath
Cath,
thanks for stopping by and sharing your story. The journey to healing.finding peace is long, and such a roller-coaster ride, and so meandering too. But you are not alone.
My heart is with you and your family. *hugs*
I’ve shed a tear for each of your sad stories. I feel all of your pain. I just lost my daughter, Samantha, two weeks ago at 41 weeks. She was my third child who would have had a 10 yr old sister (a real little mother hen!) and a 7 yr old brother. We were all so very excited for her arrival. My other births were very normal and without risk… the second was a wonderful, planned home birth. All the right steps and tests were carried out for this one too, including a biophysical (BPP) since I went over my ‘due-date’. She scored a perfect 8/8… as I watched her heart beating and her practice breathing. That was Monday. On Tuesday evening, I noticed her out of character for her movements (there were none) and called my care provider within two hours. They came to my house and her heart beat was normal and strong, including an increase in HR when her scalp was stimulated with an internal exam. The next morning I went for a follow-up appt and reported no movement still, but her heart rate was still going strong, but a little lower (not by much… 127 instead of 130ish), so I asked for a NST. I was also going into labour naturally. By the time I got hooked up an 1.5 hours later, Samantha’s heart had stopped and she was born still hours later. The cord was not wrapped around her neck, nor were any physical abnormalities visible. She was beautiful. I have all the tests back from blood and the placenta. There was nothing that offered any explanation as to why this pretty little girl that had all signs of being healthy only the day before was taken from us. While I am so fortunate to have an enormous support group, they, like myself, are all searching for answers to this unimaginable and useless death. In their questions, they unintentionally start to point the finger at me… like why didn’t I insist on being induced, but they don’t understand that is not normal unless something indicates there is a problem b/c you’re not technically/professionally past due until after 42 weeks and I had booked already booked an induction for the day I hit 42 weeks. With all the precautions I took, there was supposedly no risk. It kills though when you think there could be a possibility that if something was done differently, even though I know I couldn’t have done anything about it without hindsight vision, that I could and should be sitting here holding my 3 week old beautiful little girl.
Like Cath explained earlier… I wasn’t the only one with plans, dreams, and hopes for Samantha. My kids were really excited with the plans and preparations for her arrival. My daughter always read her a bed time story and never gave me a hug/kiss good night without also giving my stomach… Samantha… the same attention. We buried her two weeks ago today and while I continue with the day-to-day functioning for the sake of my other children, I don’t know if the pain will ever go.
God bless you all and I hope you can all find comfort in your lives and in your families (current and those to come:)
Tara
((Tara)) Thank you for posting and sharing your story. It is devastating and it is by no fault of yours that Samantha is lost to you and your family. I wish people could learn to give unconditional support, and not point fingers. I am sorry you have to deal with this, on top of your monumental and painful loss.
Many hugs, and wishes of peace and strength to you… xoxo
I am so sorry to hear about all of your losses. Thank you for posting your stories.
I too feel your loss. I had a stillbirth at 38 weeks on Feb 24th at 12:49am my son Connor. He weighed 7lbs 9 oz, 21 inches long with a dark curly hair. Cause so far unknown. The doctors tell me that a lot of times cause is unknown.
I can’t help feeling I could of prevented in someway. About 1 1/2 weeks before I was at work and did not feel him moving as much. I am a nurse and went to the ER a friend of mine worked there and she stated come on back to check. At that time everything was fine. The fetal monitoring showed heart beat acceleration that were normal. I let my doctor know about my concerns, but he said not to worry the heartbeat sounded strong on fetal monitoring. The nurse stated ” he is just getting bigger no room to move”.
I felt pain the day before I delivered on my right side when I was at work. I called the ob/gyn on call and told her my symptoms. Her response was the pelvic muscles are moving and that is why you can have pain. Never once told me maybe for reassurance come and be evaluated. As a nurse I beat myself up everyday. Why I did not count those kicks more, I sure of insisted to come in. I passed the hospital on the way home from work, why didn’t I just go!!!!
I too believe even though you are having low risk pregnancy there should be increased monitoring in your 3rd trimester. So much can happen.
God bless all of our angels,
Heather
I am so sorry to hear about all of your losses. Stillbirth is one of the most devastating things to go through. I too, had a stillborn. I was 22 weeks along when Madison was born. It was so early in the pregnancy, it was often hard to figure out if I was feeling her move or if it was just the effects of being pregnant. On Friday night, June 20st, I laid down to see if I could sit still enough to feel her move. I didn’t feel anything, but just figured she was asleep. I ignored my nagging feeling. Saturday came and I still couldn’t feel anything. My husband and I had heard that you could hear the heartbeat with a stethoscope so we went out and bought one. We tried to find the heartbeat, but when we didn’t, we just assumed that it was ridiculous to even try. By Sunday, I was so worried, I told my husband that I wanted to go to the hospital. When we got there, we really just thought we were going to be there for a few hours and then leave. But the nurse couldn’t find the heartbeat so she sent me for an ultrasound. That is where it was confirmed. Madison’s heart had stopped beating. She was born on June 23, 2008
After all testing had been done, there was no definitive answer to what had happened, but my doctor thinks that she may have had a cord accident. Her umbilical cord was coiled tightly and her placenta was a little small. But SHE was perfect.
I am so sorry that we all have to go through such a terrible loss. My husband and I are going to try to conceive again this month. We are truly praying for a healthy baby this time around. God Bless you all.
I too have had the misfortune of experiencing a stillbirth. I lost my son, my firstborn, on Aug 28, 2008; I was six months pregnant. I went in for a regular doctor’s appointment only to find out they couldn’t find his heartbeat. After two ultrasounds, it was confirmed that he had passed in my womb. It was the worst day of my life. It has been six months and I still can’t get past it. I try to be happy for the sake of everyone else but it is taking a major toll on me. I have slumped back into my depression. Every time I see a baby, my heart breaks a little more. I figured that by now I would be okay but now I see I’m not. I feel all alone. I am a Christian but my baby’s death has made me lose my faith. Everybody always says: “it was God’s will.” But that doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m his mother and his place is with me. So many days I wish He had taken me with him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to try again. I want another baby but the thought that it would happen again makes me deathly afraid. I don’t know if I could go through this again.
I am so sorry for all of your losses. My daughter Natalie was stillborn on December 30 at 39weeks. Sunday night I realized I hadnt felt her move for a few hours so I ate dinner and had some juice, but still no movement. I had just been to my doctor 2 days ago and everything was great- just like my entire pregnancy. I called my doctor and my husband and I went into the hospital, sure that everything was going to be OK and that we would go home soon. I hoped that the nurse was just having an off night when she spent 30 minutes looking but couldnt find Natalie’s heartbeat. My doctor came in and did an US and thats when she told us that Natalie’s heart wasn’t beating anymore and that she had died- these were the most painful words anyone has ever said to me. We decided to stay in the hospital and be induced that night. After two days of pitocin I finally delivered my beautiful baby she was 7lbs,10 and 22 inches and she had bright red hair. Her umbilical cord had a furcate and velamentous insertion and the placenta was bilobed. The pathology report theorized that a blood clot blocked a vessel in the umbilical cord stopping perfusion. All of the other blood tests/ genetic tests were normal.
I am so sorry that we have all had to experience such great losses. My husband and I have hope that we will go on to have a healthy baby, who I will tell all about his/her older sister Natalie.
Heather, Crystal, Kim and Erika,
thank you for taking time to share your stories and your precious babies with us.
Many ((hugs)) to your for your heartbreaking losses.
Remembering with you all and holding your babies in my heart.
xo
Janis
I know how you all feel. My husband and I tried for two years to get pregnant. Finally in 2007 we conceived Ayden. He was due on New Year’s Day of 2008.
On Christmas eve I went to my doctors appt. and discovered that I had lost 6 pounds in one week!!
My doc thought nothing of it and sent me home like usual.
On the 28th of December 2007, I had not felt him move at all. Scared we went to the hospital where the doctor told us that Ayden had died. We were devastated.
We delivered on December 30th 2007 at 11:53 am.
Ayden weighed 8 lb. 13oz. and looked just like his daddy.
We found that his cord was 4 feet long, wrapped around his neck 4 times, and had a true knot.
Ayden sits in a blue ceramic jar on my mantle, and forever lives in my heart.
We plan to try again this year, and are hoping for a healthy baby.
I give hugs to you all, and I pray that God will heal your pain, even though you will never forget, the pain gets a little better with time.
Please know that there is nothing any of you could have done to prevent this…God Bless and may you get your wishes for happy healthy babies..
((((((hugs))))))
Reading all of these stories has broken my heart all over again. My son, Jayden, was born still just over 7 weeks ago. He was 34 weeks gestation when we discovered his heart had stopped beating. I had just been to the doctor’s office several days before and heard his heart beat. I’d noticed a decrease in movement but was told that this was normal as the baby gets bigger – they have less room to move. I have tremendous guilt that I didn’t know something was wrong. We have a daughter, and would like to try again but I am so afraid this will happen again. Reading all of your entries, I know I am not alone in my fear. I can’t seem to find any conclusive studies reassuring me that it will not happen again. Jayden was 5 lbs, 2 ozs and was 19 inches long when he was stillborn. He was beautiful. The pathology exam noted that there was placental insufficiency. How do I know that this won’t happen again? My heart can’t take another loss. We too, held our son and had pictures taken with him. (Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep foundation is wonderful). They are my treasured possession now. That, and the box the hospital gave me with his hand and footprints, baby cap, and clip of his hair are all the tangilble items I have left of him… I pray that God would comfort each one of you and give us all hope for a successful future pregnancy.
Cindy,
thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your story and letting us know about Jayden, that is such a beautiful name.
We all are afraid to try again… I gave birth to a daughter three months ago. The pregnancy after a loss is very, very tough, I will be honest… but the only way to find out is to try. I can tell you I was as prepared for her birth as I was for her death, because now I know birth and death bear equal chances in a pregnancy. What a horrible truth to know, but all I could do was try my best and surrender.
Do you know what caused the placental insufficiency? That may lead you to more clues. We never found out why our son Ferdinand died. The placenta was calcified, looked like a viral infection, but exactly what, or how, we did not know, and will never know.
Love, strength and peace to you, mama.
Hi Janis,
No, unfortunately, we do not know what caused the placental insufficiency. My doctor and a perinatal doctor did a bunch of bloodtests on me, and they all came back normal. I did have gestational diabetes and a tremendous amount of stress during this pregnancy (we almost lost my dad due to a medical error – he was in ICU for a week and we didn’t know if he would make it). That happened one month before my son’s heart stopped. They did note several placenta infarcts, but do not know what caused them. Perhaps stress? The problem is, with nothing to point the finger to, I don’t know what to do to reduce the risk of it happening again. So scary.
i am so sorry for your loss, my daughter was stillborn at 30wks on 27/11/08 aswell she past away due to a blood clot in the placenta wich cut off her oxygen we named her summer. i was so devastated i already have a 18month old daughter and i think if we didn’t have her i would have never got threw what we did it was so hard,my family was great but now i suffer from a bit of depression but i felt as though i’d greeved enough for her but now i think it hasn’t sunk in realy yet. iam a young mum of 20 and had my girls quite close together and worry people judge me.
after fertility treatment and one early miscarriage, we were delighted and sure we were going to become a family when our 20 week scan revealed a baby boy inside me.
i awoke on his due date and after 3 hours felt no movements, he had been kicking away the night before. my fears were confirmed that afternoon, there was no heartbeat. i know you are all familiar with the rest of the story…. the labour, holding your beloved baby, going home without him, cremating him, dealing with the physical effects, telling friends and family, the psychological damage of a happy situation turning into a sad one….
that was 7 weeks ago. now i’m realising that i have to go on, my baby would want me to be happy. i’ll always miss him, he was my beloved firstborn. but i will try again when ready, have hope, deal with my fears and hear my baby cry and move infront of me.
i wish you and your families the best. i pray that my future children will lead long healthy and happy lives and pray the same for all who have children. being positive and having hope is what gets us through the downs in life….there will be ups.
All these stories are heartbreaking. When you go through this yourself, you think somehow you are alone. And even though you would not wish this tragedy on anyone, there is some comfort knowing other moms know how you feel.
On August 4, 2008, we lost our firstborn, Hannah. She was 35 weeks, 5lb 8 oz. She was so active. On August 3rd, she had kept me up past midnight with her acrobats. Then I went in for my regular appointment on the 4th with my husband and mother, and the doctor could not find the heartbeat. I can say with certainty it was the worst day of my life. And we continue to recover.
I am now 14 weeks pregnant with our second child, and we have only told immediate family. This pregnancy is so different. It’s bittersweet, and sadly, more often bitter than sweet. I find myself expecting the doctor not to find a heartbeat each visit. I don’t imagine the holidays with this baby because it hurt so bad this past Christmas without Hannah. It’s hard to be hopeful.
I take all my sorrows and questions to the Lord. Many times, I feel distant from Him. But I know, even through this horror, He can use it for good. And that’s what I’m praying for — even though I cannot see it right now. But, faith is the substance of things unseen.
Love and prayers for you all. One thought that has helped me is realizing Hannah got the “golden ticket.” She will never know pain or heartbreak like we do. All she knows is the beauty and goodness of God. To me, that is comforting. Even though I miss her dearly.
-Suzanne
((Christine)) I hope you will be able to find understanding support around you; it is hard enough to have a child die without having to be judged.
I am so sorry to hear about your loss, Roberta. Your grief is still so fresh, it aches my heart. Wishing you the very best on your healing journey.
Suzanne, how heartbreaking! I am so sorry about Hannah. ((hugs))
It is true, the pregnancy after is so hard, and very bittersweet. It is difficult and heart-wrenching. I wish you the very best for this pregnancy, and peace, and strength to you. Hannah will of course always be remembered. xo
Christine and Roberta ((hugs)) to you both as you journey through your healing process. Praying you find the answers you seek, and that your prayers for another child are answered when you are ready to try.
Suzanne, your story struck a chord with me because your tragedy was so similar to mine. Did you find any answers as to why Hannah’s heart stopped? With my Jayden, they said that my placenta was small for gestational age, but for what caused that, they don’t know. In any case, I pray that your faith in the Lord continues to be strong, and that He grants you the desires of your heart. Your Hannah went from the safest place on earth, the safety of the mother’s womb, to the safety of the Lords hand in Heaven. My pastor said the same thing at Jayden’s funeral and those words have comforted my heart. (although, they don’t remove the emptiness you are left with when you loose your child). A piece of me will always be with Jayden. Praying you have a safe and healthy pregnancy resulting in a safe, healthy, and happy baby. (((HUGS))) to you.
i completely understand the grief you all feel! i just lost my daughter a week and 3 days ago… i had a perfect textbook pregnancy and we had a strong heartbeat during labor. My daughters head began to crown and i remember looking at the fetal moniter next to me and her heartbeat was 135. One more push and i she was out… i remember reaching forward to hold her and i was quickly denied as the doctor handed her lifeless body off to the nurse.. they worked on her for what seemed like forever, and being in the medical field myself…they didnt need to tell me the news i already knew… my 6lb 13oz full term baby died at the very last minute… she never had a heartbeat or took a breathe outside of the womb… i dont understand how other women who dont even want children get pregnant and have healthy babies everyday… part of me wants to get pregnant again right away.. part of me is terrified to allow myself to be excited about another baby only to be let down… its so confusing to me… was she stillborn? she did techniqly die in the birth canal.. but not exacty in utero… because her head was out and she still had a heartbeat… i dont even know if there is a word for my situation or even anybody who has had the same experience at all!
After reading all the postings on this site it made realize that I wasn’t the only one suffering after giving birth to a stillborn. I loss my baby Jaiden on Feb 2,2009 and it was very hard for my husband and I. I just found out that I’m pregnant again but i’m so scare to get my hopes up. I don’t want the same thing to happen again, I still cry myself to sleep sometimes knowing that I will never hold my baby Jaiden in my arms. I’m sooo confuse and the hormones are not helping either. I thank God every morning for giving me a second chance, but I just can’t seem to be 100% happy. Is there something wrong with me feeling that way?
Sarah,
that is such a traumatic experience, so totally mind-boggling! I am so sorry for what happened, and wishing you healing and strength.
Lady Rimes,
I am sorry about baby Jaiden. I can imagine that it can only be very hard for you and your husband, and your not feeling 100% happy is very normal. I think even as we eventually heal, there will always be an ache in our hearts. You have afterall lost a very precious child, your feelings are normal. The pregnancy after is indeed very hard, I wish you the very best, and peace in your heart.
Dear all,
This article has helped me so much!! And I feel so bad that all of us have had to go through something so devastating.
12 years ago I had my first stillborn baby, I was 19 years old, I would feel my belly tighten so I thought that everything was fine but when I went for an u/s the doctor found no heartbeat. I had a c-section the day I found out, I didn’t want to go through labor knowing the baby was gone….
Years later in 2007 I found out I was having twins…..a very hard pregancy that lasted for 31 weeks, Andy (2 lb 6 oz) and Bryan (2 lb 10 oz) were born after I had preeclamsia….they were in the hospital for about 1 1/2 months, Andy was sent home with an apnea monitor and was on it for 3 months but was going well after that. Last year my husband and I decided to have a baby and we were so happy to find out on January 7th that I was like 6 weeks pregnant. I took so much care of myself all of these months and then when I was 28 weeks 4 days I went in for an u/s and the doctor found no heartbeat, they story repeated again!! It was like a nightmare and those words that I heard from the doctor were the worst!!! The doctors wanted me to have a vaginal delivery but after 3 days they decided to do a c-section since the babys head would not come out first….
Now I am so hurt…I can’t believe this happened to me twice and I am so scared that it will happen again….
Hopefully with the help of God and with my two little angels Jonathan and Nicholas this won’t happen and I will be able to give Andy and Bryan a little brother or sister, I feel so empty even though I have my husband and my kids. I will leave everything in Gods hands and will pray that everything turns out well for us….
Good luck to you all,
God bless you
oh Wendy, what a heartbreaking story you have told! I am so terribly sorry this has to happen to you twice. Once is already more than enough!!
This emptiness, I guess we will feel forever in our hearts, no matter how many loved ones surround us… even when we hold our beloved babies in our heart there still is a void that cannot be filled up. ((hugs)) to you and best wishes.
I’ve been looking for some information on pregnancy after a loss, and I have to say, my heart is breaking reading these stories…. I lost my baby girl Cadence Bree at 31 1/2 weeks on June 30th of this year. Everything was textbook, until early morning pains and a heavy feeling in my uterus woke me at 8am… the pain subsided, but returned a few hours later with a vengeance at 1pm. 1 hour and 50 minutes later, in a very quick delivery in emerg, my daughter was born at 14 inches, and 1.92lbs. My whole world seemed to crash apart when the doctor told me she had died. My boyfriend was away visiting in another province, I had so many emotions running through me at once, I felt like my life was over… to date I still don’t know what happened, I may never know… we do know however, that during the last 6weeks, the placenta had detatched (+50%), and had atrophied, it was also full of holes which may have been due to my antigens. Hopefully I’ll get some answers when I have my 6wk checkup, but I do know that I do want to try again to conceive. Every moment of the day, my heart still weeps for the lost of my first child, my beautiful baby girl, but I know that someday, should I have a live baby in my arms, when they are older, I can tell them all about their big sister Cade, and how much she was loved. I also have to mention, this story really got to me, as my daughter’s nickname until we picked out a name for her, was Bean.
All my sympathy, Love and Hope for any and all of you dealing with the loss of a child.
Best wishes to you all
just over 2 weeks ago I gave birth to my beautiful daughter – Sophia Grace – born sleeping on 3 September, 3.1kg. I was 38 weeks pregnant.
My heart is broken. On 2 Sept I woke up bleeding. We rushed to the hospital and they searched and searched for a heartbeat. Nothing. I knew. Hope was gone. What a sickening feeling. That experience. The dawning realisation that something is terribly wrong and life is about to change forever was the worst moment of my life and no doubt an experience that we on this forum share. The worst feeling in the world.
The reason for my baby’s death was a placental abruption – something i’d never even heard of before.
I birthed her the next day after many hours of labour and held my little angel. I do believe she waits for me in heaven and can’t wait to hold her again one day.
I am desperate to be pregnant as soon as I am healthy, but I also know that it will be some of the hardest months of my life. How can one possibly enjoy pregnancy and open your heart to the new baby having known such loss?
I miss my little girl every day.
I lost my little girl on August 11th. I was 35+ weeks. I hadn’t felt her move for a few hours, but was busy doing things around the house. When I laid down that night, I felt nothing. I got up for a cold drink, nothing. I drank a coke, nothing. I decided not to be neurotic just try to sleep, and when you wake up to pee in a few hours you’ll feel her. At 3 am, I woke up to pee, and felt nothing. That was when I knew something was wrong. After eating, walking and talking to the doctor, I ended up at the hospital with a resident and nurse telling me that my baby had died. It is still so unbelievable.
She was born after a long, terribly painful labor. She was 6lb 3.2oz and 22 inches long. As she was coming out, my doctor told me the cord was around her neck very tightly. I was sobbing. She was beautiful and perfect, just dead.
An autopsy was done, and she was perfect. It was a nuchal cord accident. I have so much pain, and so much trouble believing that this really happened. And of course I have so many why questions that will never be answered.
I do want to be pregnant again, but I am scared to death. How will I survive it? What will happen to me if I lose another baby?
I have an almost 2 year old son whom I adore, and I want so badly for him to be a big brother. Some days I feel I can and will make it happen, and others I am completely hopeless.
Thanks to you all for sharing your stories.
I lost my son Kaiden Malik on Thanksgiving Day 11-24-2005 and to say I was devasted is putting it lightly. I had just turned 35 on November 17 a week before I delivered him and up until that point I had a flawless pregnancy. He was my first and I was so excited to finally meet him. Well I did at 37 weeks and he was stillborn. I felt so alone and felt that I would never find the will to live again. I bonded so much with him and I really got to know my son. It took losing him to realize that mothering starts from the day you concieve, not when you bring your baby home from the hospital. His death was ruled a cord accident and he was born with a very long cord that was wrapped around his neck and looped under his shoulders. I had a normal day at work and went and did some shopping because I had to bring some dishes in to work for the Thanksgiving Holiday and went home and went to bed. I was awaken by very sharp stomach pains and the urge to go to the bathroom. I at first thought it was the loaded sub-sandwich I had for lunch was giving me bad heart burn so I tried drinking milk like I always did and laying back down, but the pains persisted. I called my mother laughing saying you know this little boy of mine is going to have me go to the hospital with false labor on Thanksgiving Day and I have so much stuff to cook. So I told my mom to come and take me to the hospital, but after waiting for her the pains got stronger and stronger and since I am a 9-1-1 dispatcher I called work and told one of my co-workers to send me an ambulance to take me to the hospital, and I could hear everyone in the background saying “alright Dawn is getting ready to have Kaiden on Thanksgiving Day”, and as the ambulance was driving to my home which wasn’t far from the station house or the hospital, my co-worker breathed with me because my contractions were by now taking my breath away. The ambulance got there very quick and I remember it being extremely cold that day, and they rushed me to the hospital where I was taken right upstairs to labor and delivery. My mom hadn’t gotten their yet, neither had Kaiden’s father, but the nurses in the room had very strange looks on their faces as they put the ultrasound gel on my stomach and moved the wand around trying to find his heartbeat. I don’t know if it was the pain of my contractions, or all the chaos in the room that I didn’t notice one either, but when the nurse said “someone needs to get the Dr. in here NOW” I felt someething was wrong, but yet I was hopeful. For you see I had done everything right, I ate right, I rested, I went to the breast feeding class, the parenting classes. didn’t use drugs. I had a stable home a great job, so I felt like all was in order in my life. Until the doctor came in with the large ultrasound imaging machine an moved it across my stomach and noticed no movement at all from Kaiden and he then “said Oh God no! Oh God please no! I don’t understand!” I said understand what? He said I am so sorry son, but your son is gone, there are no signs of life at all. I am so sorry Dawn.
At that moment, I willed myself to die with my son, because I felt he was the best I had to offer in this life, and without him I was nothing. For the first time in my life I had felt like me being who I was, was enough. It mattered not to Kaiden how I looked, how much money I had, where I lived, nothing mattered but that I loved him and he loved me. His loss affected so many people, my poor mother who was anticipating the birth of her first grandchild, being as though out of 12 siblings she was the only one who had none, to the police department I worked for. They rallied around me like never before and took such good care of me. I could never imagine working anywhere else in the world and have something this tragic happen to me. They became family I never knew I had and I will forever be grateful to them.
Life after Kaiden has been hard, but eventhough hard to believe it does get better with time. I am now the mother of a 2 1/2 year old daughter named Kennedy Makhaila who was born via emergency c-section at 32 weeks. She is by no means Kaiden’s replacement, but I often feel guilt because the fear of losing her and I did her big brother did not allow me to be as happy and excited about her arrival and I was with his. She is the apple of my eye and because of the loss of her big brother she is loved that much harder by all who know her.
I never thought in a million years I would be a mother, but I got pregnant with her just 8 months after his passing. The best advice I can give to anyone who is going through a stillbirth is to know that it does get better over time, and to let the tears fall when they need to. I do. I made a scrap book of my pregnancy from the begining all the way up to his death, and it really helped me in the healing process. The loss is forever, but I urged parents that suffer this loss to go to counseling, and visit different support groups, because 1 in 200 births are stillbirths, and in all the parenting classes no one ever told me that one of us would not be going home with our babies. I was that 200th person, but I have met other 200’s along my journey in life without Kaiden. Thanksgiving Day will never be the same in our family, but as I look arournd our table every year I still see a lot to be thankful for. He still and will always be my son, my first born, and I am forever his mother. Not even death can change that. I want to encourage all parents that have experienced this type of loss to have the courage to try again only when you feel comfortable and have consulted with your doctor’s and mother’s remember to do kick counts. I knew nothing about them while I was carrying Kaiden, but I did with Kennedy and she is here.
I ask for prayers for me and my family as Kaiden’s 4th birthday is this month, and it is a very hard time for me.
Thank you to everyone who has shared your stories and for letting me know that I am not alone in this journey.
Peace and God’s Blessings to all!
Thank you for sharing your stories, all so heartbreaking; all attesting to the unbounded love for children who are not earthside with us.
Many blessings to you all.
Thank you for sharing your story, Dawn. I’ll be thinking of you and Kaiden.
Warmly, Janis